The Story of Indian Consociational Democracy
Democracies have been the dominant form of rule in many countries; this was not the case until the 20th century. Comparative politics has quite long focussed on democracies. In the 1960s, Scholars tried to understand the various factors for the stability of democratic systems, i.e. Democratic consolidation and forms of democracy.
The term democracy is derived from the Greek dēmokratiā, which was coined from dēmos (“people”) and Kratos (“rule”) in the middle of the 5th century BCE denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens.
Various scholars have defined democracy; However, economists Schumpeter and Roald Dahl have been credited for defining procedural and substantive aspects of democracy.
Procedural Democracy as defined by Schumpeter Schumpeter defines the classical doctrine of democracy as follows: “the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions which realises the common good by making the people itself decide issues through the election of individuals who are to assemble in order to carry out its will.”
Substantive aspect of democracy: Robert Dahl has highlighted it as a combination of an open contest of Power and Inclusive Political Participation. Dahl called this polyarchy, differentiating it from ideal democracy.
Dahl outlined the minimum set of procedures and guarantees to democracy, namely.
- Right to vote
- Freedom of Speech and Expression
- Eligibility of public office
- Free and fair elections
- Alternative sources of information and Competition.
- Vote choice in policymaking
The theory of power-sharing holds that deeply divided societies can sustain democracies only if the type of democracy is Consociational, It seeks to regulate the sharing of power in a state that comprises diverse societies (distinct ethnic, religious, political, national or linguistic groups), by allocating these groups collective rights.
It is the idea that diverse groups in a society should have the right to executive-level input. Moreover, one’s ability to impact outcomes is proportional to one’s electoral strength. Power-sharing only occurs in parliamentary systems because it relies on governing coalitions which arise through cooperative processes like negotiation and compromise.
Consociationalism relies on a proportional electoral system whose essential assumption is that elected elites will cooperate to broker compromise. Centripetalism assumes the construction of a preferential voting mechanism to promote inter-communal competition for votes among non-dominant politicians. The difference comes down to how the preferential mechanism works: the Single Transferrable Vote in power-sharing systems.
While consociationalism has been known since the 17th century, it was conceptualised in the 1960s by Arend Lijphart and is used today as both an analytical and a normative category. When the cross-cutting social cleavages coincide with social pressures, the chances of Democracy are abysmal. However it can be, it seems that such systems did exist and have become stable. The explanation is that elite groups could coordinate to avoid conflict if social cleavages were not cross-cutting. Generalising from several case studies and elaborating on the term used by several studies on African political regimes, Lijphart distinguished in the 1960s four characteristics that should be present in order to qualify for the label of consociationalism. Examples of Consociational Democracies in the world are Switzerland since 1943, Belgium after World War I, Austria from 1945 to 1966,
The Netherlands from 1917 to 1967, India from 1947, Colombia from 1958 to 1974, Malaysia from 1955, and South Africa from 1994 can be considered successes from a normative view.
Consociational Democracy is characterised by
1. Coalition Governments with the representation of diverse social groups.
2. Cultural autonomy for these groups
3. Proportionality in Political representation and executive.
4. Minority veto concerning vital minority rights and autonomy.
The Consociational power system was criticised for the exception of Indian democracy, which accepted the majoritarian adversarial Westminster system, which according to the founding, was best suited for the Indian experience after British rule. The Puzzle of Indian Democracy: A Consociational Interpretation By Arend Lijphart Lijphart argues that contrary to the popular notion, India is not a deviant case to the Consociational (power-sharing) theory; careful examination reveals, however, that Indian democracy has displayed all four crucial elements of the power-sharing theory.
JS mill famously said Democracy is near impossible in Multiethnic societies, and S Harrison negated the survival of the Indian state and possible territorial disintegration. Consociationalism Scholars argue that Indian sustains a majoritarian system due to its dominant party system, quasi-federal model and its electoral system which favours one party cabinet.
Lijphart argues that India confirms all four forms of power-sharing characterised under Consociational democracy. GRAND COALITION In India government has been inclusive of all social groups not as Collective power-sharing by parties but the dominant Congress party as outlined by Rajini Kothari was itself a Congress System which included parties at core and Parties of Pressure. Thus, a Balance of power was created within the government and the government took the interest of all social groups in Political considerations. Lijphart argues that Congress system has served as a grand Consociational system. The combination of Congress party inclusive nature and its dominance allowed or grand cabinets covering all social groups across religious, linguistic, caste lines.
CULTURAL AUTONOMY
Cultural autonomy is maintained using various devices: linguistic states, separate personal laws and allowing minority education institutions. It is characterised by 1. Federal arrangements 2. Protection of rights of the minority 3. Non-interference in personal laws and autonomy. All these aspects have been followed in India with Linguistic and administrative divisions of states, Cultural and educational rights as fundamental rights, Secularism as an inherent principle in the Indian constitution and the autonomy of tribal groups under the Sixth Schedule of the constitution.
PROPORTIONALITY
The Congress Party's role as a Party of consensus and affirmative action, such as reservation for SC and STs, allows for Proportional representation for backward groups. Governments in India are often formed using grand coalitions with ministers deliberately chosen to correspond to various religious, linguistic, ethnic and caste groups.
MINORITY VETO A minority veto exists in the Indian system where any measure seen as significantly harming a minority is often stymied — even if it has majority support. To illustrate this, Lijphart provides the example of Tamil Nadu effectively vetoing the adoption of Hindi as the sole official language of the Union government in 1965. Thus, Lijphart argued that India, although it does not follow the standard model of Consociational democracy, has inherent adoption of all the characteristics. He even highlighted that there had been a rise in intercaste and interreligious violence in recent decades due to conflicting social pressures with the lack of power-sharing.
Hence the case of India — the starkest deviation from Mill’s thesis — is also considered a case of consociationalism.
