Scientific life. Congresses, conferences, and symposia

The significant date - the 55th anniversary of India's independent development, which was widely celebrated in the country and abroad, has become an occasion for scientific discussions, publications containing new approaches, assessments, and sometimes re-evaluation of events that many researchers have witnessed.

In honor of this event, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences held a series of seminars during 2002-2003, where they discussed India's achievements and problems in the field of economy, social, political, cultural development, as well as issues of foreign policy and Russian - Indian relations over the past period. The seminars were organized by the Center for Indian Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (hereinafter - CI) in cooperation with the J. Nehru Cultural Center at the Embassy of India in the Russian Federation.

The December 4, 2002 workshop focused on India's political development over the years. The Indian political model, which has demonstrated its viability over the years, has long attracted the attention of researchers. After achieving independence in 1947, a fairly stable democratic political system was formed here; the constitution, which came into force in 1950, is in force, which, although it has undergone significant changes, is still a kind of guarantor of the country's evolutionary path of development. To In-

page 145

Federal relations are developing in Russia, and civil society is developing.

Political processes undoubtedly reflect the profound changes taking place in Indian society in the socio-economic and ethno - cultural spheres; all new groups and segments of the population are involved in active politics and governance, bringing their ideas to the socio-political development of the country. At the same time, social conflicts on religious, caste, ethnic grounds, the struggle of peoples for self-determination, and sometimes secession have become an integral part of the political process in India. So far, the Government and Parliament have managed to solve many problems. The mechanisms of conflict and crisis resolution in India are not only of scientific but also practical interest for multi-confessional and multi-ethnic societies and deserve special study and discussion.

The seminar was presented by the staff of the Institute and indologists from other departments of the Institute of Information Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Scientists from other institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, employees of the Indian Embassy, as well as Indian scientists and journalists took part in the discussion.

After gaining independence, India opted for a democratic form of government and social structure. However, the prerequisites for democracy were formed long before that. They expressed tolerance for dissent, pluralism of opinions and opposition. This was stated in the report of F. N. Yurlov (TCI) "Political Democracy in India: achievements and challenges". Even before independence, elements of democratic institutions were established in British India. In Indian parliamentary democracy, he noted, a special place is occupied by the opposition, which raises acute issues of political and socio-economic life, often forcing the government to adjust its policies. It also makes extensive use of extra-parliamentary forms of democracy: mass rallies, marches, strikes, and protest actions to draw public attention to its demands. A number of opposition parties have their own press and publishing base. The leader of the largest opposition party in Parliament has the same status as a minister of the Government of India. F. N. Yurlov considers building the foundation of civil society to be a great achievement of Indian democracy. There are thousands of non-governmental, public and private organizations operating in the country that are connected with the interests of different strata and groups of the population.

The Indian experience, according to the speaker, shows that political democracy should be combined with social and economic democracy: only such a combination can ensure stability and harmony in society. Without this, it is impossible to close the huge gap between rich and poor, to get rid of the danger of social crises and explosions. Democracy cannot be considered "as a given reality once and for all." For its preservation and development, the political will of the country's leaders is necessary, aimed at solving vital problems of society, improving the welfare of the poorest segments of the population and ensuring the real constitutional rights of citizens.

A special place in the political development of modern India is occupied by the constitutional process. M. A. Pleshova's report was devoted to this topic, as well as to the constitutional changes of the last decade of the XX century. The Constitution of independent India was adopted by a specially convened Constituent Assembly and entered into force in January 1950. It declared India a sovereign democratic republic (and since 1976, after the adoption of the 42nd Amendment, also a socialist and secular republic) and established it as a Union of States, thus laying the foundations for its democratic political system and federal structure. Although the Indian Constitution is considered the most extensive and detailed constitutional document in the modern world, its authors nevertheless provided for the possibility of making changes to it. For more than five decades, the Constitution's ability to self-renew and adapt to changing conditions has been demonstrated. During this time, the Constitution of India was significantly amended, but the fundamental principles-democracy, federalism, secularism, the desire to ensure social justice and equal opportunities for its citizens - were not revised. And, as the current Prime Minister of India A. B. Vajpayee assures, they will not be revised in the future.

page 146

From the point of view of political processes, the 1990s were a turning point for India in many respects. Indian parliamentarism was being tested for its strength. Despite the fact that parliamentary elections in India are constitutionally required to be held once every five years, the country held five parliamentary elections between 1989 and 1999, with only the 1989 and 1996 elections being regular, and the rest being extraordinary. It was during this period that the one-party dominance of the Indian National Congress (INC), which ruled the country for almost 40 years with short interruptions, was put to rest. One-party predominance was then replaced by a coalition form of government, but most coalitions of different political and ideological organizations could not provide stable power. During 1996 - 1998, the center repeatedly changed governments, which were called "minority governments", and the parliament was called "suspended". It seemed that India had entered a period of political instability, and its political system was beginning to fail. However, the 13th parliamentary elections of 1999 The results of which the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a coalition of 24 parties led by the second largest political party after the INC, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), came to power, showed that the potential of Indian parliamentarism is far from exhausted. A new coalition government led by veteran politician A. B. Vajpayee, leader of the BJP party, with a 25-vote advantage in the People's Chamber (the lower house of Parliament) has held power for four years and is likely to retain it until the next parliamentary elections, due in 2004.

M. A. Pleshova's report noted that very important amendments to the Constitution were adopted in the 1990s. This mainly applies to the years when the INC governments headed by Narasimha Rao (1991-1995) and the NDA government headed by A. B. Vajpayee (since 1999) were in power. It was emphasized that in both cases, the changes made to the Constitution were clearly democratic in nature: whether it was to improve federal relations, reform local government, the law on languages, new benefits for the lower strata of the population, or reservation policies for registered castes and tribes, as well as other "backward classes". She drew attention to the fact that she came to power in 1999. under the coalition led by the Hindu Nationalism Party-BJP, whose ideology is primarily focused on protecting the interests of the Hindu majority and promoting the values of Hinduism (unlike the INC-led governments, whose ideology is based on the principles of secularism and protecting the interests of minorities), the constitutional process in India has not changed in principle, and the laws adopted during the party's rule The BJP amendments have not yet violated any of the fundamental principles of the Constitution. This confirms the stability of the current political system, which, together with the constitution, can provide an evolutionary path for the country's political development, in which the change of power in India and the coming to power of new political forces is carried out at parliamentary elections.

In his report "Political Development of India as a process of democratization", E. N. Komarov (Institute of Political Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences) examined the political process in India for half a century from the point of view of the manifestation of the regularities of democratization, which are more or less inherent in a number of large countries where democratization occurred in the second half of Among them he carried India, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia. The author has identified their general patterns: the predominance of one ruling party at the initial stage of democratization or the "one-party system of predominance", but not one-party rule, the inevitability in the future of replacing one-party dominance with a "system of alternative parties", which, in the author's opinion, has both similarities and differences from the two-party system. The formation of a system of alternative parties is accompanied, in particular, by a reduction in the differences between the main rival parties and the development of a system of coalition government. E. N. Komarov showed that the system of alternative parties began to form first in individual states, and now this process has spread to the whole country. The speaker defines the political development of independent India, which has experienced a number of crises, as the establishment and development of political democracy and relations of federalism in the context of preserving the state unity of a huge and diverse country, which still has to solve the complex problems of further national recovery.

page 147

As noted at this and other seminars held in honor of the 55th anniversary of India's independence, the country's political development was rife with various kinds of conflicts on religious, caste, ethnic, territorial and other grounds. In the 1980s and 1990s of the last century, the political struggle over the issue of reserving or quoting places for the so - called backward classes of citizens in state institutions at the federal level, in public sector enterprises and in higher educational institutions intensified.

E. S. Yurlova's report was devoted to this problem. The constitutional right to make reservations for registered castes (formerly untouchables) and registered tribes has been perceived relatively calmly by Indian society for almost 50 years, it noted. However, after the Commission on "Backward Classes" appointed by the President of the country in 1980, chaired by B. P. Mandal, made recommendations to increase the share of reserved seats to 50%, society split into supporters and opponents of these recommendations. So far, only representatives of scheduled castes and tribes, who were eligible for 22.5% of seats, have been eligible for reservation; the commission proposed allocating an additional 27% of seats to "other backward classes" who, in its opinion, were underrepresented in the civil service, in universities that received State subsidies, and in public sector enterprises. 50% of the seats were reserved for free competition, i.e. for socially and culturally developed castes and communities.

The Government of the National Front, consisting of 5 parties opposed to the INC, came to power as a result of the 1989 parliamentary elections. The government was headed by a well-known politician V. P. Singh, who left the Congress due to disagreement with the policy of its leadership. Following the adoption of the recommendations of the Mandala Commission by Parliament in 1990, the Government of V. P. Singh was forced to resign, as there was a split in the government itself, and violent protests by upper-caste students began in the country. The political situation in the country, according to E. S. Yurlova, escalated so much that it threatened to get out of control. Many politicians and scientists feared the outbreak of civil war. The severity of the problem has gradually been removed, although reservation issues remain part of the political struggle of various parties, as well as the construction of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya on the site of a destroyed Muslim mosque.

One of the main achievements of India's political development over 55 years was recognized by the participants of the discussion as preserving its integrity, which is periodically threatened in the country. Using the example of Meitei extremism and separatism in Manipur, S. A. Baranov (Russia) showed what acute problems modern India has to face. He analyzed the causes of the emergence and evolution of the Meitei insurgency, which makes up 60% of the population of the small state of Manipur, located in north-eastern India. As a" revolutionary " movement based on Maoist ideology, Meitei extremism emerged in the second half of the 1960s. During the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971 and again in the early 1980s, the movement suffered significant damage as a result of vigorous action by the Indian army and security forces. However, the remaining rebels managed to regroup their forces, and by the beginning of the 1990s, various extremist and separatist Meitei groups had reasserted themselves, and the movement itself had reached a qualitatively new stage of development that continues to this day, the report said. And this is just one of the lesser-known conflicts that threaten the integrity of the country.

T. L. Shaumyan's report "The problem of stabilizing the situation in Kashmir: Internal and external factors" was devoted to the most acute conflict in India and in the whole of South Asia and the search for ways to solve it, which noted that the state of Jammu and Kashmir has become the scene of terrorist actions based on the other side of the Indo-Pakistani border and into the danger zone. The tense situation in Kashmir is leading to an aggravation of relations between India and Pakistan, in particular to armed clashes between them.

In September-October 2002, Jammu and Kashmir held elections to the State Legislative Assembly after a long break. The desire of the central leadership of India and local authorities in Jammu and Kashmir to hold "free and fair elections" without violence and brutality met with serious opposition from those forces that are interested in destabilizing the situation in this strategically and politically important region of South Asia, the report said. Kashmir elections, which were attended by 46% of the population-

page 148

In the opinion of T. L. Shaumyan, the results obtained from the electoral lists showed that at least about half of the population of the state, by participating in them, demonstrated their readiness to remain within the limits of the all-Indian constitutional field and, in any case, did not express a desire to move under the aegis of Pakistan. The main result of the elections is the actual defeat of the" dynastic " National Conference party, which had a monopoly in power all the years of independence and enjoyed the support of the center. She believes that Kashmiris voted for the revival of the economy, for an end to violence, for the coming to power of new political forces that will help fight corruption, stabilize the socio-economic and political situation in the state, intensify dialogue with the central government, and also strengthen the position of Delhi in the negotiation process with Pakistan on the future of Kashmir..

L. B. Alaev 's speech (IB RAS) "Left-right, progressive-reactionary, soil-Westerners? Reflections on the driving forces of the political process in the period of independence". He questioned the previously common approach to the political process in India as a struggle between progressive and reactionary forces. In his opinion, the criteria of progress used were based on the conviction that socialism was undoubtedly progressive and that big (monopolistic) and especially foreign capital played a reactionary role. From these positions, any measures aimed at nationalizing and strengthening the role of the state in the economy, as well as populist measures of the government of J. R. R. Tolkien, were considered progressive. Nehru and I. Gandhi, who in reality only had the goal of preserving power, and the forces opposing this were considered reactionary. At the same time, class contradictions did not play a big role in politics. According to the speaker, the real contradiction that divided the political elite of India was actually the attitude towards Western and traditional values. Attempts to build a Western-style society in India were met with increasingly fierce resistance from traditionalist forces, which eventually resulted in their coming to power.

L. B. Alaev believes that the political struggle in India is also determined by other contradictions - between Hindus and Muslims, between the principles of secularism and political Hinduism, between the center and the states, between groups of higher, middle and lower castes. He believes that the contradictions between various groups of the national bourgeoisie (ready and not ready to work in conditions of economic liberalization and openness to the world market) and various groups of the bureaucracy (ready to "free" private capital from their guardianship and striving to maintain control over the economy in order to extract their income from this) will continue to escalate.

L. B. Alaev's report aroused interest among the participants of the seminar. However, the peak of discussions around the issues raised in the report has long passed. Now domestic and foreign indology faces other challenges. This is not about whether Nehru's course was right or wrong, but about how to achieve optimal growth rates and meet modern realities as much as possible, without idealizing any one development model. Deep social and economic changes in India led to the regrouping of party and political forces, the emergence of a large number of new parties, and the establishment of a new ideology in the country's leadership. But the Hindutva ideology, which is based on the traditional values of Hinduism, does not take extreme forms and is still adapting to modern socio-political requirements. All this became possible thanks to the commitment to the principles of democracy, which are professed by political forces that really count on power in India today. Although, as Hari Vasudevan (Delhi), a well-known Indian historian and political scientist, who participated in the discussion, noted, the political process in his country is now more influenced by religion than ever.

Director of the Cultural Center of the Embassy of India Satbir Singh drew the attention of the seminar participants to the need for a deeper understanding of the essence of Indian secularism in order to correctly determine how much a particular political party is committed to its principles. Referring to the work of the Constitutional commission appointed in 2000 to review certain provisions of the Constitution, Satbir Singh suggested that there may be changes to the electoral system to ensure a more equitable representation of political parties, which are not fully guaranteed by the current majority system in India.

The presentations and exchange of views at the workshop highlighted new challenges for further research.

Permanent link to this publication: