The Light That Failed is an analysis of how the western concept of democracy failed by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the countries in the eastern block tried to imitate the western democracies and so-called liberal values and ended up with the rise of populism, nationalism, and worst forms of authoritarianism. The emergence of populism, nationalism, and authoritarian regimes are evident in countries like Hungary, but also in the recent years, the phenomenon is a reality in the western democracies like Trump’s rise in the USA, Johnson’s rise in the UK, and Modi’s rule in India.

What would Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar think of the Indian situation and the statins of democratic countries falling into populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism as the founding father of the largest republic established through the constitution that he drafted?

Very early on, Babasaheb Ambedkar used Gabriel Tarde’s Laws of Imitation to explain the sustained continuation of the caste system in India. He used the sociological laws of Tarde to show how the lower castes in India try to imitate the higher castes. The force of imitation increases with distance. Long before, M.N. Srinivas talked of Sanskitisation, the Sociologist Babasaheb explained it based on Gabriel Tarde’s laws of imitation. This brief summary is important in further discussion as Gabriel Tarde’s laws of Imitation are used in the political sphere to explain the causes that led to the fall of liberal democracies.

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According to Krastev and Holmes, after 1989, when the eastern bloc under the influence of communist bloc became free from the communist ideology, the countries in the eastern bloc started imitating the so-called liberal democracies, particularly American democracy and its institution. This phase is termed as imitation based on Tarde’s laws of imitation. This blind imitation without taking into consideration the national situation and culture has left to the disillusion of the people in the countries and this disillusion and disappointment of the masses was used by the charismatic leaders to fume popular sentiments. And the hypocrisy of the western bloc nations, particularly the USA, led to further disappointment so much so that the phenomenon started mirroring back on the countries themselves. The way the USA pressed its ideology along with its allies on others resulted in the same situation in their own country. The USA meddled in the governments of other countries and saw its own elections interfered by the Russians.

It is also a lesson for Russia and China as to how they cannot push their political ideology on others.

What happened to India?

From this part onwards, I will leave the explanation offered by the authors of the Light That Failed and veer toward What Failed India.

After 2014, India is considered as the country turning towards populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism with the ascent of power by the BJP/RSS. However, this is a simplistic picture. Unlike the countries of the eastern bloc, India became a constitutional democracy in 1950, but even before that the constitutional history goes back to 1919 and evolution of the Indian constitution can be traced from 1919 and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was a dominant player since 1919 and was a major player in the drafting of the constitution of 1935.

So Indian constitutional values did not appear all of a sudden during the drafting of the constitution. Babasaheb emphasised that the constitution must arise from the situation of the country’s social and cultural realities and push forward towards a just and peaceful society.

The so-called lights of leading parties failed India. And we will see how.

The Indian constitution incorporated the best working models but it did not leave the social context of the country. Long before the African Americans got the power of the ballot, the Indian constitution ensured the right to vote for all in 1950. This right to vote for all by the constitutional mandate is a masterstroke of which Babasaheb Ambedkar was pushing for since his advent in the Indian public scene.

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But this right to vote was tampered by the casteist-a feudal society which was the main base of the Congress party. The feudal landlords became the political masters subverting the universal right to vote.

Looking at the social situation of India, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar pushed for separate electorate for the scheduled Castes alongside their participation in the general elections to keep separating two groups, but his attempt was opposed and what was created is totally against the principle of true representation of the community and hence the representation of SC and ST became tokenism. The separate electorate was an efficient design to stop the rise of the authoritarian regimes that India saw again and again. Even with the minority votes, the parties can win a majority of the seats. The electoral reforms are called for.

The important design in the constitution of India was the reservation policy which was embedded in the constitution for not only the SC and ST, but also for the OBC. But the history after 1950 will reveal that this design was sabotaged by the Nehru Government itself and the constitutional design of reservation was never implemented. If it was done, with proportionate representation of various communities, the rise of extreme Hindutva could be checked.

The inclusion of economic rights was pushed by Babasaheb Ambedkar, but they were just made ornamental piece by making them legally irrelevant by pushing them outside of the Fundamental Rights.

So we cannot blame the western liberal democracies as Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar pushed for an egalitarian and just society taking into consideration the social realities, but the pseudo-lights including Nehru, pushed India into an authoritarian regime culminated into the more draconian regime that we see in India today.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist