LEADER ARTICLE: South Asia's New Czars

In trademark commando style, GeneralMusharraf stated he would give up his army post only after, and not before, heis re-elected president. There's an implicit threat here. If he does not havehis way with the presidency he will re-assume his military role, and may evenuse it to suspend Pakistan's democratic process. Sure enough, he managed to bendboth the election commission and the supreme court to his will.Thecharge against civilian politicians is that they are corrupt. But the Pakistanimilitary, particularly the army, has massive economic interests of its own,ranging from businesses whose costs are financed out of the military budget toaccess to prime plots of lands for high-ranking officers. Musharraf himself hasacquired eight plots worth $10 million. Because the military controls economicresources as well as institutions of governance, civilian politicians andbusinessmen need to make themselves beholden to it. Such entitlements set up thePakistani military as a superior caste, with privileges far greater thanordinary inhabitants of the realm.Is this a moment for Indians toturn condescending? Has Indian democracy delivered us from the seductions of anilliberal oligarchy? Though India is currently getting raves in global mediawhile Pakistan gets mostly bad press, the uncomfortable truth is that in termsof ensuring a decent existence for the majority of their citizens the differencebetween them may be like the margin of India's victory over Pakistan in the T20cricket World Cup finals: a question of five runs here or there.Ifwe look at the human development record of democratic India and military-feudalPakistan, it's mostly a race to the bottom. India comes in at 126th on theUNDP's human development (HDI) rankings, squeaking past Pakistan at 134th. Bothlag behind Gabon, Namibia, Tajikistan and Equatorial Guinea.Pakistanmay have its Islamic extremism which fuels military autocracy. But India hasFabian socialism, the doctrine that decrees that a government-fostered eliteshould have extraordinary powers of direction over the rest of society becauseit knows the interests of the governed better than the governed themselves.Translated into Hindi, that's mai-baap sarkar. Its proselytisers and mandarins,present among politicians, bureaucrats, judiciary, academics and intellectuals,make up a neo-Brahmin elite. We may be a democracy, but one enmeshed inbureaucratic red tape.While Pakistan's military elite invokes thespectre of the corrupt politician to stay in power, India's neo-Brahmins scareus with the bogey of the bad businessman. If Pakistan empowers its military andmullahs, the neta-babu nexus is supreme in India. They would not only like tooccupy the commanding heights of the economy — which makes PSUdisinvestment a lost cause — they wish to command every sector of civilianlife through state patronage. There's no more graphic illustrationof that than what happened when India's victorious T20 team landed in Mumbai.In a function ostensibly meant to felicitate India's triumphant sport heroes,those who lifted the World Cup were crowded out of the front row of the Wankhedestadium dais by BCCI babus and Maharashtra's ruling politicians. Those who thecrowds had come to see, the cricket players themselves, were relegated to backrows and obscured from view (with the sole exception of skipper M S Dhoni).This would be unthinkable in most countries, particularly liberal-democraticstates.Netas and babus tend to be against economic reform, becauseit would prune their functions and cede space to civil society. Those who arguefor and against economic reform are both party to a myth: that India has carriedout large-scale reforms. The World Bank's latest study shows that India ranks120th among 178 countries in ease of doing business, which closely tracks itshuman development rankings. It is actually the second worst performer in SouthAsia, ahead only of Afghanistan at 159. Liberal reforms have been half-heartedat best, crippled by the perception India's neo-Brahmins like to propagate thatthey will hurt the aam aadmi. They are undertaken only when it seems the wholehouse might come crashing down, as happened in 1991 when India was running outof foreign exchange to pay for imports.Neither does the Hindutvaright seriously challenge the Fabian Left. Both see reform and globalisation ina negative light. They want to roll back the retail revolution, which couldrescue Indian agriculture and benefit the consumer. They jointly oppose theIndia-US nuclear treaty. The issues they differ on are unwordly ones: whetherRama existed, and whether a ridge running underneath the Palk Straits were builtby workmanlike monkey troops belonging to his army.But even if Leftand Right are conspiring to kill the liberal middle, there's still hope. There'sa civil society upsurge in Pakistan that could topple Musharraf. Even if heunleashes large-scale repression he will have to do it before the televisioncameras, a new factor in Pakistani politics. India has world-class companies inits private sector and a growing middle class, planting the seed of its futuregrowth. Indian media regularly highlights issues which embarrass thepoliticians. Perhaps that's precisely why the information and broadcastingministry — a Fabian stronghold which any half-decent liberal democracyought to abolish — is readying a draconian broadcasting Bill which willthrottle media freedom. The empire will not go away easily, it looks for ways tostrike back.