Understanding South India: Its Political Regimes and Social Security Anil Kumar Vaddiraju* Abstract In the context of so much that is written about south India and its achievements in social policies (Sen and Dreze 1991, 1997, 2001), this note probes as to what enabled such social policies to be adopted in the first place. While delineating the specific and general political factors that broadly enabled social security policies to emerge, the paper finally asks the question: is such combination of circumstances unique to south India or that the north Indian states can also emulate it thereby making the lives of its poor better? In the process of the argument, the note makes a fervent plea that the understanding of south Indian political regimes and social policies is possible only from a historical perspective. Key words: South India, Political regimes, Social security, Backward caste movement, Princely states, Linguistic diversity This paper deals with political regimes and public policies in south India and their relationship to social security1. Political regimes defined as governments in power that have certain political ideologies, social bases and some political stability determine the public policies. Public policy preferences are integral part of how a political regime can be determined. Together with ideologies, social bases and reasonable stabilities, political regimes also determine policies. This is true of not only at the level of formulating public policy frameworks but also throughout the policy processes. Regimes matter at the level of conceptualization, decision making and implementation of policies; policies also determine whether the political regimes can win back the political mandate to continue in power. Electoral politics in India is increasingly determined by the effectiveness of the policies that specific political regimes carry out. This note aims to reflect on the relationship between the political regimes and public policies. The relationship is often direct. The public policies often * Associate Professor, CPIGD, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore - 560072. E-mail: [email protected]. Acknowledgements: This paper has benefitted from the comments given by M R Narayana, N Sivanna, Anand Inbanathan and T S Syamala, Sobin George, M Balasubramanian, Sunil Nautiyal, Elumalali Kannan and Komol Singha. I thank all my colleagues and the anonymous referee for their erudite comments on the previous draft. Vol.16 No.2 Anil Kumar: Understanding South India 359 determine, besides the political stability, also the political continuance of governments in power. This is true of all Indian states as well as the Union government. The Indian electorate as is evident from the recent assembly and parliamentary elections, is increasingly responsive to concrete policies in contrast to more intangible benefits in terms of national/regional pride or identity-based appeals. Although it is too early to announce that the identity politics has run out of steam, the trends show that the policies that bring in their wake tangible material benefits increasingly determine the political continuance. In this context it is important to explore the relationship as to what policies determine a) tangible benefits to the electorate b) political stability of regimes in power; c) what other contingent factors determine the political and policy continuance and/ or discontinuance. This is true at both the levels of national and state governments. The all-important caveat here is that the above sketched relationship is more dramatic at the state level than at the Union level. This is particularly so because there has been of late an emergence of states as strongly relatively autonomous entities in Indian politics (Stern, Howes and Lahiri 2003, Jenkins 2004, Rudolph and Rudolph 2001). Now more and more electoral outcomes are determined at the state arenas rather than on a pan-India basis. As political choices become more and more of immediate relevance to the ordinary people, the support to immediate policies is likely to increase. Also, till the recent election in 2013 in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, and even after that election, one can decisively argue that the regional/ state-level political regimes have attained a certain dynamics of their own – relatively independent of the national politics. The pan-India appeals at the electoral times are unlikely to yield electoral outcome as in the times of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi or even Atal Bihari Vajpayee. (The 2014 parliamentary election in which BJP led by Narendra Modi has won a landslide victory appears to be an exception to this; however, Modi’s victory has not happened in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The respective parties that have held on to the turf in these States, even in 2014, are TRS, TDP, AIADMK and Congress and CPI(M): therefore, even though Modi’s pan-India appeal has worked to a large extent, it is still not the case in South India). This trend particularly began with the advent of coalition era in 1989, and ever since even pan-India identity appeals such as Hindutva are not yielding results. For example, the ‘India Shining’ campaign in 2004 by the NDA was a failure. Likewise, the Congress party’s and UPA’s electoral victories in 2004 and 2009 were more crafted at the state level than at the pan-India level. The state political leaders, like Y S Rajasekhar Reddy of AP Congress party, have with their state-level mandates bestowed the Congress party with national mandate (Srinivasulu 2011). The state leaders rather than the national appeals and charismatic national leaders made the UPA win. Therefore, the political regimes at the state level and their politics have become crucial to understand the national level politics. Also, since the economic 360 Journal of Social and Economic Development July-Dec. 2014 reforms in 1991 and coalition era since 1989 there has been a nationalization of regional parties and regionalization of national parties (Sarangi 2005). The regional parties leading state-level regimes have become crucial players in the national coalitions. And within the national parties, the regional leaders with their region- based political regimes have more decisive role for the existence and continuance of national coalitions both in and out of government. The intervening variables for national politics and political regimes in India are still numerous and multiple. Whereas at the state level these can more easily be identified and studied. Given the above reasons, it is of enormous significance to study state-level regimes in India politics today. The key to understanding the policy processes in India lies today in the study of state-level politics, albeit operating under the national Constitutional structure. Particularly, this note focuses on how the political regimes are sustaining at the state level because of state-level policies and also whether these policies have been beneficial to ordinary people. This makes us consider the specific question of social security. Our question is, in the times of globalisation and shrinking state, have these rejuvenated state-level regimes been able to offer any social security measure for the poor of the states? Earlier on in India, the poverty alleviation policies announced at the Centre such as the ‘Twenty-point programme’ during Mrs Indira Gandhi’s time or Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and later Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) under Rajiv Gandhi dispensation, used to take care of the social security of the poor and bring back votes for Congress. The BJP relied excessively on pan-Indian Hindutva identity and failed to deliver any significant social security and consequently suffered at the hustings. But the state-level regimes, particularly in South India, have been very different in this aspect (Balasubramaniam and Balasubramaniam 2008). They always had their own state-level social security programmes owing to compulsions of political competition and political wisdom at the state level. Not that they have not been part of the national schemes and programmes, they have very much been. But often they have gone ahead of the national social security policies and created and propagated their own social security policy regimes. This has happened with varying intensity and success but mostly attempts were made. Also, they made use of the national schemes to their advantage. As said earlier they have partaken in the national social security schemes, presently such as that of MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme). But even the governance of such pan-Indian social security has been strongly influenced by local party, administrative and political cultures. It is well noted in the literature on Indian politics that the regionalization of politics along with the emergence of coalitional politics is still a phenomenon that cannot be ignored. This is truer with the peninsular India where the diversity of the states is high and their politics and political culture is also varied. These Vol.16 No.2 Anil Kumar: Understanding South India 361 states are of diversified nature and without a single thread of either one language, say the one such as Hindi, linking them or without a single political culture that determines politics; these states have varied political histories each state since and prior to the Independence. The historical and political specificities are varied and as also their linguistic and socio-political cultures.