A combination of measures, including curbing authoritarian and criminal tendencies and lowering barriers to political participation, as well as effort from voters and civil society organisations, could make a difference to the future success of India's parliamentary democracy, says an Oxford Don. Dr Sarmila Bose, Senior Research Fellow in the Politics of South Asia, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, also tells Shyam Bhatia of asianaffairs that poor leadership is one of the main reasons why India remains less a democracy and more a competitive autocracy.

AA: You made the recent challenging assertion that India is less a democracy and more a competitive autocracy. How and why has that happened?

SB: Poor leadership is at the core of a number of factors, where the focus on capturing power in the space vacated by the British was greater than any commitment to build political institutions or re-structure the country on the basis of the interests of the people of India. Jawaharlal Nehru is usually credited for preserving India as a democracy in the early years and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, usually faulted for damaging India's institutions including her own party. While this apportioning of credit and blame is valid to an extent, Nehru presided over a period of overwhelming dominance of one party and a virtually unchallenged leader. With hindsight, Gandhi's (the Mahatma that is) suggestion that the Congress party be disbanded at independence was a wise one and might have led to a more pluralistic system of competing ideologies and programmes from the start. And the ease with which Indira Gandhi went about undermining political institutions in India indicates that there was a weak commitment to democracy and a tendency to exercise and accept authoritarianism in many others in positions of influence and across the society.

AA: Would independent India's founding fathers be disappointed by the way the country's political structure has evolved?

SB: Yes, surely they would be disappointed. I know that my father and many others in his generation who participated in the freedom struggle as young people and made many sacrifices were very disappointed at the end of their lives with what India had evolved into.

AA: Is there any way of reforming the political system to make it more accountable, more responsive to the needs of the people? Or is the task just too formidable?

SB: Reform is possible. The decisions to establish a parliamentary democracy, a republic, with a written constitution and one-person-one-vote, a commitment to secularism, and so on were taken by a small number of people on behalf of a much larger population. But pressure from below can also help effect change. A combination of measures from above, curbing authoritarian and criminal tendencies and lowering barriers to political participation, and effort from voters and civil society organisations, could make a difference.

AA: If India fails to make the needed political reforms will the country lurch into an ever more authoritative state? Or do you think chaos is more likely?

SB: Both seem to be happening, at different levels. India's politics has decentralised, reflecting its political realities. Most major players are autocratic, with no real internal democracy within political groupings. The 'chaos' is at the federal level, with many equally ambitious players, none of whom can come anywhere close to a majority without the support of many others.

AA: Could democratic politics be more effective if the country was less centralised, if there was more devolution of power to the states?

SB: As I said, India's politics is now played out at the regional level, reflecting the political reality of India. Over-centralisation has certainly been a major flaw. But more effective decentralisation of power would need to be combined with resolving what could meaningfully remain at the federal level and how that would be organised.

AA: You have commented on the rise of political parties based on religious, regional or caste identity, rather than ideology. Why did this not happen in pre-independence times?

SB: It did, actually, Pakistan being the significant result of one strand. But in pre-independence days it was possible to belong to an identity or ideological grouping and also belong to the Congress, which was an umbrella group. The common enemy of British rule appears to have held together people of different political persuasions.

AA: Could you comment on Bhagat Singh's movement in pre-independence India and the way it brought together Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims committed to a socialist future? Was that unusual? How did Bhagat Singh's vision compare with that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose?

SB: Subhas Chandra Bose successfully brought together Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and also people from different regions in the Indian National Army (INA). It appears that when presented with a credible ideology or programme of action and inspiring leadership the people of India are able to transcend religious or regional differences for a larger common good. As I understand it, while Bose belonged to the 'socialist' end of the Congress (as did Nehru), and was involved in trade union activism, he was a 'nationalist' first, and not in favour of communism or anarchism. He was also personally not in favour of individual acts of violence (preferring to raise an organised force to fight the British). However, he was sympathetic to the underground revolutionaries (in Bengal as well as Punjab and elsewhere) and often spoke and acted in solidarity with them. He had a particular connection with the Lahore Conspiracy Case due to Jatin Das' martyrdom in the hunger-strike. He was fulsome in his praise of the bravery of Bhagat Singh and clearly considered Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru to be political prisoners (in contrast with Gandhi), regardless of his ideological or strategic differences with them.

AA: What happens in the rest of the world affects India. Yet foreign policy — unless it is linked to Pakistan — seems to have no role to play in this election campaign. Why?

SB: No serious policy issues seem to play a role in Indian elections. As has been observed by many people in the past, economic policies — the issue of poverty in particular — should have been central to elections, but typically that is not the case.

AA: Are India's politicians deluding themselves by consciously underplaying the significance of the Maoist revolutionaries and their spreading influence?

SB: Actually Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did say that the Maoist movement posed the greatest threat to India, but there appears to have been no effective follow-up. Arming villagers as vigilantes was correctly criticised by some Indians as the wrong response. The spread of the movement is certainly formidable and recent strikes have demonstrated their disruptive power. However, the true depth of their influence and staying power are unclear.

AA: In your view what is the single greatest threat to India's political stability in the next decade?

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