Prem Shankar Jha belongs to that class of journalists that transcends reporting and enters higher reaches of scholarship. In his analysis and perceptions, he has not gone by commonly held notions and even dares to question them.
Last year, he published two books on China's development. The first, “Managed Chaos,” dealt with the fragility of the Chinese miracle. He challenged the pet view that China would continue to grow indefinitely at 10 per cent. He identified the different areas that may hamper sustained growth. More importantly, he attempted to establish the complex web of social, political, and economic factors that shape China's growth. The second book, “Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India Dominate the 21st Century?” dismissed the notions about China having an edge over India and suggested that both have different problems at the ground level. However, he noted the “similarities in their trajectories of growth” and “experiences that have remained unnoticed.”
Intermediate class
In this book, Jha takes some of these themes further. The title, “The battle between soft and hard power”, sounds rather intriguing, and there is no attempt to portray any such battle.
In the first four chapters, there are comparisons and contrasts between the two countries. He develops his hypothesis of the “intermediate class” that accelerates growth in China but inhibits it in India. It turns Michal Kalecki's theory on its head and is difficult to accept. Neo-Marxians can argue that the rise of the intermediate regime is the result of transition per se and not exogenous to it. The rest of the chapters are in the nature of case studies on China and India. Some of the similarities drawn between the two countries are far-fetched, while some others are Procrustean.
Jha debunks the notion of rising BRIC. In retrospect, it was an attempt by a leading investment company, Goldman Sachs, to lure investments into Asia at a time when the United States market was sagging. Though the financial crisis has robbed the U.S. of its relevance to emerging economies, it continues to hold sway over some of them. As he says, “projections of China's and India's future, such as those made by Goldman Sachs in its BRICs report, … fail to take into account the fact that the two countries are not simply undergoing rapid economic growth, but undergoing transformation into capitalist states.” The big picture provided by Jha is that both China and India lack the institutions to reconcile or absorb the social and political conflicts stemming from growth. While China lacks the political institutions to achieve the aim, India has them but “has allowed many of them to atrophy…,” and therefore “the future will not be assured for either country until it succeeds in harmonising their interests.”
Strength
In coming to this rather shocking generalisation, what Jha fails to reckon is that economic transition is not a garden party, but a struggle for resources and survival fought between “winners and losers.” In China, local authorities seize the levers of power (bank credit, taxation, etc.,) and check the power of the centre. In India, coalitions and the rising power of the States have tried to achieve the same ends. Gradualism perforce marks the process in both the countries, even if Jha does not agree.
The growing strength of local authorities has not checked growth in China; rather, it has contributed to it. Nor has it weakened Beijing, as it became evident when China put through a massive stimulus programme of $590 billion after the financial crisis. Perhaps, Jha has not appreciated the role and strength of the Communist Party of China (CPC). In his recent book, The Party: The Secret World of China's Rulers , Richard McGregor captures it better. Although he regards CPC as “rotten, corrupt and often dysfunctional,” he notes that it has, at the same time, “proved to be flexible and protean enough to absorb everything that has been thrown at it.”
In the case of India, Jha argues that the decline of Congress, the advent of coalition politics, and the Supreme Court's decision on the Centre's powers under Article 356 of the Constitution have weakened the state. No one who has faith in democracy will find this position acceptable. On the whole, this is a provocative addition to CHINDIA research.
