The supremacy of the right wing in Indian polity was reaffirmed when the Narendra Modi government romped back to power with a colossal majority. But what is the real nature of the Indian Right? The Left often argues that the Right represents religious majoritarianism, combined with a neoliberal economic agenda. But is this true?
India has definitely witnessed a surge in majoritarianism in the last five years. Religious polarisation has increased; instances of lynching and violence in the name of religion have been on the rise; and brazen display of religious nationalism has become the new normal. However, the economic agenda has been anything but neoliberal.
Typically, a right-wing government is one that supports free-market capitalism — it has a doctrinal belief in a small government, privatisation, and low tax regime; looks at private (not public) investment and exports as key engines of economic growth; makes availability of land and labour easier and cheaper; and relies less on welfare doles and more on economic growth to help the poor.
Not quite market friendly
The first Narendra Modi government was not quite market friendly if one evaluates its performance based on the above mentioned factors. Many examples prove this. The only engine of economic growth that was fired from 2014 to 2019 was public or government investment. Domestic consumption, private investment and exports remained sluggish. Despite the government enjoying massive political capital, land and labour laws were not reformed; neither were public sector undertakings privatised — only profitable PSUs were forced to buy shares of loss-making PSUs to make the fiscal math look good.
A hugely compromised GST with multiple tax slabs was adopted. Economic populism through measures like building toilets and providing gas cylinders, reminiscent of a patriarchal state, became the mainstay of governance. All this was a far cry from the promise of generating productive jobs in the private sector. Demonetisation was the biggest surgical strike on markets, on private property and on the integrity of money — all key tenets of free-market capitalism.
Even in the second term — if the recently presented general Budget is anything to go by — the trajectory of the economic approach has not changed. To appear ‘pro-poor’, the government has hiked income tax rates on the ‘super rich’; import tariffs have gone up that makes ‘Make in India’ look like the dreaded import-substitution industrialisation of the bygone socialist era; a ‘super-rich tax’ on foreign portfolio investors has spooked the markets; nothing has been said on amending the Land Acquisition Act; and welfare populism has got more entrenched with PM-Kisan. All this would have made a statist government proud!
Looking at the BJP’s roots
This cleavage, between pursuing a social and cultural rightist agenda on the one hand and not pursuing an economic right-wing agenda on the other, can be understood by looking at the ideological roots of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP, formed in 1980 as a successor to the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, is the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS’s mission, best captured in the words of its founder K.B. Hedgewar, is “to organise the entire Hindu society from Kanyakumari to the Himalayas”. He had said that to protect Hindustan, Hindu culture has to be nourished. Thus, the agenda was always cultural and never economic.
This variety of Indian right-wing was very different from the right-wing politics that the Swatantra Party represented. Founded by C. Rajagopalachari and Minoo Masani, two secular icons, it was premised on a plea for a “market economy for India” because policies “based on the socialistic pattern of society would lead the country to bankruptcy”, wrote Masani. Cultural and religious goals were never part of their agenda. They too critiqued Jawaharlal Nehru, but for his economic socialism and not for his cultural syncretism or liberal, secular outlook.
The RSS considers both free-market capitalism and socialism as alien to Indian culture. Its focus has been on the swadesi or the indigenous, with strong cultural overtones. While the BJP, being a political party, is compelled to have a more nuanced approach, it cannot cut itself away completely from its roots. This explains why, for the Indian Right, economics is an “incidental extra”, as MP Swapan Dasgupta writes in his book. Thus, though the government heavily leans Right on cultural matters, when it comes to economics, it still leans towards the Left. It may, for political expediency, adopt policies that suit select business houses. However, this cronyism should not be construed as ‘right-wing’ economic agenda.
Prabhash Ranjan teaches at the South Asian University, New Delhi. Views are personal
