Wealth, Power, and Populism in India

The current regime is populist, but populism is has different forms in different uh places, right? So, uh the the answer the you know, I mean, I'm more of more knowledgeable about the Indian context more than the American. But, so there are some similarities and there are some differences. Uh but, in the context of India, definitely the rise of this brand of Hindu nationalism, what we have seen since 2014, is definitely a result of the elite backlash. And the elite backlash itself is happening in the context of slowing growth and a neoliberal, largely neoliberal regime that has been prevailing. Now, uh to the extent that I know, although I'm not an expert, if you want to compare it with the US, the US is also seeing a rise in ethnic nationalism. And I mean, to the extent that I have read and uh seen, uh the rise of this has something to do with the financial crisis of 2007 and the rising inequality. Definitely. I'm Sripad Motiram. I'm with the Department of Economics at University of Massachusetts, Boston. India was a was a British colony for uh almost 200 years. It was initially uh under the East India Company and then it became part of the Crown. It became independent in 1947. So, um we are looking at, you know, uh currently um reasonable period of time since independence. And in the initial uh initial decades, India, you know, adopted uh system of planned development. So, you know, there was a planning commission that was set up before independence itself and India, you know, made these five-year plans and used that model. Now, in 1991, 1990-91 in the '90s, early '90s, India embarked on a completely different model. Now, there there are some antecedents to the to this model. Now, when you look at the literature, you will see these changes being reformed referred to as economic reforms or, you know, liberalization. Now, what was done as part of these measures is that there was a you know, the state played a bigger role earlier, the government. It had a role in production, in regulation. And, you know, the state's role was shrunk. Markets, local markets, and global markets started having a bigger role. The private sector, including the private corporate sector, started having a bigger role. Sometimes you will see this whole process as being described using three components: liberalization, privatization, globalization. So, this process was initiated in the early '90s and then it has continued. Of course, you know, this was done um over a period of time. So, we have had now almost uh you know, 3 and 1/2 years of these uh economic reforms and they've had profound impacts on the Indian economy and society. And one lens through which these reforms can be understood is through the lens of neoliberalism. Which is something that we have seen in many parts of the world. So, that's broadly, you know, a broad overview of the kind of policy framework that we have seen in India. Uh one of the consequences that I have tried to understand along with my co-others has been a rise in inequality in many dimensions. For example, consumption-based inequality, wealth-based inequality. Uh and when we think of inequality, we can think of inequality among people, what is sometimes called as vertical or interpersonal inequality, but also inequality among groups. Um So, broadly, I think it's fair to say that there has been an increase in inequality. Uh there has been more rapid growth. Growth rates have increased. But, um the growth rate has increased and growth has happened, um but the kind of growth we have experienced has not been accompanied by creation of, you know, remunerative employment. So, we have something called jobless growth that has happened. So, these are the two big consequences, uh you know, that we have witnessed in the wake of, uh you know, these neoliberal reforms. And I mean, if you want to take a kind of comparative perspective, um India has not done as well as, for example, China in terms of its reduction in poverty or the creation of employment, particularly uh labor-intensive employment. India has not been able to do it. You know, we have two kinds of narratives right now. And in some sense, there's no contradiction between these narratives. We can tell a kind of pan-India story and focus on, you know, certain master processes that have unfolded uh across the country, um and, you know the impact of these processes have been felt in different parts of the country. Um so that is definitely possible and you know you know there there are three processes that I can mention right now and this is something that um I worked on with with co-authors. So for example I think we have discussed liberalization economic reforms. I think these have affected most parts of India and you could try to construct a pan-India narrative of that. Then you have the rise of ethnic nationalism, Hindu nationalism which is something that has you know now um you know left its footprint in many parts of the world India but not not everywhere fortunately but uh it has reached into uh you know many parts of India. Um and the kind of empowerment of underprivileged groups like caste groups um you know this is also something that you can talk about at uh at a you know at in different parts of India at the pan-India level uh and uh uh so you know the these are some of the transformations that you can think of which have affected uh you know many parts of India and you can talk about a kind of a pan-India narrative but then and there are also regional narratives. So as you said India is a very diverse country so you have different um states in India and then you have uh different regions of India and obviously the processes that have unfolded in these parts these regions are different and in fact one of the one of the areas that um you know has become uh very fertile area of research in India is uh on India is this idea of sub nationalism. So particularly in political science, but also in economics, uh scholars have tried to see uh the insights that can be gained from looking at different parts of India, different states of India. And uh trying to see uh how they can understand the differences in performance. Uh there's an older research area idea also, like I think there's a you know, Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen have tried to look at uh you know, regional differences within India. So both these have been done, and I think there's something to learn from both of these. So there are two um two interesting issues that I've been working on with uh co-authors uh about Indian cities. So the first um research project that I have with my co-author Vamsi Vakulabharanam at UMass Amherst is to try to understand uh the nature of urban space in India. Um and particularly, you know, urban inequality, urban poverty. So we have a series of papers where we have shown that inequality has really increased in urban India um you know, since these reforms, since the '90s. Um and in fact, in many ways, you could say that uh the urban process uh is both the site of neoliberalism, and also it fed into neoliberalism. So urban inequality has increased in many ways. But there's something very interesting when you observe Indian cities and look at the spatial dimension. So when you look at uh American cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, uh they are very starkly segregated. Uh you know, if you think about residential segregation, they're very starkly is on race or class lines. Now, if you look at Indian cities and uh you know, we have uh done a survey on Hyderabad and Mumbai. Um and uh we have data. So, what we find is that in very small spatial units like, you know, apartment complexes, you know, what are called enumeration blocks in India, in Indian census, you see high segregation. For example, you know, in a small unit, you know, you have mostly similar caste groups, similar income groups. But when you take slightly larger units, larger spatial units, right? You will see coexistence. Coexistence of multiple castes, multiple classes. Now, this is something unique about Indian cities. And this is This in a way makes the Indian cities very vibrant. But uh it also has um you know, it does something more. So, what we actually show is that mixed neighborhoods uh you know, produce better development outcomes. So, the likelihood that a person is poor is lower in a more mixed neighborhood as compared to a less mixed neighborhood. And uh this is you could say that, you know, uh diversity is something that is leading to development. Now, this is an idea that um in a you know, Amartya Sen had uh suggested this. You know, he talked about the crime in Calcutta and how crime is very low in Calcutta compared to a place like Singapore. And he says that this is partly because you know, we don't have too much income-based, class-based segregation in Calcutta. But it has not been really rigorously established. And this is something that we are trying to do in this work. Uh we have a few papers. We are you know, working on a book manuscript. And there's also a political implication of this, a you know, a policy political implication of this. We talked about neoliberalism. We talked about Hindu majoritarian nationalism. Now, these are forces uh that try to erode this integration. You know, neoliberalism, for example, works through the state, works through markets, and then it, you know, excludes, you know, the poor and other marginalized groups. You know, Hindutva or Hindu nationalism, you know, is openly discriminatory against, you know, religious minorities, particularly Muslims. Uh so, these are forces uh that are actually reducing this integration. Now, this is unethical, obviously, inequitable, but it also has a an impact on development. So, what we are arguing is that we need to, you know, reverse these kind of things. We are arguing for what is called sometimes in in you know, social science literature, you know, a right to the city. The poor, the marginalized, everybody should have the right to the city. City spaces should be open. Commons should be open. We should reverse these processes. So, this is one of the things we are working on. Then, uh I talked about inequality. So, um one of the things that I have worked on with with the Vamsi, Arjun, and a few co-authors is to look at wealth inequality in India. Now, um wealth is something that has not been studied adequately. Uh although there has been data, you know, the Indian uh national sample surveys uh have been collecting data on wealth for a long time, but it has not seen much research. So, um one of the one of the earliest papers on trying to map wealth inequality, we have shown that, uh, wealth, you know, studying wealth and studying the distribution of wealth require certain special techniques and, you know, we need to be have a special consideration. So, that's something we described, and we showed that wealth inequality increased substantially since the '90s. More recently, uh, we have a very interesting project where, uh, we tried to understand the nature of elites and top wealth in India by looking at these wealth lists, for example, the Hurun list, and we also did some primary work on Indian cities. So, as a part of this project, which is funded by, uh, the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, based in Witswatersrand University in Johannesburg, uh, we selected four cities, uh, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Delhi, and, uh, Mumbai. And I was actually involved with, uh, understanding wealth inequality in Mumbai. So, what we did was we looked at these lists, uh, for example, there's something called the Hurun list, which tries to document high net worth individuals, people who have more than thousand crores. Uh, and then we also, um, tried to look at people who are not so wealthy, but still wealthy, thousand to hundred crores. And we tried to look at, uh, what information is available based on publicly available sources, some interviews, and we tried to construct a narrative of wealth, how it is accumulated, uh, what has changed across Indian history. So, if you look at Mumbai, uh, during the pre-colonial period, uh, or pre-colonial and colonial periods, Mumbai was part of the British Empire, but uh in Bombay presidency. So, we tried to look at what happened during the colonial and pre-colonial periods, what happened before the neoliberal period, and what happened after. How have you know, like wealth accumulation strategies, how have they changed? So, Mumbai is the financial capital of India. So, one of the things that happened in the wake of these neoliberal reforms is that finance is one sector that got deregulated. Uh and there was uh it opened up a lot of avenues for accumulation in the finance and real estate sectors. So, when you look at Mumbai, it's different from other cities because you see a lot of top wealth in the hands of people who are involved in the finance and real estate sectors. And more recently, you see a few people, for example, in the crypto crypto sector. So, we tried to study cities, and you know, how it like how different cities are different, and this is a project that is I mean, I unique, you know, nobody has done this in the Indian context. And in the global south, there are very few projects of these kind that I'm aware of. This is a you know, project that um started um you know, a little um it it was it was an earlier project where both my co-author Vamsi and I, we were working on agriculture. And um we were looking at what the alternatives for farmers are, these small farmers. And you know, you could think of the traditional setup, where what happens is that a farmer borrows from a money lender. And then, usually, typically, you know, the farmer also ends up in arrangements where uh Uh, you know, the farmer sells it to the money lender, the crop, or there is somebody called a commission agent from whom, uh, you know, the farmer could borrow, but also sell. There are these arrangements like what are sometimes referred to in the literature as interlinked arrangements. So, these are the kind of traditional forms that you see in the Indian agric- agrarian economy, but in the agrarian economies of many developing countries. Now, obviously, these are not doing well. These are not delivering for these farmers. Then there are these newer kind of arrangements that are being proposed under neoliberalism, like, you know, corporate, more corporate alternatives, like contract farming. So, what we tried to do was to think of, uh, you know, a cooperative kind of arrangement. And the, you know, the inspiration for this comes from the work of Alexander Chayanov, who was, uh, you know, Russian agronomist, who worked a lot on the peasantry. He had this debate with Lenin on the nature of Russian agriculture. And he also worked on the, you know, on the cooperatives. Uh, this work is less known than his work on peasantry. So, uh, we used that work. And then we were also inspired by the, you know, German, uh, you know, Raiffeisen cooperatives. So, our our argument was that if you design these, you know, credit and marketing cooperatives properly, wherein these farmers are, uh, you know, they're cultivating their own land, but they are cooperating in, uh, obtaining credit, and, uh, also marketing their produce. And if the state supports them, for example, then this is better for their farmers, uh, for them. And it may work actually better than all these other alternatives. Now, this is an idea we had about, you know, cooperatives in the agricultural sector. But, more recently, we have been thinking about extending this idea to, let's say, the urban informal sector. You know, something similar about, you know, urban informal workers. And in a broader political sense, um you know, since we have seen, you know, authoritarian top-down kind of state based solutions, uh sometimes they have become authoritarian state-based solutions to hierar- hierarchical, you know, existing hierarchical structures, they haven't worked very well, right? So, a lot of people have suggested, you know, cooperative solutions in the dom- in various domains, for example, even to deal with something like climate change, you know? So, uh this is this is this is an agenda that we are trying to really push. So, the roots of Hindu nationalism are very deep. They go back to the Indian uh anti- colonial phase. Uh and the the, you know, the ideologues, the founders of Hindu nationalism, like, you know, V. Savarkar, uh they they conceptualized their, you know, ideas and you know, their thought processes, um you know, during the colonial period. So, the movement itself, the ideas itself are the ideas are old. There has been a rise in Hindu nationalism in more recent times. Now, um you know, one thing that probably everybody knows is, for example, the destruction of Babri Masjid, the mosque, in, you know, uh in '90s, and then, you know, recently that you know, a temple was consecrated on the same site. Now, um the the rise of the current phase of Hindu nationalism, right? Now, you see a government in power now, this is the third elected government. Now, this rise, this phase, you know, 2014 to what we have now, this is something we have I mean, looked at uh you know, we have written a couple of pieces uh I have my co-author Vamsi and I in a more popular domain. This is something like this is an elite backlash. So, what happened here was the following. So, there was a government prior to this 2014, what was called the United Progressive Alliance government. There were two different governments, UPA 1, UPA 2. That government, you know, adopted certain welfare programs. For example, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee. It went on a rights-based approach. So, you know, they they created right to, you know, education, right to information. Uh so, particularly UPA 1 was more welfare-oriented. Now, I think um and you know, growth slowed down for various reasons, including the fact that you know, you had the financial crisis affecting Indian growth. So, the rise of the current phase, this current regime, is a kind of elite backlash against that. Now, um so, in some sense, um you know, the current regime is populist, but populism is has different forms in different uh places, right? So, uh the the answer, the you know, I mean, I'm more of more knowledgeable about the Indian context more than the American. But so, there are some similarities and there are some differences. Uh but in the context of India definitely the rise of this brand of Hindu nationalism, what we have seen since 2014, is definitely a result of the elite backlash. And the elite backlash itself is happening in the context of slowing growth and a neoliberal largely neoliberal regime that has been prevailing. Now um to the extent that I know, although I'm not an expert, if you want to compare it with the US, the US is also seeing a rise in ethnic nationalism. And I mean to the extent that I have read and seen uh the rise of this has something to do with the financial crisis of 2007 and rising inequality. Definitely. Uh and in fact in the US I would think that both the you know, socialist uh democratic socialist you know, and welfare oriented populist you know, policies and program of Bernie Sanders and his supporters and you know, the white nationalist you know, kind of Trump you know, kind of base they uh this is the base has some similarities, right? And you know, in some sense the similarity is partly because of what happened in this country, the rising inequality, the loss in you know, lack of opportunities, you know, the crumbling of the American dream.