The appeal of the idea of democracy comes not so much from its historical antecedents as from its potential capacity for improvisation and openness to political futures. Political analysts such as Sunil Khilnani, among others, have argued the Indian experiment with democracy has been the most interesting and challenging since the late eighteenth century, defying all classical axioms of democracies in Europe and America. Very often, the Indian example is cited as a unique case, and its success mired in political exoticism. Rodrick Matthews’ The Great Indian Rope Trick is an emphatic challenge to any mystification of Indian democracy and offers an astute reading of its history and current trends.
Written after the recent General Elections of 2014, that saw the meteoric rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, Mathews’ book traces the history of the Indian experiment with democracy and the reasons for its success and failures. Moving away from the routine Western perception that stresses the uniqueness of the Indian political context, Mathews draws comparisons with democracies in America and Europe to argue that the challenges to democracy in India follow patterns that are present in other societies.
The scale and demographics of India make it the largest reservoir of democratic experience in the world and Mathews provides a detailed analysis of the stages and diversity of Indian’s tryst with democracy. Addressing those who either see Modi as the leader who will change India’s political future forever or as a political despot who will choke its democratic system, Mathews offers a moderate view and warns against any tendentious predictions of utopian or dystopian futures. The history of elections, Mathews says, shows how well the nation responds to its circumstances; the rise and fall of Mrs Gandhi, the Emergency, the emergence of coalition politics, 2004 BJP’s India Shining, the decimation of Congress as a party and now the promise of ‘achche din’ of Modi Sarkar—there has never been a predictable pattern.
Mathews puts his bet on the constitutional foundations of Indian democracy and says that through all its challenges, the basic framework of the Indian Constitution has not changed and by now has proved its resilience. He records the very specific problems of the Indian democratic system—its failure to federalize, regional demands versus national interests, economic disparities, shifting political alliances. Challenging popular pronouncements of its imminent demise, Mathews believes the strength of Indian democracy has been its ability ‘‘to absorb, contain and organize high degrees of chaos”.
Mathews is persuasive and skilfully pre-empts any counter political reading of the Indian situation. The appeal of the book lies in its even tone, its scholarly insight into the political history of contemporary India and its exploration of current political fears and hopes. But if India’s strength as a nation state has been the firmness of its constitutional foundation, then that very foundation could be under threat in the present political climate. Though Mathews’ reading of contemporary politics allays such fears, still….