Chinese Communism And Indian Democracy

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

People’s Republic of China has a one party system and the Communist Party of China rules the country. China has been making very fast economic development since early 1980s and has been the second largest economy in 2010 after the US economy in the world whereas India has a so-called democratic system of governance. A number of political parties have been running the administration of the federal government in India. It has a sloppy economic development since it has gained independence from the British rule in 1947. Nepal has been the bridge to connect these two giants. Certainly, Nepal can take the benefits of these two large economies for its national economic development.

Mao Zedong had put China on the path of the communists in 1949, and had dragged it to this path until his death. He introduced the so-called Cultural Revolution to destroy his opponents in the early 1960s but the revolutionaries had successfully destroyed the ancient culture of China as much as possible tearing down monasteries, churches and so on and burning down books and manuscripts. For economic and industrial development, Mao asked the people to build a smelter at each backyard of the people’s houses to produce iron. People had wasted energy and iron ores to the extent possible causing the disastrous consequences of producing useless iron. That had been the adventure of Mao Zedong.

Then, Deng Xiaoping emerged as a leader after Mao left this mundane world for his another world. Mao had purged him twice but Zhou Enlai saved him from extinction. Deng put China on the capitalist road for the economic development keeping the one-party system in the Mainland China and the multi-party system in Hong Kong thus making two systems for one China in 1980s. He had said that it did not matter whether the cat was black or white as long as it caught mice.

After the opening of the Mainland China to the world, capitalists of the world flocked to China to make money. Cheap labor, modern infrastructures and utilities have attracted the investors in the manufacturing sector. Soon, China became the factory of the world. Cheap goods manufactured in China flooded the world market.

Now, China has become the second largest economy in 2010. Chinese people are living better than used to be but still millions of rural Chinese have difficulties to make ends meet. China needs to go a long way to improve the lives of all Chinese people living in the rural areas, and to improve the living conditions of the urban laborers.

Along with the economic development, the Chinese rulers have now faced the demand for fundamental human rights such as freedom of speech.  For now, some Chinese want at least to express their grievances freely but the Chinese authorities have been saying why they need freedom of speech for speaking nonsense. They have two square meals and they can make money as much as possible cashing in the current fast economic development. So, the Chinese authorities ask, “why do you need freedom of speech for talking nonsense when you are well-fed.” At the same time, the Chinese authorities give the people unlimited freedom of speech for praising the Communist Party of China and the ruling elite.

By opening the Mainland China to the world’s capitalist community, the Chinese authorities had bypassed the great catastrophe that the Soviet communists had met with and that had killed the Soviet Union and disintegrated the Soviet empire. The sluggish economic development and the poor living conditions and the very low standard of living had taken the Soviet Union to the catastrophic end. That sort of situation might not arise in China of today but Chinese people would certainly rise against the authoritarian rulers. The history tells us that any authoritarian rule has a short life. How long the current Chinese rulers could hold on to power depends on the process of political liberalization the Chinese authorities adopt. They have cleverly liberalized the economy but they have been taking time to liberalize the political system means they are creating an environment conducive to the political uprising similar to the current uprising in the Middle East.

The Soviet authorities had spent their valuable resources on the prestigious projects such as the space projects and so on in the past rather than on manufacturing the basic-need goods. They had denied the much needed daily-use goods to the common people even after more than six decades of the communist rule that had promised the common folks better lives and honor in the world community but none of these things the Soviet authorities could met. They spent a large amount of their budget on the defense, directly invading other countries, supporting insurgents elsewhere in the world and so on. Consequently, they had kept their own people in poverty in comparison to the people of other developed countries.

The Chinese communists have wisely averted the creation of such a situation as had been in the Soviet Union making China the factory of the world. The economic boom might keep the Chinese mouths shut up for some time only because once the people are well-off they will have free time to think about the things that have been going wrong in China. Certainly, they will be tempted to speak out the shortcomings they see in the politics, economy and in the society.

The Chinese communists might have the monopoly on running the administration for some time to come but not for forever. They might be able to run the country without an opposition in the parliament for some time, as they have the monopoly of one party on running both the government, and the legislature. Since the communist party rules the country, most of the party leaders have control over the state administrative system. The Chinese authorities having control over anything they want and not listening to the opposition voices have been pumping air into the balloons of dissidents that might one day burst into flames.

China follows the system of grooming the most potential politicians to the hierarchy of the Communist Party of China. Most of the ambitious and capable politicians climb one step after another of the stairs of the party hierarchy to reach the top. None of the newcomers not on the line of the party hierarchy is welcomed to the party and to the government. So, you have to spend a lot of time on serving the interest of the party people to make yourselves eligible to rise gradually in the party hierarchy.

The Chinese authorities have been very concerned with the uprisings against the traditional power structures in the Arab world in the spring of 2011. Most of the people attribute the uprisings in the Middle East to the Internet that has played a vital role in bringing down the leaders of the Middle East and stir the people of the Arab world. So, the Chinese authorities have carefully controlled the Internet users and the information flows. They have blocked any information on the subjects they don’t like the Chinese people to know on the Internet. Such has been the gross human rights violation in Mainland China today.

The communist party controls the judiciary. So far, the fair justice to the people has been the luxury of the capitalists. The communists cannot afford to hold a fair trial particularly for them that advocate fundamental human rights and call for a multi-party democratic system. Such calls for human rights are considered to be the gravest crimes in China. So, people asking for fundamental human rights, freedom of speech and a multi-party democratic system face a long-term jail punishment despite some of them are Noble laureates.

If the Chinese communists want to avert the Middle East type of popular uprisings, they need to liberalize their political system now and then need to honor the opposition voices coming out elsewhere in China. On the contrary, the Chinese authorities have been repressing any voices that go against the current political system putting anybody raising such voices into jail.

Following the business ethics, China needs to honor the patent law. The current practice has been anybody copies everybody’s knowledge products and sells freely. This disgusting practice has sent most of the investors looking for other places to invest other than China. Soon, China will face the investors going elsewhere from China if the Chinese government does not correct the current practice of copying the knowledge products and then selling them freely at the market.

India has been a federal democratic republic since the British left in 1947. Democracy in India has been unique in the sense that people have the power to change the government through the ballots but once they put their representatives at the helm of governance they become the masters of the people. They don’t need to serve the people nor do they need to deliver any services to the people. So, some Indian civil society leaders used to say nothing has changed except for replacing the British with Indians in the governance.

The political mafia in India has controlled even the universal franchise. Either you vote for the candidate they dictate you or you stay away from voting. Consequently, Indians have set up the dynasty of politicians. So, if a father goes from the politics then the son takes it up. People will vote for the son. Thus, outsiders have a little chance of getting into the politics. How long this system will continue it is hard to predict but the system has so rooted in India, it would be hard to uproot it soon.

India has missed the socio-economic development during the last sixty years of its existence as an independent democratic country. This has been entirely due to the so-called socialist path Jawaharlal Nehru has followed. In addition, Nehru had given a least importance to the economic development and had spent most of his time on setting up a non-alignment block means not aligning either with the Soviet Block or the Western block when the cold war between the west and the Soviet Union was at the peak in 1950s.

The socialist path Nehru had adopted for his country had put the brakes on economic development tying up the hands of the people to do anything freely. At that time, people needed to get an official permission from the government agency for buying even computers. At the same time, the Indian bureaucracy had been and even now is the most-time-taking agency and premium-seeking agency for any decisions the bureaucrats make.

Corruption has been in the blood of politicians and bureaucrats in India. Politicians don’t even think twice to break democratic norms and values to protect their interest and repress any voices raised against the corruption. For example, Indian yoga guru Ramdev has campaigned against the corruption and demanded the punishments to the people involved in corruption and demanded to bring the stolen money back to the country in June 2011. The government of Sonia Gandhi sent the police at midnight to the camp where Ramdev has pitched his camp and his followers have been sleeping, and forcibly ejected them from the camp saying the government has given Ramdev permission to hold yoga lessons not the political campaign. The police took Ramdev back to his shelter called ashram in Haridwar and prohibited him from entering Delhi for fifteen days. This is a typical Indian democracy.

Another voice against corruption is the man called Anna Hazare. He has launched a peaceful movement against the corruption demanding the government to enact an anti-corruption law. The government has formulated an anti-corruption bill but kept the high-ranking officials such as prime minister, and senior judiciary above it. Anna Hazare has not been happy with the new anti-corruption bill and has been determined to go on hunger strike on August 16, 2011 demanding to bring all politicians, prime minister and high-ranking judges under the net of the new anti-corruption law. However, the government has been set to engage the police force as has been done to the case of Ramdev in June 2011 to stop him from going on hunger strike protesting the half-useful anti-corruption bill.

The anti-corruption bill the government has passed puts Indian prime minister, and top-ranking judges above the law and they become immune from the corruption cases. In the democratic system, none could be above the law. This is the universal principle of democracy but India makes a special case of putting some people above the law.

The recent revelations have been that ministers have been involved in the corruption cases involving several tens of billions of dollar in giving licenses for operating cell phones, in constructing stadiums and shelters for the participants in the commonwealth games held in New Delhi in October 2010. One chief Minister has involved in illegal mining several years. He has just resigned from the office and facing the corruption charges. All these recent revelations have been possible due to the recent law that forces the state officials to reveal what is happening to the case of concerns if anybody applies with a ten rupee postal stamp for the information.

Politicians and bureaucrats have eaten the food allocated to the poor. The Indian government has allocated billions of dollars worth of food grains to the poor. The state officials are supposed to distribute certain food grains to the poor free, other at the highly subsidized prices to the people living at the different levels of poverty. However, state employees and politicians have taken away the foods from the mouths of millions of the poor. They have sold the food grains to Bangladesh, Nepal and other states instead of distributing the food grains to the people living in UP and neighboring states.

In addition to the state control over the businesses of the people, corruption has been one of the main factors that have retarded the socio-economic development in India. Even though US President Barack Obama has told that India has merged when he visited India last year; India would never emerge from the current status of developing country if the current corruption in the same scale continues in India, and if the state employees work as the masters rather than service providers. Corruption and the state control are the diseases that kill the development.

Nepal has become a bridge between two political continental plates: China and India according to Nepalese Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal. This has discarded the old notion of Nepal being a yam between two giants. The bridge has been a politically shaky one during the political transformation. So far, Chinese communists have not crossed the bridge to reach so-called democratic India nor the Indian democrats have crossed the bridge to reach the Communist China. However, Chinese communists and Indian democrats have been using this bridge to play a political game in Nepal without a referee.

The game has been to gain as much access as possible nearer to the border of another country. Indian diplomat Rakesh Sood goes to Mustang means nearer to the Tibetan border for building a school whereas the Chinese diplomat goes to Biratnagar and Nepalgunj means nearer to the Indian border for setting up centers for Chinese studies and so on. Mr. Sood is leaving Nepal before completing his term of office in August 2011; most probably some politicians and state officials have been against his undiplomatic public speeches. Anyway, Mr. Sood is getting better place to serve. He is going to France as an Indian ambassador. So, the Indian government must have awarded him for his undiplomatic activities in Nepal.

Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal has said that Nepal can cash in the two emerging economies for its national economic development acting as the strong bridge between the two countries. Mr. Khanal has neither visited India nor China since he became the prime minister. The Nepalese tradition has it that as soon as a person becomes a prime minister of Nepal; s/he visits India and China but Mr. Khanal has almost broken this tradition not visiting India or China. He is not sure when he would need to quit the office. It might be the reason why he has not bothered to visit India or China.

August 4, 2011