States of progress

20/09/14 6:13 pm

STATES OF PROGRESS - Some successful chief

ministers
In the summer of 2011, the anti-corruption campaigns cruelly exposed Manmohan Singhs
deficiencies as prime minister. It was known (or at any rate believed) that Sonia Gandhi
would not be ruthless enough to replace him. Almost three years remained till the next
general election. Yet, the debate had already begun as to who would or rather, should
be Indias prime minister.
In 2012 and 2013, as I visited Mumbai, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Kochi and other cities, I
partook of dozens of conversations on politics. Almost all were centred on the Narendra
Modi versus Rahul Gandhi question. As Singh became weaker, and the economy slid
further, middle-class Indians were waiting desperately for him to go. The hope was that
with a younger, more active, prime minister, the economy would be turned around, and
corruption would be stopped or at least stemmed.
The remarkable thing about these conversations was that they were all centred on national
issues. I wasnt asked or informed about Kerala- specific questions in Kochi, or
Maharashtrian concerns in Mumbai.
India is a union of 29 states, many of which are as large or as populous as an important
European country. Yet, wherever I went in 2012 and 2013, the popular discourse on politics
was overwhelmingly Delhi-centric.
When asked who I preferred, Modi or Rahul, I declined to choose. Modis bullying side did
not appeal to me nor his sectarian past. But Rahul seemed lazy and unwilling to shoulder
responsibility, and of course the dynastic culture of the Congress disgusted me. I also
rationalized my refusal to prefer a particular prime ministerial candidate on the grounds
that what India needed was many better chief ministers, rather than a single charismatic,
redemptive, figure at the helm in the national capital. Education, law-and-order, health,
were all state subjects. With economic liberalization, the states now had more responsibility
than the Centre in promoting investment and job creation. Therefore, good leadership
mattered as much arguably more in state capitals than in New Delhi.
Pursuing this more federal approach to political analysis, I offer, in this column, a
provisional listing of Indias finest chief ministers since Independence. This is based not on
systematic research, but on soundings gathered in four decades of travelling through this
country. These travels suggest that, when one looks at development more broadly,
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States of progress

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incorporating social indicators as well as economic ones, perhaps the three most
progressive states in India are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Himachal Pradesh. How much of
the progress in these states can be attributed to particular chief ministers?
At the beginning of the 20th century, Kerala was one of the most unequal parts of India.
Land ownership was highly concentrated. Caste discrimination was extreme some castes
were not just untouchable, but unseeable, their very sight considered polluting. The move
towards a more just society was hastened by popular social movements such as the one
led by the great reformer, Narayan Guru and by organized Left politics. These struggles
led to high expectations being placed on elected leaders, whose actions were rigorously
scrutinized by an educated and alert citizenry.
Perhaps the best among Keralas chief ministers were E.M.S. Namboodiripad and C.
Achutha Menon [picture]. E.M.S. gave up his ancestral wealth to embrace a principled
asceticism that might have made Gandhi proud. And he actively promoted decentralization
of governance, even though it ran antithetical to the Leninist dogma of democratic
centralism.
Achutha Menon was also a Communist, albeit of the CPI rather than CPI(M). He was chief
minister of Kerala between 1969-77. He was as scrupulously honest as E.M.S., and a better
administrator. It was during his tenure that far-reaching land reforms were undertaken.
Menon also may have been the first chief minister anywhere to integrate quality socialscience research into governance. This was through the Centre for Development Studies,
established by the outstanding economist, K.N. Raj, at the instance of his chief minister.
The socialist ethos of Keralas politics has led to the undermining of caste and class
inequalities. On the other hand, it has stifled innovation and entrepreneurship. One would
have expected a state with such an educated citizenry to have been at the forefront of the IT
and BT boom. Instead, Keralas economy nowadays is sustained by remittances from
abroad, rather than by home-grown industries.
Tamil Nadu has more successfully combined social progress with economic dynamism. In
this state, politics and administration were for a long time dominated by Brahmins.
Brahmin hegemony was undermined by the Dravidian movement led by E. V. Ramaswami,
and in a less spectacular way, by K. Kamaraj, the first backward leader of the Congress in
the state (and in India as a whole). As chief minister of Tamil Nadu between 1954 and 1963,
Kamaraj ran an efficient and clean ship. One of his innovations was the mid-day meal
programme.

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In 1967, the DMK came to power in Tamil Nadu. Its first two chief ministers, C.N.
Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi, promoted a welfarist, gender-sensitive approach to
governance. Although later regimes in Tamil Nadu (including those led by Karunanidhi
himself) have been extremely corrupt, the administration of public services has continued
to be good. Government schools and hospitals, and state transport and electricity
companies, are in far better shape than in other states this surely a product in part of the
solid foundations laid by Kamaraj and Annadurai.
Successive chief ministers in Tamil Nadu have also been welcoming of private enterprise.
Unlike Karnataka, where Bangalore is the sole business centre, Tamil Nadu has several
major industrial hubs around Salem, Coimbatore, Madurai and Chennai. Regional
disparities are less significant here than in most other States of India.
Kerala and Tamil Nadu are both coastal states. Both have witnessed vigorous social and
political movements. Their relatively good performance is therefore not entirely
unexpected. On the other hand, Himachal Pradeshs excellent development record is
certainly counter-intuitive. The state is hilly, and land-locked. The dominant Rajput culture
is extremely reactionary, hostile to women, and to creative thought generally. Nor was the
region very active in the freedom struggle.
Yet, in terms of education (especially womens education), health care and economic
growth, Himachal has been one of Indias best performing states in recent years. Although
there are, as yet, no serious histories of the state, conversations I have had in Himachal
suggest that much credit must go to its first chief minister, Y.S. Parmar. Parmar headed
Himachals administration both when it was a Union territory and after it became a fullfledged state in 1971. All told, he held office for close to two decades. As a scholar himself,
he emphasized education, and made the building of rural roads a priority. This encouraged
the states horticulture industry, with the access to markets making even smallholdings
economically viable. (It may be that Parmar recognized the importance of this sector
because he was married to the daughter of Satyanand previously Samuel Stokes, the
anti-caste reformer of American origin who had planted the first apples in these hills.)
Parmar worked very closely with, and was an inspirational figure for, the states civil
servants. On my own trips to Himachal, I have noticed that its IAS officers seem more
motivated than in some other parts of India. They identify strongly with the state, and take
just pride in its achievements.
I have singled out Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Himachal, but over the years there have been
some good chief ministers in other states too. When contemplating the amoral and
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fantastically corrupt governments they have recently been subject to, Maharashtrians look
back nostalgically to the regimes of Y.B. Chavan, who focused on co-operatives and
agriculture, and Vasantrao Naik, in whose tenure as chief minister, the state implemented
Indias first employment guarantee scheme. Likewise, residents of Karnataka wish their
recent chief ministers could be less like themselves and more like Devaraj Urs (who actively
promoted land reforms) or Ramakrishna Hegde (who took the panchayati raj seriously).
Who have been the best chief ministers of the past decade? During the election campaign,
we heard a great deal about the achievements of Narendra Modi in Gujarat. In fact, some of
Modis contemporaries have done a decent job, and in more trying circumstances. Bihar
was once a byword for crime and backwardness till Nitish Kumar helped change the
narrative by focusing on education, law-and-order, and roads and bridges. In Madhya
Pradesh, another land-locked state without the natural or historical advantages that Gujarat
and Tamil Nadu have, the administration of Shivraj Singh Chauhan has overseen
impressive agricultural growth and the reasonably efficient distribution of public services.
In Tripura, a state whose geographical disadvantages are even more extreme, Manik
Sarkars government has ended a debilitating insurgency, restoring faith in the
administration and in the political process.
As I said in the outset, this column is impressionistic, not rigorously researched. We need
more systematic studies by historians and political scientists on the role of leaders and
leadership in the progress (or lack thereof) of the different states of the Union. But I stand
by my main argument that, rather than look for redemption from Delhi, the media and
the citizenry should more seriously scrutinize the performance of politicians in their own
states. Ten or twelve good chief ministers can do much more for India and Indians
than a larger-than-life prime minister in Delhi.
ramachandraguha@yahoo.in

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