The Old Challenges to Indian Democracy

In one line

The challenges India began with were poverty, illiteracy, caste, communalism, regionalism, the centre's power to dismiss State governments, and the possibility that a government could suspend the Constitution from inside, and the last two were answered by cases and the first five have not been answered at all.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the older challenges to Indian democracy are the social and economic conditions with which it began, namely mass poverty, illiteracy and extreme inequality; the divisions of caste, religion, language and region, which threatened both the working of elections and the unity of the country; the misuse of central power to dismiss State governments under article 356; and the demonstrated possibility that a government could suspend rights and postpone elections while remaining formally lawful, which occurred during the Emergency.

Why "old" is a defensible category

They were present from 1950. Each was identified in the Constituent Assembly and by the leadership of the time as a threat to the arrangement being adopted.

They arose from India's social and constitutional structure, not from any later development.

And most of them persist. The point of the category is not that they are past but that they are original, which is why an answer must not say that the old challenges have been overcome.

The challenges

1. Poverty and economic inequality

The problem. A democracy adopted in a society where most people lacked subsistence, in which the conditions at chapter 830 for real political equality were absent.

Why it threatens democracy. A person dependent for their livelihood on a landlord, an employer or a patron cannot vote freely, cannot afford to protest and cannot risk the loss of work. Ambedkar's warning at chapter 600 is the classical Indian statement.

What was done. The Directive Principles, land reform legislation, and later welfare and employment programmes, which chapter 710 examined.

Where it stands. Poverty has fallen very substantially and inequality has not, and the second is what bears on democracy.

2. Illiteracy

Why it threatens democracy. A voter who cannot read cannot check a claim, cannot read a manifesto or an affidavit, and is dependent on intermediaries.

What was done. Universal schooling as a directive, symbols on ballot papers so that illiteracy did not disenfranchise anybody, and eventually article 21A.

What is worth noticing, because it corrects a widespread assumption: turnout among poorer and less literate voters in India has frequently exceeded turnout among the well educated and prosperous. Illiteracy limited what a voter could check and did not prevent them from voting.

3. Caste

The problem. A hierarchy of birth in a system founded on the equality of persons, and the most fundamental of the old challenges.