The expression feudalism or feudal is currently used as a pejorative in India. What exactly is this feudalism?
From A.D. 900–1400, centralised rule in Europe had collapsed in the face of unpredictable terror raids and invasions from Scandinavians in the north, Hungarians in the east and Arabs in the south. The kings granted control of specified territory, its resources and people to loyal chieftains and warriors so that they could maintain armed horsemen, castles and forts for security of the land and people. In this way, a decentralised military strength and governance was created which allowed it to quickly cope with intermittent attacks by these non-state actors. Feudalism in Europe ended after foreign terror acts declined and led to stronger and more effective central rule.
As for India, Kautilya describes the Magadhan Empire in his Arthashastra in extraordinary detail. It was a highly centralised system with paid officials and standing armies without any intermediary feudal groups. However, from A.D. 900 onward, India saw the collapse of the central rule of Hindu kings in the face of Muslim terror raids and subsequent invasions. As in Europe, feudal entities in India also developed around the same period to cope with these unpredictable and lightning raids.
After the conquest, Muslim rulers, however, adopted a system of granting jagirs and their revenues to their military commanders for maintaining armed men and to ensure their rule over the Hindu population. These jagirs were at the ruler’s will and pleasure and, later, tended to be granted to the heirs of the jagirdar.
With the dominance of British centralised power in the early 19th century, this jagirdari system ceased altogether to be an effective or necessary governance and military structure. The British tolerated the hollow shell of this defunct institution and developed the zamindari system instead. They were all abolished by the Indian Republic in the 1950s.
But today we see not the rise of the old jagirdari order but a new “jagirdari” system. Every elected member of any entity now has a “right” to the resources of that entity and to dominate and exercise power over the people connected with it. Elected leaders use these resources and their loyal cadres to reinforce and extend this jagirdari across successive electoral terms. So much so, that there are now electoral dynasties at every level of Indian polity. With the electorate used to traditional hereditary succession in the exercise of power, it seems that this new jagirdari has taken firm root.
However, the new jagirdari is illegitimate and depends largely on illegal control of constituents and manipulation of the electoral process. As such, the newly-elected jagirdars needs to appease, bribe and satisfy their superiors in the jagirdari hierarchy as well as ensure that the legal system does not act against their interests.
Heads of non-political state institutions—judges, bureaucrats, professional managers, technicians, scientists, academics, doctors and other specialists—are unelected leaders. Leaders of privately governed voluntary bodies, trade unions, housing and other associations, charitable institutions join this group of unelected institutional leaders.
This extends to chiefs of private corporate entities based on public shareholding. However, despite their professional competence and vastly higher level of education and their “merit”-based status, they act in a similar manner as the elected jagirdars and against their institution’s interests and purpose.
Thus what is clear is that an informal and illegitimate jagirdari order now pervades the country in almost every institution of the Republic. If this is the outcome of the democratic process, what future does the polity have?
What we have seen in recent times is an increasing tendency among voters to prefer efficient and honest electoral candidates. But what is distressing is that once they win, those elected tend to gravitate towards the “normal”. They cite the need to recover funds spent in the election to bribe voters, appease their party leaders, cater to the special groups that supported them and generally take care of the interests of their family, caste and religion. They are also conscious that they have a limited period in office. Everything that they do is intended either to reinforce the probability of re-election or at least provide for their economic and political future if they lose in the next election.
It seems that with the growth of literacy and education combined with access to information through the mass media—newspapers, radio and television, Internet and social media—as well as word of mouth, things will change. Over time, people become educated and gain confidence in their economic future and their own ability to raise a family by themselves. Their dependence on, and fear of, the elected jagirdars and institutional jagirdars begins to diminish.
Many of the best and brightest among our youth emigrate to countries requiring and honouring merit, competence, honesty and hard work. Such a tendency is also beginning to appear in our urban areas which now contain 40 per cent of the Indian population. However, unless the Republic is liberated from the control of all these jagirdars, things will not change for the better very soon.
To sum up: Politics of the new jagirdari order is a politics of immediate material gain. Cleaning up the electoral jagirdari order is also critical because of its enormously dysfunctional effect on other state and non-state institutions and their services including those of the two main branches of governance of the Republic —the executive and judiciary.
(The author is Former Dean of Research at Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. Email: gautam.pingle@gmail.com)