The nations of Asia are caught in a multi-faceted revolution and much of the current turmoil, conflict and instability in this vast and diverse continent flow from this fact. External intervention has only added to their difficulties.
Japan is the one major exception. Its problems are very different from those of other Asian countries. The unrest there is partly similar to what other highly industrialised societies like those of the United States, West Germany, Britain and France are experiencing and partly it is the result of specific historical circumstances, specially its defeat in the last war and the use of the atom bomb against it. But Japan is rapidly overcoming its trauma and is trying to take its due place in the comity of nations.
Some other Asian countries too may have, like Japan, completed the task of nation-building in the sense that they are either not plagued by, or do not need to be particularly concerned over, the resurgence of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. China, for instance, has forged its unity on the strength of Han nationalism and its capacity to deal effectively with national minorities like the Tibetans and the Muslim tribes in Sinkiang. But apart from Japan, no major Asian country can claim to have mastered the problems of social and economic modernisation and of building a coherent political community.
Two Points
It can be argued that this view does not do justice to China which has a truly remarkable record in developing nuclear weapons. But its general economy is still underdeveloped and the “great proletarian cultural revolution” has put its polity into such disarray that it is an open question as to how far it will be able to cope with the problems of modernisation when Chairman Mao is no longer there.
Two other points are pertinent in this connection. First, the Maoist ideology with its abhorrence of bureaucracy, economic differentiation and stable authority, its distrust of the intelligentsia, its excessive emphasis on egalitarianism, its deification of the leader and glorification of the peasant, represents a yearning for a utopian version of pre-industrial society. To that extent it is opposed to modernisation, giving some credence to the Soviet propaganda charge that Maoism may be anything but it is certainly not Marxism-Leninism.
Secondly, in view of the dominant role of the People’s Liberation Army – 27 out of its 29 provinces are being ruled by the army for all practical purposes – China resembles other developing Afro-Asian countries more than East European nations. In plain words it is in a state of transition.
It is true that the People’s Liberation Army is not like any traditional army because it is highly indoctrinated and that an attempt is being made to revive the Chinese Communist Party and allied organisations like the Communist Youth League. But an army does not lose its military character by virtue of being indoctrinated. It is moreover far from certain whether the Chinese Communist Party can in fact regain its old hegemony. The party organisation is said to have been revived in only 20 out of the country’s 2,100 cantons so far. Thus China can in no way be bracketed with Japan in respect of modernisation and political stability.
Few Parallels
The complex tasks facing the ruling elites in some of the Asian countries have only a few parallels in the world. Perhaps the challenges which confronted the Soviet leaders in the twenties and the thirties were of the same kind. There too the rulers had to cope with problems of nation-building, industrialisation and modernisation at the same time. Other major European nations were stable political communities before they began to undertake modernisation programmes. So far as the Soviet experiment in rapid industrialisation is concerned the people have had to pay a staggering price in terms of purges, police terror and deaths in labour camps under Stalin. The distortions produced by thought control, unprecedented in human history in terms of its sweep and thoroughness, will take a long time to rectify. The Soviet agriculture has yet to overcome its backwardness. Centralised planning is proving less and less effective as the country’s economy is becoming diversified and complex and minority nationalities have not been fully integrated into the Soviet mainstream.
The more relevant issue in the present context, however, is that the Soviet path is not open to most Asian countries for a variety of reasons. They do not possess a communist party like the CPSU and a ruthless and determined leadership like that of Lenin and Stalin. The Soviet Union itself has been demythologised so that the Asian elites are no longer attracted by the Soviet model. What is more, the Soviet Union is exceptionally rich in both human and natural resources with the result that it has been able not only to survive terrible ordeals but also make remarkable progress. Most of the major Asian countries are poorly endowed and densely populated. A vast majority of the people there are already so poor that there is not much scope for a further tightening of the belt to save more resources for investment. The result can be seen in the escapist nature of Asian radicalism which emphasises redistribution of wealth and ignores problems of capital accumulation.
The elites in India, Pakistan, Burma, Malaysia, Ceylon and Thailand face heart-breaking problems arising out of linguistic diversities and the presence of unassimilated cultural and religious minorities in addition to those of capital formation, technological innovation, social change and political order. The rebellions in India (Nagas and Mizos) and Burma (Karens, Kachins and Shans) have been largely the work of tribal people keen to preserve their separate identities. Similarly, Malaysia is threatened by racial antagonisms and Pakistan by cultural and linguistic discords. This is not surprising because in traditional societies politicisation in its early stages inevitably leads to consolidation of religious, caste and linguistic loyalties.
Illusions
The nationalist elites in almost all Asian countries have nursed several illusions. They have believed that racial, religious and linguistic conflicts will disappear with the end of colonial rule, that the spread of modem education will erode group identities and create larger national loyalties, that independence will by itself ensure rapid economic growth as well as social justice and that economic development will greatly facilitate if not solve the problems of nation-building.
None of these hopes has turned out to be well founded. In fact one Asian country after another has found to its dismay that old conflicts get sharpened with independence because of an intensification of the struggle for a share in political power and the politicisation of hitherto backward and weak sections. What is more, education and other forms of modernisation in early stages aggravate rather than diminish the feeling of separateness (the demand for partition in undivided India and subsequent rebellions as well as agitations for linguistic States have, for instance, been led by the intelligentsia), economic growth requires altogether new forms of social discipline (punctuality, hard work and savings) and development in the beginning accentuates social inequalities and therefore produces new tensions in society. It is a universal experience that it is not stagnant and backward societies but societies undergoing development and change that are most unstable.
This is not to suggest that the ruling elites in Asian countries can or should either turn their back on modernisation or try to slow down the pace of change in the interest of stability. They just cannot do so inasmuch as they themselves are the products of the process of modernisation which inevitably displaces the traditional elites. Their power also derives its legitimacy from their commitment to industrialisation and social change. Moreover, economic stagnation in the context of the accelerated rate of growth in advanced countries and the population explosion in Asia will undoubtedly produce an uncontrollable convulsion. But Asian societies face a terrible dilemma in that while there is no escape from modernisation, its initial effect cannot but be disruptive of stability and order.
(To be concluded)
The Times of India, 21 October 1970