How To Govern And Misgovern A Diverse Country - The Akbar And Aurangzeb Models

A recent news article reported that the BJP, which has had a comfortable majority in India's lower house of parliament, had just emerged as the single largest party in the upper house. In time, as the upper house numbers begin to reflect the strength of the party in newly elected state legislatures, the BJP could acquire an outright majority there too. With a weak and divided opposition, the BJP is expected to continue its winning spree into the indefinite future, leading many to conjecture that it will only be a matter of time before the party has the wherewithal to amend the constitution itself, and begin to institute fundamental changes to the nation's very charter.

Indeed, the party's vision, as enunciated by its president Amit Shah, is to dominate every elected body "from parliament to panchayat (village council)". It is a winner-takes-all, take-no-prisoners philosophy that seems to be spectacularly successful at present.

What will a future under such a powerful ideological dispensation look like?

Numbers do not always tell the whole story, and I believe the BJP will fail to hold the country in its grip if it ignores some fundamental governing principles that have nothing to do with raw power.

A diverse country is governed by a combination of hardware and software. The hardware is the physical apparatus of government -- the organisational bodies at the union, state and local levels, the office-holders, the machinery of reporting and communication, the means of enforcement, etc. The software is the set of protocols governing the functioning and interaction of these hardware components. The constitution and the set of laws on the statute books spell out these protocols.

The system of elections is the most critical element of software, because it bestows all-important legitimacy on every other element of software and hardware.

It is my contention that next to regular elections which constitute the fundamental protocol of representative democracy, the protocol governing centre-state relations is the most important element of the software of governance. The constitution of India divides the portfolios of government between the centre and the states by defining a Union List, a State List and a Concurrent List, and this is the basis of a federal system of government. My contention is that only a federal system of government will work in a diverse country like India, and any attempt at over-centralisation will backfire. Attempts at centralisation are a form of misgovernance, and will be punished by the electorate.

To illustrate that these contrasting models of federalism and centralised authoritarianism are not new, I will go back into history.

Indian history is ancient, and there are possible examples like the Maurya and Gupta empires. However, I will use a more recent pair of examples from the Mughal empire. Not only is a more recent example likely to be more relevant than an ancient one, but having two models from the same dynasty provides a more effective contrast. Besides, as we shall see, the two were in existence for an almost identical duration, which makes the comparison between them more meaningful.

The two governance models I will use are those of Akbar and Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb was the great-grandson of Akbar, and their reigns were almost exactly a century apart, aside from being of the same duration. Akbar ruled for 49 years from 1556 to 1605, and Aurangzeb ruled for 49 years from 1658 to 1707.

Here is my first exhibit - the extent of their respective empires when they died.

Akbar (top left) and Aurangzeb (top right), and the extent of their empires at the time of their deaths (click to expand). Aurangzeb's empire is nominally larger, but size doesn't tell the whole story.

A history of Akbar's reign reveals that the early years were characterised by tumult and challenges to his rule, but the latter half was remarkably stable and peaceful. A history of Aurangzeb's reign reveals that he was almost constantly at war throughout, not just conquering new territory but also putting down rebellions that seemed interminable. His empire was nominally larger than his great-grandfather's, but also far more fractious.

Perhaps the most striking difference between Akbar's empire and Aurangzeb's was in the area of durability. Akbar's empire lasted more than a century after his death. Aurangzeb's empire did not long survive his death. It broke into multiple parts a few years later.

It would appear that in spite of its smaller size, Akbar's empire was held together by much stronger software.

Much has been made of the difference in tolerance between Akbar and Aurangzeb. Akbar is widely believed to have been more tolerant of difference (especially religion), while Aurangzeb was believed to have been more hardline. However, the real difference between their regimes was the protocol that governed "centre-state relations", or in the language of the time, the relationship between the empire and its vassals.

Akbar instituted a remarkably far-sighted policy under which it was tremendously advantageous for rulers of smaller kingdoms to become his vassals. Not only did they continue to enjoy considerable autonomy in the running of their kingdoms, they were also protected from their external enemies by the formidable army of the empire. In return, all they had to contribute to the upkeep of that empire were monetary tributes and their own armies when the empire required them. It was a win-win system that kept all players vested in its success. No wonder Akbar's empire soon settled into a period of peace and stability after the initial wars he waged to establish his authority.

In contrast, Aurangzeb's need for centralised power alienated vassals and governors alike, and it is no wonder that he saw rebellions and revolts throughout his reign. The software of governance under Aurangzeb had become so flawed that it simply failed to function. It was the software of misgovernance. Sure enough, once his own forceful personality exited the stage, his successors were unable to keep his empire together, and it fell under the combined onslaught of its own internal schisms and external enemies.

The lesson is instructive, because it applies to this day. Only governments that respect federalism can govern a country of India's diversity effectively. Those that try to enforce centralised control will fail.

In the years since independence, India has seen many governments of different political hues. But remarkably, the Akbar and Aurangzeb models are not correlated with parties at all! They can both be discerned even within the same political party.

Consider these prime ministers from the Congress party.

(Click to expand.) Jawaharlal Nehru, Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh (left) are remembered as nation-builders because they respected federalism. Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi (right) are widely considered institution wreckers because they had an authoritarian streak that did not respect independent institutions or opposition-ruled states.

Jawaharlal Nehru could be said to have birthed several of the features of India's federal polity. The constituent assembly worked during his first term to write the constitution, which was adopted in 1950. It was during his time that the first of the linguistic states was created. And although he was initially loath to split the Bombay presidency into the linguistic states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, popular protests during his visit to Bombay convinced him otherwise. Both Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh were known as gentlemen and diplomats, who preferred negotiation and consensus to adversarial conduct.

In contrast, the mother-son duo of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi took the very existence of opposition parties as a personal affront. Opposition-ruled states received blatantly step-motherly treatment by their governments, violating key tenets of the federal protocol. They did a lot of damage and weakened India during their terms.

A very similar theme can be seen playing out with the BJP.

AB Vajpayee (left) was a consensus politician who gave and commanded respect across the aisle. Modi (right) is an authoritarian personality who centralises decision-making and brooks no opposition.

AB Vajpayee, who was India's first BJP prime minister, was in office for a five-year term between 1998 and 2004. Another gentleman and diplomat, he was well-respected even by the opposition parties, and he reciprocated that respect in his dealings with opposition-ruled states. He is widely remembered with respect and affection to this day.

Narendra Modi, India's current prime minister, is cast in the Aurangzeb mould. Federalism is not a virtue in his eyes. He and his party president Amit Shah are cut from the same ideological cloth, and they hate to share power. From parliament to panchayat, the duo aims to impose their party's writ on every elected body. Their attitude is redolent of Mike Maples, Microsoft's Executive VP of the Worldwide Products Group, who said, "My job is to get a fair share of the software applications market, and, to me, that's 100 percent."

It should be clear from these historical examples that Modi's is the software of misgovernance. There is no win-win system that gives other stakeholders an incentive to be vested in its success. Even within his own party, the Modi-Shah duo has emasculated everyone, including cabinet ministers and chief ministers. All decisions are taken by "two-and-a-half men" (with Arun Jaitley contributing the half). Modi's India increasingly resembles Aurangzeb's empire, crackling with a million mutinies waiting to erupt.

Much as Modi would hate to be compared to any Muslim ruler, let alone Aurangzeb, the cap fits, both literally and figuratively.

And so the raw numbers that seem to measure the BJP's strength in various legislative bodies may not indicate the true extent of the party's power. Under Modi, the software of India's governance has been tremendously weakened. The BJP itself will inevitably pay the price in electoral terms, but in the meantime, the country as a whole will pay a steep price too.

Zardari's India Visit - Act II in Pakistan's Surrender

So Pakistani President Zardari has come and gone. A state visit thinly disguised as a private one, this is one that has raised the usual cautious optimism.

It has also prompted the weary cynicism that comes from repeated disappointment. As that cynical blogger has pointed out,

- Zardari cannot rein in his army and the ISI;
- He cannot call back the jihadists unleashed upon this country (India) by his predecessors and the army;
- He cannot stop or hand over Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and other terrorists operating with impunity from Pakistani soil; and [so]
- [...] he cannot deliver on his promise of living peacefully with India.

He's superficially right. However, I think this time is fundamentally different.

I don't believe Zardari is going to bring about a change in the Pakistani mindset towards India. If anything, it's the other way around. I think the Pakistani mindset has already been altered by harsh circumstance in recent months, which is why Zardari has been sent to India with an olive branch. The presidential visit is in fact the second straw in the wind that indicates a welcome Pakistani realism. The first was the decision by Pakistan to liberalise trade with India and move towards reciprocity by granting Most Favoured Nation status to India by the end of 2012. They need the economic lifeline that an open trade border with India will give them - cheaper imports and a large market for exports.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, I have become extremely conscious of the role economics has to play in the destiny of nations. Once you're bankrupt, your options are pretty much limited to surrender and implosion. Pakistan is bankrupt, make no mistake about it. The 65-year war with India is over, and Pakistan has lost. What we're seeing is the surrender dance.

India needs to play its cards right to ensure that Pakistan has a "soft landing", so to speak. In hostility, Pakistanis have enjoyed the illusion of parity with India. In peace, they cannot escape the reality that India is an order of magnitude bigger on any scale. They will not take it well. Some elements may adopt a "death-before-dishonour" approach to derail the process of surrender (for that is what this is), and trigger one last, violent engagement that may even go nuclear. While the process overall is going India's way, that is the one aspect to watch out for that could spoil the party.

In business, acquisitions are often termed "mergers" to assuage egos in the corporation being taken over. India must adopt a similar stance in its PR and take care not to display triumphalism at the recent turn of events. Thankfully, we may not need to worry on that score. The mild, modest and totally self-effacing Manmohan Singh is probably the best person to shepherd the two countries into their new and extremely unequal relationship.

If the trend continues without disturbance, culminating in the collapse of the only counterweight to India in South Asia, we will be seeing a dramatically altered power structure in Asia. India will have the luxury of playing off the core powers (China, Russia and Iran) against the peripheral powers (the West) to its own advantage. Has the Indian foreign policy establishment gamed this scenario, and are they prepared to exploit it? The future is here now.

Notes on the 2009 Indian Election

So the exit polls have been proven wrong, and India has ended up with a more decisive election result than predicted. The ruling Congress party and its allies will probably be able to stitch together a relatively stable coalition government without having to rely on support from ideologically different groups such as the communists. Perhaps in the present economic climate, India needs decisive leadership more than it needs checks on the government's power.

A few quick observations on the election and what it may mean:

1. Dr. Manmohan Singh was much more impressive in his earlier incarnation as India's Finance Minister under former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao (1991-1996) than as Prime Minister himself in the last 5 years. I'll be charitable and attribute the relative lack of pathbreaking reform during the last five years to the fact that a dependence on leftist coalition partners tied his hands. Now that that excuse is no longer available, the new government had better deliver.

2. The election seems to have strengthened the centrist parties and weakened both the left and the right. I think this is a good thing given these troubled times. Governments need to be pragmatic and relatively unencumbered by ideological baggage. Let's hope the new Congress government is able to do what's right for the country without being caught up in endless ideological debates.

3. Shashi Tharoor, the former (unsuccessful) candidate for UN Secretary-General, said in a speech after his record win in Thiruvananthapuram that these were the "accountability elections". Where governance was good, incumbents won. Where it wasn't, they lost. Tharoor was gracious and honest enough to point out that this was as true for his own party as for others. I agree with his analysis. The Indian electorate certainly seems to have voted for good government.

4. I wonder if there will be pressure on Dr. Manmohan Singh to step aside partway through his term to make way for Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India's "democratic dynasty". Although I'm against dynastic rule, I think this may in some ways be an improvement. I'm no longer young, so I probably shouldn't be accused of ageism when I say India's political leadership is a generation older than the demographics of the country would justify. The old need to give way to the young. Plus, I think Dr. Manmohan Singh would be far better as an advisor than as a leader. As the old saying goes, academics should be on tap but not on top.

5. Lastly, a moment of unabashed gloating in the achievement of my native country. India has shamed all the countries in its neighbourhood with yet another smooth election, all the more remarkable for its sheer logistics and relative absence of violence. These neighbours have a hard act to follow. India has also shamed many western countries that continue to rely on paper ballots. The 2004 and 2009 elections have shown that electronic voting machines can and do work even in large and diverse countries with significant numbers of illiterate voters. The actual voting process necessarily took time to organise (5 voting days spread over a month to cater to over half a billion voters), but the tabulation and announcement of the results got over in less than a day.

What next for India? It's very, very early days yet, with the results having just been announced. The days that follow will show how things unfold.