86 12 february 2018T
he Raisina Model by
Meghnad Desai is a medita-
tion on democracy in India. It
is written for the intelligent
layperson as an evaluation of it. The title
is meant to suggest that there is an In-
dian version of democracy. In the words
of the author, ‘India has succeeded in
transforming the Westminster model
into something much more suitable to
its culture and practice. I have called this
the Raisina Model.’
Central to Desai’s evaluation is that
India has defied all odds to remain one
country. This had not been expected at
the time of Indian Independence, the im-
perialist Winston Churchill having been
among the sceptics. India’s survival is
credited to democracy. Two histories are
provided to place the achievement in per-
spective. The first is of Pakistan, which
broke in two within 25 years, and the
other is of Yugoslavia, which broke up
amidst much bloodshed. How are we to
see this argument? Of course, the holding
together of India is significant in a world
fragmented by language and religion, but
there had always been an idea of India
as a land—if not a country—of diverse
peoples, and this view was strength-ened during the national movement.
Secondly, while Indian democracy had
shown remarkable maturity on the one
occasion when secession appeared to be
a possibility, which was over the issue of
Hindi being made the national language,
the idea of India as a land extending from
today’s Afghanistan to the Bay of Bengal
and south of the Deccan had existed
even at the time of Ashoka, which
precedes the Common Era and predates
democracy as we know it.
The second success of Indian democra-
cy, according to Desai, is the social revolu-
tion or the weakening of distance derivedNational
Portrait
Meghnad Desai holds a
mirror to the oneness of
India’s multiple identitiesBy Pulapre Balakrishnan
books
The Raisina Model:
indian deMocRacy aT 70
Meghnad DesaiViking
193 Pages | Rs 499Saurabh Singh