U.S. Can Find a Model for Iraq in Today's India

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-menon1aug01.story
DEMOCRACY
U.S. Can Find a Model for Iraq in Today's India
A host of deep problems have meshed to create a stable, robust society.
By Rajan Menon
Rajan Menon is Monroe J. Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

August 1, 2004

NORTH SUTTON, N.H. — India's failures are legion and impossible to ignore. Poverty and desperation abound. Infant mortality is unacceptably high. Schools and healthcare are substandard — if available at all. Roads and other infrastructure are primitive or in poor repair. The Indian government seems unable to adequately protect the country's Muslim minority (about 12% of the population) from periodic pogroms, and violence against lower castes erupts regularly. Conflicts with Pakistan over Kashmir continue, made more alarming by the fact that both countries now possess nuclear weapons.

But despite these very real problems, most of what we read about India misses what is most remarkable about the country: its sheer survival. And as the United States attempts to shape a new government in Iraq, the lessons of India are perhaps worth considering, not least because the challenge Iraq faces — keeping a multiethnic country whole without sliding into dictatorship — is one that India, despite all its difficulties, has faced and overcome against considerable odds.

When India gained independence in 1947, it seemed too big and too diverse to hold together. Though a majority of the country's 400 million people were Hindus, there were Muslims, Christians (Protestants and Catholics), Jews, Jains, Buddhists and Zoroastrians. An array of languages (18 now have official status), thousands of dialects and a labyrinthine system of castes and sub-castes added to this bewildering complexity. Few outside India believed that such an unwieldy behemoth could remain a single country.

But the system has held together, and it has done so despite some fearsome shocks, starting with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi soon after Indian independence and continuing with the slaying of two prime ministers, three wars and numerous crises with neighboring Pakistan, the emasculation of democracy during the "emergency" proclaimed from 1975 to 1977 by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, widespread and devastating riots sparked by plans to declare Hindi the national language, and separatist movements of Muslims in Kashmir, Sikhs in the Punjab and Nagas and Mizos in India's remote northeast.

Not only has Indian polity proved sturdy enough to weather these shocks, it has done so without abandoning democracy. With the exception of Indira Gandhi's "emergency," there has not been an interruption in — or even a real threat to — democratic institutions. Political power in the country has been passed from party to party frequently in federal and local elections, and voter turnout is high. The military has remained thoroughly under civilian control. Furthermore, India has consistently allowed a free press — in English and the many Indian languages. And a staggering array of civic groups promotes the interests of women, castes and language groups, professions and the environment. Labor unions engage in collective bargaining and strike regularly. Political demonstrations are a daily occurrence. <snip>