Let us consider certain empirical cases of social counter-elite capture.
Within India, the national elites by and large fought against
British colonial rule even though there could be a few sections of
elites who had collaborated with the foreign rulers. (Those sections
which did not perceive to gain a grip over the post-independent
governments, such as richer traders belonging to minority ethnic
or social groups, could have seen collaboration with foreign rulers
more beneficial than working towards independence.) Hence, the
people who came to power in Indian states and at the national level
after Indian independence were by and large from the national
elites of different kinds (that is, economic, social, educational and
so on).
Although India became democratic formally at the time of independence,
it did not nullify the nature of the elite capture form of
states that came to exist immediately afterwards. There was no significant
opposition to the main party which led the independence
struggle at the national level or in the states. The Muslim League
could have become a source of anti-elite mobilisation by reckoning
that the rulers belonged to the Hindu elites, but the partition of the
country as part of independence had pre-empted that possibility.
The main opposition to the Congress immediately after independence
was from the Communist Party, but its hold was limited to
a few states, and the number of seats that it could get in Parliament
was much fewer compared to the ruling party. (The rightist groups,
such as Jan Sangh, were also not numerically significant.)
The elites which ruled India after independence had multiple
forces among them which included not only the landlords and
national capitalists, but also politicians who were at the forefront
of the independence struggle with different ideological leanings
(and most of them came from rural or urban elite backgrounds
in social and economic terms). Although the first prime minister
was committed to a certain modernisation programme (which is
more of a left-of-centre social democratic agenda) and he could go
ahead with these ideas at the rhetorical level (and at the national or
international levels to some extent), these were not translated into
reality as evident from the educational or other social development
indicators of the country even after the death of the first prime
minster or even three to four decades after the start of independent
rule. The resource allocation in many parts of India did not enable
the provision of assets, such as land to the landless or education
to the majority. This demonstrates the then elite capture nature of
governance.
At the national level, this rule continued until the seventies.
There were troubles in between. There were struggles within the
elites—between leaders of the INC and the younger generation
of the first prime minister. The latter could succeed that struggle
with a populist agenda. In one sense, Indira Gandhi was trying to
win the struggle among the elites by mobilising the poor and other
sections which did not see significant gain in their life during the
first two decades of independent India. However, the success of
Mrs. Gandhi could not be said to have changed the character of
the state substantially, but there was a greater attempt to distribute
private goods (as part of what was called Gareebi Hatao [remove
poverty] slogan), and also to ‘nationalise’ some private resources
of the elites.
The central government of India witnessed a gradual transition
towards competitive democracy from 1977, which we will discuss
in Chapter 5. However, identifying a counter-elite capture at the
national level in India is not that easy. The election of the first
government alternative to that of the Congress in 1977 has certain
characteristics of a counter-elite capture, but here the mobilisation
was broad-based on pan-social groupings and was rooted in
the opposition to dictatorial tendencies. The emergence of the
Bharataya Janata Party (BJP) at the national level too has a few elements
of counter-elite capture, as it is rooted in Hindu nationalism.
The elites ruling India as part of the Congress were seen driven
by a strategy of secularism, and the mobilisation of the BJP was
on the slogan of neglecting majority Hindu pride or interests due
to the alleged placating of the interests of the minority or as part
of an elitist notion of modernity (or a neglect of traditional and
nationalist interests).
However, social counter-elite capture could be seen clearly in
Indian states and what we see at the national level is an aggregation
of these changes in different states. Congress-led governments
came to exist in Indian states immediately after independence, and
these can be called elite rules or captures. The first time when an
opposition party/group/coalition captured the government in
each state could be an important milestone. In certain cases, this
could be due to counter-elite capture, depending on the nature
of political mobilisation defeating the Congress. (However, in
certain other cases, the government that came to power defeating
the Congress could be controlled by another section of elites,
or the change in government could be due to the competition
between different elite-controlled parties.) A counter-elite capture
of government occurred first in the state of Kerala in 1957, but
that is taken up in the next chapter in which we consider underclass
captures. The next in line was in Tamil Nadu when Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) captured power from the Congress
in the late sixties.2 Probably, this is the first social counter-elite
capture in India. The mobilisation of the party was against upper
caste, it was against rural elites, and it was asserting on the basis
of a linguistic, regional and to some extent an ethnic (Dravidian)
identity. It became active from the early fifties and rode on a
number of populist agitations. Even before the capture of power,
2 For a description of the political economy transition in Tamil Nadu, see MIDS
it could force the Congress-led (elite controlled) governments to
yield on a number of schemes that favoured the non-elite sections
of the society. Reservation in employment and education for
middle and lower caste groups was one among them. At the beginning
or at the initial phase of this social counter-elite capture, the
leaders of DMK were not part of the economic elites in Tamil Nadu.
(The split of the DMK in 1971 has also led to the competition of
these splinter groups, and this has led to the emergence of competitive
democracy in Tamil Nadu. We will discuss it in Chapter 5.)
Although the state of West Bengal had a non-Congress government
in the seventies, it needs to be counted as a counter-elite
capture; this is discussed along with the situation in Kerala as
a part of under-class capture in the next chapter. The next clear
example of a social counter-elite capture was in Andhra Pradesh
(AP).3 The Congress was winning all elections in the state until
1983 (from the time of its formation). The state had to wait for the
emergence of the Telugu Desam party in the eighties to have such
a successful counter-elite mobilisation. The major mobilisation
was on the basis of Telugu pride against the national leaders of the
Congress, which changed the state chief ministers very frequently.
There was also a flavour of middle-caste mobilisation against
the ruling elites (Congress) controlled by upper castes (Reddies).
The fact that the leader of this counter-elite mobilisation was a part
of the regional economic elite does not change the basic character
of the counter-elite nature of this political mobilisation.
Maharashtra started witnessing the emergence of a social
mobilisation in the eighties in the form of Shiva Sena. Although
the state had a longer history of lower-caste mobilisation, it was
not successful in capturing the state. The Shiva Sena is rooted in
regional pride and identity. The perception that the local people
are not benefitting from the economic opportunities and resources
of the Bombay metropolitan area was used for such mobilisation.
It has been argued that the lower-middle class from the state who
3 The description of this political transition and its impact on welfare programmes
can be seen in Mukund (1990) and Suri (2003).
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