Identity politics and administrative decay

Lant Pritchett, the Harvard economist, has written an interesting paper on India. Unable to slot India in any of the traditional categories of nations based on social, economic, political, and administrative attributes, he coins a new term - a flailing state. A flailing state, he says, is "a nation-state in which the head, that is the elite institutions at the national (and in some states) level remain sound and functional but that this head is no longer reliably connected via nerves and sinews to its own limbs." In other words, the Indian government and administrative branch, despite having some of the best brains who can "formulate excellent policies and programs", is unable to reliably provide basic services to its people.

India has shown strong economic growth in the past decade, has a vibrant democracy, and has strong world class institutions and companies. Unlike many of its neigbors, it has had a stable, democratically elected government for more than 50 years. Yet the ability of the Indian government to provide basic services and ensure law and order has deteriorated rapidly. One example Pritchett provides is of child immunization (DPT3) coverage where between 1995-2006 India went from 70% coverage to 55% whereas Bangladesh progressed remarkably from 70% to 88%.

He tries to identify the reasons behind this decay of the administrative abilities of the government. He highlights the following remarks by Naresh Saxena, a former IAS officer and Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh:

“…because between the expression of the will of the State (represented by politicians) and the execution of that will (through the administrators) there cannot be any long-term dichotomy. In other words, the model in which the politics will continue to be corrupt, casteist and will harbor criminals where as civil servants will continue to be efficient, responsive to public needs and change agents cannot be sustained indefinitely.
In the long-run political and administrative values have to coincide.”

Pritichett has a remarkable take on the role of politicians in all this. He says, "one cannot explain the situation as being caused by bad politicians, as those willing to take the role of bad politicians are in abundant supply in every country. Rather, one must seek the root cause of the ability of bad politicians to survive and thrive in a very competitive electoral environment. A likely answer is that politics is an arena not just for competing for some neutral notion of government efficacy or even about a set of 'policies' but is also a space for contests over identities. Perhaps the root issue with the flailing of administrative modernism in India today is the as yet unresolved (especially in the North) issues of identity politics around caste and communitarian concerns. Up to a point, politicians have been able to survive on creating identities around caste and religion claiming to deliver social justice by the very fact of their election."

We can now reflect on the amazing successes of leaders such as Mayawati and Lalu Prasad Yadav in light of the above observations on identity based politics. No wonder upcoming politicians find it easier to fight elections on an identity based platform of fear and violence than a reform based platform.