BOOK REVIEW

DEMOCRACY AND AUTHORITARIANISM IN SOUTH ASIA; A COMPARATIVE

AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE by AYESHA JALAL

Review by:

Khadija Tahir

Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia;

A comparative and historical perspective

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 308 pages

Ayesha Jalal is a full Professor of History serving at Tufts University since the

fall of 1999. Since 2003, she is also holding a joint appointment at the History

Department and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Currently, Prof. Jalal

is the holder of the Mary Richardson chair. She did her doctorate in history from

the University of Cambridge in 1983. She has been a MacArthur Fellow since

1998. She has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tufts University,

Columbia University, and Harvard University. Some of her major publications

are: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for

Pakistan (1985), Modern South Asian History, Culture, Political Economy, joint

author with Sugata Bose (1998), Self and Sovereignty: the Muslim Individual and

the Community of Islam in South Asia (2000), Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South

Asia (2008).

Ayesha Jalal’s book takes us back into times when fire for freedom was ignited

among the people of subcontinent for separate homelands. The rigorous

leadership of Muslims just wanted to ensure equal power distribution with the

withdrawal of British colonialism which ruled subcontinent for almost a century.

Jinnah proposed the idea of two states i.e. Pakistan for Muslim majority and

Hindustan for Hindu Majority. The method adopted by the author is historical-

political analysis of regional powers. This analysis tends to emphasize upon

differences rather than similarities among regional powers. It contains separate

portions dealing with Pre-Independence, Post-Independence and formation of

Bangladesh, state economy, popular cultures and ideologies.

She is strongly persuaded that the birth of India and Pakistan not only

“deflected” but “even distorted” the ideological positions of the Indian National

Congress and All-India Muslim League. For in the final count, the Mahatma, who

had hated the very notion of centralized state authority — inasmuch as it

represented the organized annihilation of individual spirituality and freedom —

accepted control over his colonial masters’ “satanic” institutions of oppression.

The Muslim League, which at the least was “consistently confused ideologically”,

attained Pakistan by dividing the very Muslim community whose interests it

supposedly wanted to represent and safeguard.

Taking note of the state formation and political processes in the two countries,

Jalal chooses 1971 as a watershed of sorts. The military debacle in its eastern

wing that year, she argues, was the “cumulative result” of the Pakistani defense

establishment’s political rather than military failures. For there is little doubt that

the military action in the then East Pakistan followed the “inability” of a

manifestly authoritarian regime to preside over the transfer of power in the

aftermath of the country’s first general election held on the basis of universal

adult franchise.

In India, the success of its “formal democracy” was due largely to the original

strength of the Congress and the political skills of its leaders. As also to New

Delhi’s inheritance of the Raj’s unitary centre and the forging of the “very

different sorts” of international links in the first decade after independence.

Later, Indira Gandhi’s “path of populism” helped to widen as well as deepen the

“social basis” of support of the Congress Party.

This book briefs the reader about the prevalent political concepts and

processes, political economy, central power and regional dissidence in South

Asia. According to Jalal, the colonial legacy, is it institutional, strategic, economic

and ideological-informed the dialectic between state construction and the

political process in critical ways in the three countries i.e. Pakistan, India and

Bangladesh. Democratic and authoritarian patterns are analyzed closely

discussing the possible reasons behind. Major patterns are analyzed in the light

of plight that South Asia has been distributed into different shades though the

British legacy was common to Pakistan and India.

The contrasting patterns such as democracy and authoritarianism prevail

around South Asia. India is known to be world’s largest democracy though so

called but propagandized intelligently while Pakistan has maintained

authoritarian rule more than democracy. Though foundations watered were

purely democratic but later circumstances and instability of system led the

political affiliations of military take over. Author believes democracy and

authoritarianism are reflective of ongoing struggles between dominance and

resistance. It seems more apt to view Democracy and authoritarianism as both

antithetical and interdependent historic processes, co-existing in tension while at

the same time each informing and transforming the other (03). Transition from

Colonialism was as difficult for newly developed state Pakistan as it was for

divided India keeping in view that Jinnah demanded it to exercise the freedom to

exercise our own practices which were different from Hindus. Author places

ideologies like Secularism of Congress and Communalism of Muslim League

behind the creation of India and Pakistan.

Jalal has also defined democracy as a system which ensures the right to vote

and freedom of expression among citizen, though every democracy never holds

the exact characteristics of its normative ideals. Important feature of democratic

processes, elections are only the political manifestation of democratization in

wider scope. Authoritarianism is defined as organized power embedded in the

institutional structures of the state. Without blurring the distinction between

them it is important to acknowledge that they may frequently overlap

irrespective of the formal designation of polities and states as democratic or

authoritarian. Jalal has discussed the democratic and authoritarian journey in

India and Pakistan. The populist approaches of Indira Gandhi, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

and Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman led to the formation of Bangladesh. Mrs. Gandhi

and Bhutto were accused of personalizing power, mauling state institutions and

subverting the populist approach. Author has also endorsed the development

scale of Pakistan and India according to political economy. Assets and resources

that were divided at the time of partition have been explained in order to

analyze economic aspect clearly.

Jalal maintains the idea of culture and societal norms as distinctive

characteristic in Nation building. Religion and culture were the prominent

features of ideologies placed for the partition of sub-continent. Islam as religion,

ideology and culture was a vital clause in two nation theory. Even today, all

levels and segments of Pakistani Society draw upon Islam without wholly

submerging their linguistic and regional based cultural beliefs and practices or

their economic or political interests within its rituals or doctrine (223). Right

interpretation of culture, ideologies and social mosaic is extremely necessary.

Language has been given prime importance in cultural aspect. Language was

among the clause proposed for the formation of Bangladesh and it paved

foundation for two-nation theory as well. Choosing Urdu as national language

not only glorified Mughal imperial hegemony but also to promote inclusionary

Islamic ideology.

Deep backgrounds exist behind the amended nomenclature of India (1984) as

‘sovereign socialist, secular, democratic republic’ and Pakistan as ‘Islamic

Republic’. As per the author no social institution and ideology of hierarchy has

mesmerized the anthropologists and sociologists more than Indian caste system

(203). India’s four distinctions in castes clearly shows the contradiction which

exists behind name of secularism within a brahmanical social order. This caste

system not only cultivates discrimination at massive scale but also fears the

Indian elites of conversions by untouchables. Under the banner of secularism,

contemporary picture highlights a contradiction of their democratic system

where we find such a strict distinction between factions of society. Babri Masjid

example has been quoted in detail (245).

On other side, author believes that Formation of Pakistan on the name of Islam

has not justified itself in sub-continent. Either the formation of a doctrine on this

basis seems dubious or the Islam idiom becomes dominant enough creating

difficulty in covering all local and regional social formations. The question of

being ‘Islamic’ has always been answered on personalized basis in Pakistan that

if Zia decided to initiate the process of Islamization on state level, Benazir

responded to it through Shari ‘at Bill. It is believed the monolithic ideologies in

South Asia have been designed to legitimize control over diverse local and

regional social formations. Choice between being ‘national’ or ‘Islamic’ also

became a matter of confusion at one point. Nationalism demands the distinction

between majority and minority however Islamism asks for distinction between

citizen and non-citizen. However, if we analyze Jinnah’s demand that was of one

community where none will be lesser than the other.

The central argument is based on fact that explains the democratic and

authoritarian patterns through comparative study of historical perspective. Be it

economy, ideology, formation, political process; all concepts are deemed

through historical reference. Historical impact is very important in South Asia.

Major Powers have their descent through a long struggle based on a century.

Ideological perspective added the spice to the traditional rivalry of being very

different from each other and that is why the concept of ‘divided India’ was

stamped hard in our minds than newly formed Pakistan.

Author of this book has done a vital job of collecting the minute details from

history for average people around the globe who have no insight of time that has

passed. I was very impressed by the writer’s in depth effort for analyzing minute

details. The interesting thing was the social part; else the political and

economical aspects are briefed at very basic level of educational system.

Though not in this much detail but everyone has a clue about independence

struggle, resource distributions and the post-conflicts. Ideological aspects

including religion were discussed carefully and intelligently. Overall, this reading

proved to be knowledgeable experience.

In the case of Pakistan’s military-bureaucratic state, the extinguishing of a

democratically evolved political system and state structure (1958) had so far

proved “irreversible”. Nor does the future seem to hold much promise, for the

subcontinent’s “historical legacy of layered sovereignties” needs to be fitted into

innovative frameworks of decentralized democracies. Which should be capable

of reflecting not only the multiple identities of its people but also their unfulfilled

social and economic aspirations, This, Jalal concedes, is a tall order for the

“hollow carcass” that serves as political discourse in South Asia.

One may not go along with all that this slim volume has so persuasively

argued, but there is no denying that its analysis has both substance and depth.

There is an odd feeling though that Jalal is a little less than fair to India’s

democratic experiment and such meager gains as its polity has registered. For

repeated references in the text to India’s “formal democracy”, putting a question

mark on its “democratic federalism?” and “formally liberal democratic mould” jar

on the ear.

In doing so, Pakistani developments, wittingly or otherwise, come out in a more

positive, helpful light. Broadly, while there is no case for tub-thumping New

Delhi’s performance over the past half a century or so, it may be conceded that

it has, by and large, evolved a framework both at the provincial and local

government levels in which there is greater scope for resolving social tensions

without any serious damage to the system.

Thus the shock waves which Mandalisation administered in the recent past

were harsh and tempestuous, yet somehow the polity withstood its multifaceted

convulsions. To say all this is not to unsay that both in India and Pakistan, and

certainly in Bangladesh, central political authority is up against serious

challenges: of linguistic dissidence, religious sectarian strife and clan and caste

conflicts. Sadly, on present showing, the Pakistani as well as Bangladeshi

political framework would appear to be a little more fragile and perhaps less

resilient.

Jalal’s in her book has in an interesting way analyzed historical aspects and it’s

hard to find another piece like this. Books like Footloose Labor by Jan Breman,

The Untouchables (Subordination, Poverty and the State) by Oliver Menderson

and Marika Vicziany, Remembering Partition by Gyanendra Pandey and Indian

Politics by Atul Kohli and Prema Singh discuss different section of book reviewed

it detail. However, major publications are by Indian writers. Pakistan alone is

discussed in terrorism pattern like in The Making of Terrorism in Pakistan by

Eamon Murphy. In another book of Ayesha Jalal, “Modern South Asian History,

Culture and Political Economy”, she has talked in historical perspective linking

events to later economic development and culture. However the book reviewed

is basically catering the academia, historian and policy makers as the collection

is a wholesome account of historical events.