Politics of India

1. Politics of India

2. India

3. 2nd most populous nation • Population: over one billion • Growing at 1.4% a year

5. A nation of diversity: languages • Constitution lists 14 official “principal languages” • English • Hindi (30%)

6. A nation of diversity: religions • Religions: • Hindu (~80%) • Muslim (~13%) • others (e.g. Buddhist 0.7%) • all major religions in the world are present • one of the major causes of conflict • religion can become a political vehicle for social movement

7. Brief history • One of the world’s oldest civilizations • 5,000 years • foreign incursions • Aryans, Arabs, Turks, Portugal, France, and Britain • from 1,500 B.C. to 19th Century A.D.

8. 190 years of British colonial rule • Informal colonial rule through the British East India Company (1750s-1850s) • formal colonial rule after the Mutiny rebellion of 1857

9. British colonial rule • economic impact • trade structure • colonial institutions • state structure

10. Struggle for independence • Indian National Congress was formed in 1885 • non-violent resistance to colonial rule • Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) • transformed INC • unity within diversity • non-cooperation movement • Nehru (1889-1964)

11. Independence & partition • Division of the subcontinent (1947) • India • Pakistan

12. Independence & partition • East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971

13. Republic of India • Prime Minister Nehru (1947-1964) • His daughter (Indira Gandhi) as Prime Minister (1966-1977, 1980-1984)

14. Nehru’s legacies • His grandson • Rajiv Gandhi • Prime Minister (1984-1989) • His granddaughter-in-law • Sonja Gandhi • Congress party president (1999 - )

15. World’s largest democracy • Resilient democratic institutions, processes, and legitimacy • except 1975-1977 • Indira Gandhi declared national emergency • politics in India is characterized by • governments of precarious coalitions • weakened political institutions • political activism along ethnic lines

16. Turnout % in General Elections

17. Economic development • Under Prime Minister Nehru’s rule • private property and government guidance • powerful planning commission • government rules and regulations • opportunities and incentives for corruption • self-sufficiency • domestic sector was protected from foreign competition • protected industries became inefficient

18. Economic development • The “green revolution” in agriculture • new agricultural strategy in late 1960s • seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation • India became self-sufficient in food

19. Economic development • state-led economic development • government-planned private economy • substantial industrial base

20. Economic liberalization • Dissatisfaction with the relatively slow economic growth • dismantle controls over private sector • further integrate into global economy • Financial crisis in early 1990s • emergency funds from IMF & World Bank • conditional on economic liberalization • reduce government budget deficit • selling government shares in public enterprises

21. Foreign direct investment

22. Economic liberalization • Economic performance • average growth rate of 6% since 1990 • reducing poverty by about 10 percentage points • purchasing power parity GDP: $2.66 trillion

23. Economic liberalization • India has large numbers of well-educated people skilled in the English language • India is a major exporter of software services and software workers

24. Economic liberalization • Government has also been considering reducing workers’ legal protection • unions and workers’ resistance and strikes • oppose changes to labor laws and privatization

25. Reduction of poverty • percentage of people living in poverty has been cut in half since 1947 • absolute number of poor people has been rising • very few welfare programs