Democracy and the Left
The case of Indonesia in comparative Indian and Philippine perspectives
Draft synopsis of a book project
Olle Törnquist
Preface to the UiO Democracy Programme’s workshop; Rome, Nov. 7-9, 2011
After Suharto’s crackdown on dissidents in Jakarta on the 27th of July 1996, I postponed
the finalising of a book about the problems of popular politics of democratisation. The
manuscripts were based on longitudinal contextual case studies in Indonesia, the
Philippines and Kerala. The reason for delaying the book was that Suharto and his
followers’ uncompromising politics of cracking down on dissidents made it clear in my
view that the regime was unable to handle the increasingly urgent issue of succession and
reform. Hence, I concluded, it was crucial to conclude the book at this point but to follow
the political process for some time as it might well transform into democratisation before
arriving at more definite conclusions. (Törnquist 1996)
When Suharto had to step aside already two years later in much the same way
Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak did some months ago, however, my role as embedded
scholar1 meant that there was no time to resume work on the book. Ironically, moreover, I
gained so much exciting participatory insights and information for about a decade and a
half (especially in Indonesia but also in Kerala and the Philippines) that even though it
should now be possible to recommence the project the material is overwhelming. Hence I
have decided to account for the theoretical and methodological lessons from democracy
analysis and assessments in a separate text, but it still remains a major challenge to make
sense of the remaining material in a book about the political dynamics, especially as it
should not bee to long but anyway readable for generally interested scholars, students and
leading practitioners, not just for experts on Indonesia (and India and Philippines).
Therefore I will be most thankful for your reactions and comments on the
following synopsis. I know that there are many pages for you to read, but hopefully it is
possible to focus on the structure and the major arguments. Do they make sense for the
interested reader?
The following draft text may later on serve as a basis for the introductory-cumsummary chapter in the book, but is not proportional to the final book in which the main
focus will be the problems of democratisation after the mind 1980s, i.e. from the section
entitled ‘Democratisation or business as usual’ on pages 12 and 13 in this paper.
1
I directed and contributed to extensive case studies and two rounds of all-Indonesia democracy assessment surveys in
partnership with local colleagues, investigative journalists and senior activists. The research was financed by the
Universities of Uppsala and Oslo, the Swedish and Norwegian aid authorities, the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, the Ford and Tifa Foundations, the EU representation to Indonesia and by a substantial amount of voluntary
labour by the participating researchers and informants.
1
Introduction
Leftist liberals and socialists have been decisive in the struggle against colonialism and
for improved democracy in the global South, yet three crucial questions worry concerned
scholars, experts, activists and pro-democrats in general. Firstly, why have not the leftist
struggles been more successful but at times even ended up in the rise of authoritarianism?
Secondly, why has it proved possible for internationally supported actors to achieve
limited levels of democracy in their own benefit, ignoring radical civil society groups
(CSOs) and social movements? Thirdly, why have not these more consistent CSOs and
social movements made significant difference in their attempts at fostering more
substantial democracy even when benefitting from more freedoms and new
opportunities?
In looking for answers to these puzzles, I have applied theoretical and
comparative perspectives in longitudinal studies of the dynamics of left oriented politics
in the context of at first hand Indonesia but also the Indian state of Kerala and to some
extent the Philippines. A few more words are needed therefore about the analytical
structure and the comparisons.
My framework for thinking about the left and democracy is simply to compare
over time how the crucial actors in decisive political processes in each context interact as
they relate in different ways to (i) the institutions that most scholars would agree are the
major means to promote the aim of democracy in terms of popular control of public
affairs on the basis of political equality;2 and (ii) aspects of actors’ political capacity to
use, resist and alter the institutions that students of power in political organisation and
movement deem to be critical.3 What have been the major problems and options of leftist
politics and policies in these regards and how can we understand them?
While collecting grounded information in these respects, comparative insights
have been the major way of reading the data and then discussing what explanatory
arguments make sense. The comparisons are on different levels and issues. Indonesia
2
David Beetham (1999) makes the pioneering distinction between the aims and means of democracy and also shows
convincingly that most scholars agree on the just mentioned aim of democracy, but as his list of the necessary means is
constrained to the liberal democratic model only as well as to the specific institutions developed in western Europe and
North America in particular, the following more open ended dimensions may be theoretically as well as empirically
more inclusive: (i) Equal and inclusive citizenship in relation to well defined public affairs; (ii) Governance in line with
International law and UN-conventions; (iii) Rule of law; (iv) Equal justice; (v) Civil and human rights, including social
and economic rights; (vi) Basic needs and education, including on citizen’s rights and democracy; (vii) Democratic
political representation through parties and elections; (viii) Institutionalised channels for interest- and issue based
representation; (ix) Citizen’s constitutional and legal rights based participation; (x) Democratic decentralisation without
compromising equal citizen rights; (xi) Democratic control of instruments of coercion (including private forces); (xii)
Transparent, impartial and accountable governance; (xiii) Government’s independence and capacity to implement
decisions; (xiv) Freedom of and access to public discourse, culture, academia; (xv) Democratic civil society. For a
more elaborate discussion, see Törnquist 2012..
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(i) Political exclusion and inclusion in the political terrain; (ii) Ability to transform economic, social, cultural and
coercive capital into authority, i.e. political power. (iii) Capacity to turn private concerns into public political matters;
(iv) Capacity to mobilise and organise support for demands and policies; (v) Ability to use existing means of
participation and representation, reform them and develop new ones. For a more elaborate discussion, see Törnquist
2009 and Törnquist 2012.
2
constitutes the major case of how leftists have engaged or disengaged in democratisation.
This is because most structural characteristics of post-colonial countries are at hand in
Indonesia; because the largest democratically oriented radical popular movement and
party developed and were eliminated here; because a new and different democratic
movement evolved against what many deemed to be successful authoritarian
development; because this generated what is now the worlds’ third largest but
rudimentary democracy; and because the proponents of many different theories claim that
they can make sense of these developments – which thus makes Indonesia a critical case
in discussing the pros and cons of many arguments on the left and democracy.
Yet all kinds of conditions and processes that tend to be crucial in other cases
where not at play in Indonesia, and also not all relevant leftist positions. In these respects
I have thus broadened the perspective to India and the Philippines. In India, firstly, a
significant part of the old left held on to democracy, while on the one hand the pro-Indira
Gandhi sections and the Maoists did not and on the other hand one of the worlds’ most
impressive attempt was made to combine old and new left-democratic projects in the
south western state of Kerala. In the Philippines, secondly, the communists who claimed
that democratisation was not a viable way to fight authoritarianism proved entirely
wrong, but the new pro-democrats have not made major advances in spite of being more
politically oriented than in Indonesia.
It is of course impossible to identify perfect comparisons of neither most similar
nor most different cases; and so many different (and similar) factors must constantly be
kept in mind, even when it only possible to contrast diverse perspectives and experiences.
But by focusing on specific themes and processes it has been possible, I think, to gain
some fruitful insights.
The historical experiences until the mid-1980s in Indonesia in comparison with
India and the Philippines dominate the initial part of the text and define the fundamental
problem of the left and democracy. I draw on my conclusions in previous books and
articles where I applied relevant results from the research of more area studies oriented
colleagues to my analytical and comparative framework and added studies of documents
and rather extensive interviews with leading activists. The following and most extensive
parts of the forthcoming book focus, then, on the attempts of overcome the problems of
the old political projects. Indonesia remains the major case but the experiences from the
Philippines and especially the Indian state of Kerala become increasingly significant.
Equally important, the main empirical sources for the analysis are now grounded case
studies and surveys with local colleagues, journalists and activists as well as participant
observation.
The end of anti-colonial democratisation
As in many other colonies, the first wave of democracy in Indonesia grew out of the
struggle against imperialism, racism and indirect rule through local strongmen. The first
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wave came to a halt after the national elections in 1955, followed by partial local
elections in 1957. Ironically, there was little wrong with these elections. But the outcome
was a stalemate between nationalists, traditional and modern oriented Muslims as well as
the rapidly advancing communists, including the failure of the liberal socialists.
An attempted coup, the stepping down of the Vice President, and the protests in
the regions led most actors to conclude that democracy was the problem, not the solution
(e.g. Bourchier and Legge 1994). There was the fear that the remarkably successful
Communist Party was about to be elected into power. The communists did not give
priority to democracy, arguing that it was crucial to struggle against those who were
siding with the West in the cold war (Törnquist 1984). Both the liberal oriented socialists
(often in agreement with those in Singapore) and the Muslims in the ‘western camp’
assumed that real democracy was impossible before the country had been properly
modernised.
All important actors abandoned, thus, democracy, most prominently, President
Sukarno, along with mainly Java and Bali based nationalists, communists, as well as
traditionally oriented Muslims and military officers in favour of a unitary state,
developing instead an anti-colonial campaign to ‘liberate’ West New Guinea. It was used
to nationalise all Dutch properties and to introduce ‘guided democracy’. This was to
corner and undermine the pro-western liberal socialists, modernist Muslims and related
officers, who in turn developed western-supported regional rebellion from their major
bases on the ‘outer islands’.
When Jakarta seemed able to contain the rebels however, the West altered its
policies in favour of attracting liberal technocrats and anti-communists in the national
army command. This was part of a new strategy based on Samuel Huntington’s idea that
there was a need for strong state and political institutions ahead of democracy – the socalled politics of order (Huntington 1965) – to thus be able to govern modernisation,
handle popular expectations and contain communism. In addition to relying on the army,
the measures included generous western education of economists, administrators and
officers in cooperation with American military academies, university based area studies
programmes and Ford Foundation.
In short, all major actors and their international sponsors agreed that however
defined democracy was premature and had to be preceded with structural and institutional
changes.
These positions resonate well with the internationally still predominate theories
and recommendations. The first is best know for the compatible classical dictums of
Samuel Lipset and Barrington Moore that democracy requires market-led modernisation,
freedoms and civil society, driven by bourgeois capitalists and other middle classes. The
second is the ‘sequencing of democracy’ thesis which is an updated version of Samuel
Huntington’s famous thesis that liberal democracy presupposes not just capitalist
modernisation but also strong state institutions including the rule of law (e.g. Mansfield
4
and Snyder 2007). The third is by leading scholars of comparative social science such as
Göran Therborn and Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Evelyne and John Stehpens arguing that
democracy rests with the dynamics of capitalism which have made the dominant
capitalists strong enough to abstain from direct control of government when democracy is
demanded not so much by the bourgeoisie and middle classes as by the working class (in
alliance, then, with middle classes), as well as when the dominant elite need broad
popular support to for instance go to war. The fourth is by the radical nationalists and
communists who maintain that a democracy which is inclusive of ordinary people can
only be built after structural changes such as by way of controlling foreign capital and
implementing land reforms.
Remarkably, Indonesia has proved all these general theories insufficient and at
times even counterproductive. Let us examine them one by one.
Democratically dubious modernisation and middle classes
Quite against the expectations that modernisation would be the midwife of democracy,
and also by contrast to the more successful middle class driven democratisation in India
and the Philippines at the time, modernisation oriented Indonesian middle classes lost
much of the enthusiasm in these matters as soon as the results from the first 1955 general
elections became obvious. The western oriented socialist party was almost wiped out and
religious based parties and the nationalists behind Sukarno and the Communist Party
made significant advances. Most said then that democracy was premature and that the
right conditions first had to be generated. They advocated for the rule of law and for
certain rights and freedoms, but not for popular sovereignty. With regard to the rights,
moreover, not even liberal intellectuals were consistent. Many supported the army-led
crackdown and the mass killings of the members of communist-oriented popular
movements in 1965-1966. The same was true in the Philippines with harsh repression
against leftist dissidents, convincing in turn so many peasants as well as intellectuals of
the need for a Maoist driven insurrection. Even in India, significant numbers of
supposedly more modern oriented middle classes behind Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
opted several years later for the introduction of a state of emergency, with the support of
the Moscow oriented communists.
Some of the intellectuals later disagreed with Suharto’s ‘new order’ but were
unable to build a substantial middle class constituency even for their opposition to
corruption and clientelism. Most members of the middle classes enjoyed instead the
social and economic benefits under Suharto and it was only when their special privileges
were undermined by the Asian crisis in 1998 that many gave passive support for change.
This seems to be a general tendency. By the 1980s and particularly the 1990s
modernisation oriented Indian middle classes was the main force. They managed to gain
broad popular support by way of Hindu nationalist ideology for a rather sharp turn if
favour of neo-liberal oriented politics and policies. Aside form differences over identity
5
politics, the Congress Party too accepted economic liberalisation. Today it is clear that
the Indian economic miracle is based largely on the trading, service and IT sectors where
the rising middle classes are engaged, but also on cheap labour for basic jobs and needs.
The pattern has been much the same in Thailand, for instance, where the modern middle
classes and several supposedly democracy oriented NGOs have even rallied behind the
king and the military to oppose unwanted populist politicians and policies on the basis of
electoral success. Quite recently in India again similar tendencies has come to the
foreground with extra parliamentary actions against corruption that have also turn against
the primacy of parliamentary democracy.
Back in Indonesia, intellectual dissidents with roots in the middle classes were
indeed in the forefront of the final struggle against the Suharto regime. But they lacked a
constituency in the socio-religious reform movements; and they were unable to draw on
clientelism based on positions in the state and in business. The Indonesian attempts to
build parties based on liberal, middle class ideas and interests have failed miserably until
today.
Politics of order against democracy
Huntington’s (1965) idea of a strong state that precedes democracy, the so-called politics
of order, was successful internationally. It provided legitimacy for Suharto’s coup against
Sukarno (which resembled the development in Singapore and the so-called middle-class
coups in Latin America and elsewhere) as well as to the subsequent decades of an
authoritarian ‘new order’. Yet, there were no signs that the regime was able to give birth
to the institutions that were capable of controlling corruption and establishing the rule of
law and which were supposed to pave the way for democracy at a later point. Indeed,
Indonesia continues to suffer from corruption and disrespect for the rule of law also after
the overthrow of the Suharto regime. There have been severe problems of combatting
these plagues by relying on the politicians that have been elected since 1998. But it is an
irony that the old argument about the need for stable institutions ahead of democracy,
which created the problem in the first place, seems to return to the fore, much like it has
done among educated liberals, businessmen and royalists in Thailand.
More capitalism, less democracy
On a general level democracy in Indonesia was of course held back by the weakness of
the kind of bourgeois and middle classes that scholars such as Göran Therbon has written
about and which in the context of the first democratic countries in Europe and North
America were relatively independent of the state, had to regulate their own differences
and had sufficient economic resources to compromise with increasingly strong working
class demands for equal political and social rights.
In the struggle for national independence Indonesian trade unions and labour
organisations were important. They were found on plantations and within transportation
6
and other sectors of the colonial economy. Workplace struggles and politics were often
combined. After independence, however, the priorities of labour were subordinated to the
broader aim of building a national economy. This was part of the social pact between a
so-called national bourgeoisie, small and middle farmers and labourers that was
advocated generally at the time in the global South by radical nationalists and
communists. Populist President Sukarno and the reformist Communist Party took the lead.
One of the largest peaceful popular movements in the South failed to stimulate economic
growth and to prevent the military and its business allies from capturing the benefits of
the massive nationalisations of foreign companies. Labour leaders were eliminated, classoriented labour organisations were repressed, and the few remaining unions were
subordinated to authoritarian state-corporatism. Much the same took place in the
Philippines with the rise of President Marcos, even if the scale of repression was not as
massive. India, on the other hand, withstood the harshest repression but faced similar
problems of slow or stagnating economic growth.
Despite the rapid expansion of capitalism since the 1970s, neither industrialists,
nor the growing numbers of professionals and workers were able to push the Suharto new
order in the direction of more democracy. Labour primarily resisted excessive
exploitation and major strikes took place in the export producing factories which tried to
minimise wages in order to compete internationally. Organised labour in the Philippines
faced similar problems, while the Indian challenges (until the opening up of the economy
in the 1990s) where more related to fragmentation, party politicisation of unions and the
immense importance the informal sectors. It is true that Indonesian labour also opposed
brutal primitive accumulation and attempted to place social and civil rights on the
agenda. But the connections between unionism and actions more directly in favour of
democracy were weak. Labour did not play a major role in the fall of Suharto. Much the
same was true in the case of Marcos and Indian unions too have lost much of their
political importance. The largest strike in the world (among Mumbai’s textile workers in
the early 1980s) came to nothing and the leader Datta Samant who had broad support
among the workers failed miserably in gaining votes within politics (Törnquist 1989,
1991, 1991a, 1993, 2002, 2004, Quimpo 2004).
This does not mean that the conflicts between labour and capital in Indonesia
were unimportant in preparing for the change. It was only in the second part of 1997 after
the Suharto regime could no longer regulate the tensions of despotic capitalism that
finance capital and other dominant groups lost confidence in its ability to deliver.
Ironically, as late as by early May 1998 it was to a large extent the anger among ordinary
people over Suharto’s and his advisors’ decision to reduce subsidies even more than
demanded by the IMF that boosted student protests and convinced the ruling elite that the
captain would have to leave the ship.
Why has labour not been able to take advantage of the post-Suharto
opportunities? Part of the explanation lies in the crisis that generated his removal. The
7
world’s third largest democracy was not born out of the successful development of
capitalism but from its social and economic crisis.
The same holds true of the rebirth of the Philippine elite democracy; and it is
tempting to say that the massive resistance against Indira Gandhi’s state of emergency
was not just about authoritarianism but also her lack of delivering on promises to
combine state directed yet market based economic growth with poverty alleviation. Back
in Indonesia, the economic crisis meant thus that labour’s bargaining power had
substantially diminished.
Equally important, however, is its lack of capacity among workers to benefit from
the new political space that opened up, at least temporarily. Small autonomous groups
and organisations were each fighting the remnants of authoritarianism in their own
factories and workplaces. Paradoxically, the divisive patronage offered by the authorities,
NGOs, sectoral organisations, and by foreign supporters aggravated matters.
Again, similar problems appeared under rather similar conditions in post-Marcos’
Philippines. But even more interestingly, unions and labour were also facing similar
challenges in-spite of many different conditions in the countries, thus pointing to
importance of defunct political strategies.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia and the Philippines in particular but also rather often in
India there was no clear-cut, unified enemy to fight given the deliberate disintegration of
the state apparatus, privatisation, and the decentralisation of resources. Power struggles
were increasingly localised in a jungle of private bosses and semi-private militias. Some
labour activists have looked for new patrons at the centre, recreating top–down
organisations. Almost all continue to rely on pressure politics, lobbying, and networks or
more old fashioned clientelism (Cf. Törnquist 2004, 1993, Quimpo 2004; Ford 2009).
Sukarno and PKI nationalism undermine democracy
We turn now to the thesis that successful anti-feudalism and radical nationalism had to
precede efforts at a democracy. The major proponents of this argument in Indonesia were
President Sukarno and the Communist Party, PKI, which by the early 1960s, next to the
Soviet Union and China, was the largest communist party in the world with some three
million members and about 15 million organised sympathisers. Basically similar basic
analyses and strategies were applied in India and the Philippines even if the Maoists took
an additional step by claiming that it was necessary to encircle the urban centres and
modern capitalist economy by way of armed struggle based on the interests of peasants,
dalits, tribal populations and other marginalised groups. Similar arguments have returned
to the fore in Indonesia with new populist-nationalist and socialist movements that speak
in favour of the politics of Hugo Chavez in particular. And the Maoist thesis has
remained surprisingly intact in India and quite successful in the context of Nepal. What
are the major lessons regarding democracy from the politics of Sukarno and the PKI?
8
Communist-led popular movements and ultimately Sukarno as well were
eliminated because of its involvement in the so-called 30th September Movement directed
against the conservative top military leadership. Its actions triggered and legitimised
army-led repression and the mass killings across the country, supported by the West. It is
now beyond doubt (thanks to John Roosa 2006) that the party chairman Aidit engaged
secretly in this adventurous movement and a common explanation for PKI’s collapse is
thus that Aidit betrayed the party and the related movements. This however avoids the
more fundamental question of why he engaged in these manipulations in the first place.
The first argument in my own studies suggests that Aidit’s involvement was
rational, given that the party’s strategy had been undermined (Törnquist 1984). Aidit’s
involvement was not just an individual ‘mistake’ but was part of an attempt to weaken the
anti-communist military leaders in a way that the communists’ main strategy had not
been able to do. Thus, the fundamental problem was not Aidit’s regression into the avantgarde politics of the 1940s (of which the 30th of September movement very much
reminds) but that the party’s strategy itself was counterproductive. The strategy was to set
aside ‘bourgeois democracy’ and to link up with Sukarno’s ‘guided democracy’, land
reform and radical nationalism. However, neither aspect of the strategy helped to alter the
balance of power. The strategy even helped to strengthen the grip of the military over the
economy and the state.
The issue of democracy has been neglected in the debate about the failure of the
PKI, the massacres, the rise of the ‘New Order’, as well as the failure of resistance. In
leftist circles the focus has been on the deficiencies of individual leaders, including their
failure to pursue ‘proper’ Maoist strategies. Only recently Max Lane (2010:41-51) has
pointed to the fact that the PKI gave up on democracy in the late 1950s and early 1960’s
by supporting Sukarno’s ‘guided democracy’. The party failed to object when elections
were cancelled by the regime and even supported the banning of critical parties,
politicians and artists. It failed to insist on ‘bourgeois democratic’ protection or to prevent
the army from taking up leading positions in the economy and civil administration.
It would certainly have been risky for PKI to do without the protection of the
nationalist forces loyal to Sukarno. In India in the mid 1970s the old Communist Party
held on to Mrs Gandhi’s state of emergency and protection in much the same way as the
PKI did in relation to Sukarno. The more forceful break-away Communist Party-Marxist,
however, was able to link up with ‘bourgeois forces’ in support of democracy. It could
survive state repression while mobilising popular support behind its own radical social
and economic reforms. It contributed to the termination of the emergency, the defeat of
Indira Gandhi’s government and ensured that a Marxist party could lead Left Front
governments in both West Bengal and Kerala. Similarly in the Philippines, the Maoist
argument about the need for armed struggle to do away with Marcos was proved wrong
by the peaceful people’s power demonstrations combined with electoral activism. It is
true that the Indonesian army was more prepared to intervene in politics and to engage in
9
repression than its Indian counterpart but the vulnerability of PKI could possibly have
been compensated for by broad political alliances. At least it would have made it more
difficult for the army to gain full support of both the opposition domestically and the
West for its bloody repression. (Cf. Törnquist 1989, 1991, 1991a)
Moreover, the communists may well have emphasised that the constitution of
1945, which Sukarno reintroduced, offered protection for both human rights and genuine
elections. In principle it would have been possible to struggle for a combination of liberal
rights and interest group based democracy instead of accepting Sukarno’s ‘guided
democracy’, which Suharto later transformed into a system of state-corporatism and
patrimonialism controlled by the military.
The question remains: Why did PKI give up on democracy? This puzzle takes us
to my second main argument, which is that the problems of strategy in turn were based on
poor analysis of the accumulation of power and capital in Indonesia and of how people
would be able to resist it and build alternatives.
To trace the root causes for this one needs to begin with PKI’s tendency in the
early 1950s and onwards to identify with Lenin the powerful actors that de facto turned
against imperialism and feudal-like structures in terms of a so-called revolutionary
bourgeoisie – but to then upgrade these actors into Stalin’s more rigid notion of national
bourgeoisie with a supposedly ‘objective’ and thus ever present interests in turning
against imperialism, fighting ‘remnants of feudalism’ and even in promoting ‘bourgeois
democracy’ because of the assumption that businessmen and professionals had no other
alternative, if they did not wish to become collaborators and pave the way for the
communists. These theses were supposed to be generally valid in countries such as
Indonesia, India and the Philippines.
In Indonesian reality, however, the entrepreneurial oriented actors were often
close to the West and anti-communists while the nationalists were not very production
oriented and used instead their radical politics and administrative power to enrich
themselves. And in the late 1950s when the supposedly progressive nationalists who were
drawing on their positions in state and politics were taken aboard PKI’s and Moscow’s
upgraded calculations about ‘non-capitalist development’ as substitutes for the vacillating
‘national bourgeoisie’, most politicians, administrators and officers of this kind used
instead radical nationalisations and monopolised control of state regulation, assets, credits,
investments, prices and jobs as well as of labour and trade unions for primitive
accumulation of capital and appropriation of economic surplus. There were similar
problems in the Philippines but significantly less so in India where public institutions
were more solid, where there were some elements of public accountability and where the
‘national bourgeoisie’ was more production oriented. (C.f. Törnquist 1989, 1991, 1991a)
These strategic problems in turn were related to insufficiencies in Marx’ model of
the rise of private capitalism in Britain in particular, according to which primitive
accumulation of capital refers to the appropriation of land and other means of production
10
from peasants and artisans by strong private actors supported by the state. Thereby the
basic means of production were turned into capital (that could be invested) and labourers
were turned into commodities (that could be exploited), which enabled capitalist
accumulation of capital.
In Indonesia as well as in India among many other post-colonial countries but less
so in for instance the Philippines it is true that the dominant private actors were typically
too weak to act in a similarly forceful way. But that did not mean that they had to chose
between turning into lackeys of old colonisers and new imperialists or engaging in the
‘national bourgeois’ or ‘non-capitalist’ projects envisaged by the PKI and their Indian
comrades. On the contrary: while not being able to dispossess most people of their land
and other means of production, the dominating actors were any way capable of using
politics, state and military coercion to accumulate indirect control of natural resources,
land and many small businesses – and thus also much of the surplus produced in these
sectors – as well as to nationalise or take advantage of foreign owned companies in
addition to foreign aid. There were of course huge regional differences and generally this
was more common in Indonesia than in India. Yet, in India too it was common to talk of
a passive capitalist transformation (or passive revolution); and today similar arguments
have been put forward with increasing strength by scholars such as Kalyan Sanyal (2007)
and Partha Chatterjee (2008).
It is true that PKI-initiated research of the agrarian scene in the late 1950s and
early 1960s identified more complicated forms of exploitation and coined the concept of
‘seven village devils’ rather than landlords only. And within other economic sectors the
leaders picked up on the Chinese concept of ‘bureaucratic capitalists’ to characterise its
new opponents. But the party never acknowledged that irrespective of economic sector
the prime base of their adversaries was in their control of politics, state and coercion
rather than in links to landlords and imperialists, whom PKI continued to regard as the
main enemies and tried to weaken by way of supporting Sukarno’s land reform,
nationalisation of foreign companies and generally radical nationalism.
In short, the PKI failed to acknowledge that the prime base of their adversaries
(which tended to be led by the military) was in their control of politics, state and coercion
rather than in their links to imperialists and (the rather few) landlords, which the party
continued to regard as the main enemies.
The consequences were devastating. The ‘national bourgeoisie’ and the state
leaders, who supported or at least accepted Sukarno, did not act as expected. Although
PKI constrained militant labour activism in order to build a social pact with the ‘national
bourgeoisie’ and the supposedly progressive nationalists in the state apparatuses, little
happened in terms of dynamic investments and growth. There were similar problems in
the Philippines and to some extent in India too. The result in Indonesia was severe
economic mismanagement and crisis. Protests against looting and corruption resulted in
more repression but the communists could not fight back as they would thus have lost the
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support of Sukarno. People were mobilised for the nationalisation of foreign companies
and in support of anti-imperialist policies with the purpose of undermining the strength of
the so-called bureaucratic capitalists because their power was supposed to be based on
foreign capital and the West. But the military leaders continued to extend their control
over both nationalised foreign companies and state resources in general.
Although, the rural scene was more complicated, there was certainly not much
land to distribute and few big landlords to fight. It was very difficult to avoid infightings
among small landholders, tenants and labourers, who were subject to more indirect means
of exploitation by patrons and local strongmen, who had gained political and
administrative power and dominated production and trade. This was not unique for
Indonesia even if concentration of land was more important in India and the Philippines.
Later, under Suharto’s new order, the extraction of surplus by political and
administrative means became more brutalised, of course, and was also used for outright
expropriation of land. The same tendency applies to the Philippines and in India too, in
spite of more resistance – most recently as part of land grabbing for non-agricultural
purposes even in then Left Front dominated West Bengal.
With regard to Indonesia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, therefore, my research
suggested that the main enemy of the rural poor was rather perceived as the state itself
and those in command of it rather than the landlords and strongmen with a base in private
capitalist production (Törnquist 1984a).
Democratisation or business as usual?
In conclusion so far there were there were thus two main positions on democracy in
Indonesia by the early 1980s. The predominant one was that the rise of post-colonial
capitalism under Suharto was based on centralised neo-patrimonial regime. It had been
successful in terms of economic growth but had failed to bring benefits to the middle
classes and people in general who were prevented from organising politically while
dissidents were suppressed and marginalised (e.g. Crouch 1994 and Robison 1996). The
other position (including my own) was that the rise of post-colonial capitalism had
generated contradictions that would in themselves nourish radical struggle for democracy.
Democracy, in this alternative view, was necessary to fight this type of capitalism which
was based on the monopolisation of the means of primitive accumulation (often statebased) and the subordination and repression of common people. In fact many, including
poor farmers, fisher folks, urban poor and labourers as well as businessmen and members
of the middle classes had already began to turn against the regime, students in particular,
at least those who were not given special privileges. The prognosis was therefore that the
opponents would come to share a basic interest in democratisation which could be
politicised by pro-democracy groups. (Törnquist 1984 and 1984a) Based on comparative
studies, I also suggested that a similar analysis and conclusion was valid in the
12
Philippines and in several contexts in India too, in-spite of many structural differences in
other respects. (Törnquist 1989, 1991, 1991a)
In Indonesia where the argument was particularly at odds with the mainstream
position it is well know that the second proposition proved generally correct.
Democratisation was certainly not on top of the dissidents’ agenda initially, but things
changed within a decade and political liberalisation and democracy was no doubt the
major issue when Suharto was overthrown.
Unlike what was expected, however, those opposing Suharto’s dictatorship and
primitive accumulation by demanding democracy did not also opt for democratising the
state. On the contrary, they primarily reduced state and politics by way of privatisation
and a rather minimal liberal democracy. In other words my conclusion that demands for
democracy would become crucial was thus generally right but at the same time also
specifically wrong in assuming that democratisation would be more extensive and
substantive by including the hugely important control of state and government.
The dynamics of limited democratisation
Having specified this paradox, the main puzzle that I wish to address in the main parts of
the book is therefore why the widely important democratisation became very limited in
character, and what if any chances are there for more substantial democratic
transformation.
Nobody had dared to challenge Suharto until the student protests gained
momentum by April and May 1998. Key local military and political leaders as well as
foreign governments were at first hesitant to abandon him. As formal powers were
transferred to Vice President Habibe the process of displacement was at first passive and
slow. It was soon followed, however, by the quick repositioning of the elite. Leading
actors were anxious to protect their authority, legitimacy, contacts, and access to
resources within the disintegrating Suharto regime. The pro-democrats were unable to
respond to this by gaining the political initiate and suggest realistic alternatives. In less
than a year and a half after the overthrow of Suharto, therefore, most of the organised
pro-democracy groups had thus lost momentum and much of their influence (Törnquist
2000).
In spite of the subordination of the pro-democrats, however, those who were seen
to be promoting democracy internationally were a few additional turbulent years able to
claim that Indonesia had turned into a success story (cf. Aspinall 2010). Indonesia, with
the largest Muslim population in the world, with a Christian minority and a wide range of
ethnic groups, had gone from being the most authoritarian to the most liberal country in
Southeast Asia. Although Papua remains a problem, East Timor has become independent
and the civil war in Aceh has been replaced with rudimentary local self-government and
democracy. The political role of the military has been significantly reduced. Corruption
13
remains severe but is at least much criticised. The economy does well thanks to the
export of raw materials and middle class consumption.
How did this happen? How was it possible to achieve these partial yet important
victories without really altering the structural conditions? It is tempting to conclude that
Indonesian democracy is fake, that it is an oligarchy based on Suharto’s old elite and that
the main difference with Suharto’s time is that the various sections of this elite are now
formally governing themselves through democratic elections in which they use the huge
funds that they have accumulated in the past as well as their influence in media and
various public and private institutions to get the people to vote for them (Robinson and
Hadiz 2004).
A more careful examination (e.g. Piryono et.al. 2007 and Samadhi and Warouw
2009) emphasises instead the process of de-politicisation. In this view, centralised
political governance of public affairs, including business opportunities, has been replaced
by decentralisation, privatisation, and delegation to numerous non-government
institutions. Elected executives, parliamentarians, and NGO leaders have taken over from
those who were in the past appointed by the authorities. There have been no safe heavens
for the old oligarchs. However they have been given the best possible opportunities to
accommodate to new alliances with former dissident politicians, businessmen, and social
leaders. Both central and local government institutions as well as political parties have
thus been de facto monopolised by the powerful elite thanks to funds, networks and
control of media. Formal rules prevent ordinary people from running as candidates even
in local elections. Only parties that have funds enough to establish offices and collect
signatures in the country at large are allowed to contest. Candidates need to be well
educated and on the village level they must often pay for the administrative costs of the
elections out of their own pockets. Suharto’s corporative system of top-down
representation has not been replaced. Democratic issue- and interest based representation
continues to be overshadowed by pressure group politics, lobbying, and media
campaigns, which require good contacts and access to substantial funds.
In the Philippines the same tendency had been obvious already during the people
power demonstration along the EDSA ring road when elite figures such as Corazon
Aquino and Cardinal Sin gained the initiative almost immediately and was then followed
up in the reintroduction of what Ben Anderson effectually labelled ‘cacique democracy’
(Anderson 1988). Later on John Sidel (1999, 2004) analysed most convincingly the same
tendency in terms of bossism, emphasising the extensive role of state and politics,
including elections. The only possible opening for renewal, others added, seemed to be
the extensive decentralisation, particularly fought for by liberal senator Pimentel.
Decentralisation was however mostly dominated by local elites. Even in Indonesia
Sidel’s politically (and electorally) rooted bossism spread rapidly in spite of some
resistance from the comparatively stronger communitarian ethnic and religious
organisations as well as the remnants from the bureaucratic-colonial state that had been
14
so weak in the Philippines. (C.f. van Klinken 2007, 2009, Nordholt 2004, Nordholt and
van Klinken 2007) In these respects, it is rather Indonesia and India that now remind
more of each other. India continues to benefit from its stronger and less corrupt state and
political institutions, more inclusive political system and more independent and vibrant
scholarly community as well as politically subordinated military. Yet
deinstitutionalisation, informalisation and the expansion of corruption have been parallel
and as rapid as the neo-liberalisation of the economy; and while democracy is being
undermined it survives. (C.f. eg Harriss-White 2003 and Corbridge and Harriss (2000),
CSDS 2007)
Obviously elitist democratisation in Indonesia and the Philippines and its survival
in India have thus been associated with de-politicisation of public affairs. But why was
depoliticisation possible in the first place? The main answer seems to be the lack of a
powerful alternative capable of mobilising a broader stratum of popular forces on a
democratic platform. What are the roots of these weaknesses?
The limits of ‘new politics’
In Indonesia the pro-democracy movement which was critically important in the process
that finally incapacitated the Suharto regime and opened up for reformasi soon lost
momentum and much of its potential significance, as already indicated, rather surviving
as a congregation of watch dogs and lobby groups with only occasional influence. The
movement had three major roots (e.g. Törnquist 1997; Lane 2008; Aspinall 2005). One
strand was made up of the liberal and socialist oriented intellectuals, including student
groups, who had been critical of the authoritarianism of Sukarno’s and PKI’s radical
nationalism. Some even supported the military in 1965 before they later realised that
Suharto’s coup involved mass killings, which they found abhorrent, and that the military,
rather than the middle-class technocrats and intellectuals, would be at the helm.
Another strand of the pro-democracy movement came from the non-communist
trade unions and the civil society organisations that focussed on the farmers and urban
poor.
A third strand belonged to a new generation of civil society groups concerned
with ‘alternative development’, often focusing on the environment or issues of human
rights and corruption. These groups agreed among themselves that the authoritarian state
was a major obstacle and that ‘civil society’ was the basis for any alternative. Class
differences were not in the forefront and the new groups were neither based on extensive
membership nor country-wide organisations outside the major cities, functioning rather as
influential networks. The focus was on specific issues, rights, and problems. While there
were occasional radical actions, a predominant worry was how to avoid provoking major
repression.
By the late 1980s leftist-oriented students tried to alter this cautious approach.
They argued that any substantive improvement called for radical change. Democracy was
15
crucial for the transformation of Indonesia’s repressive and exploitative model of
development. Such change, they said, called for political leadership and closer links
between civil society groups, activists and ordinary people. The points were widely
accepted but there was no agreement on how to implement them. While occasionally
forming temporary coalitions, most groups kept to their own projects in opposing the
regime. Moreover, the radical would-be political leaders made good use of the NGOs to
win sympathisers, gain contacts and resources and build their own organisations. Thus
the groups were suspicious of each others. Meanwhile other activists tried to reach out to
ordinary people by relating to existing socio-religious organisations but, before the fall of
Suharto, only rarely to separatist-cum-nationalist leaders in East Timor, Papua and Aceh
in order to avoid accusations of betraying the country.
It is correct to talk about a ‘democracy movement’ in the sense that groups agreed
on the need for political change and democratisation but there was no ideological unity or
nation-wide coordination, and almost no attempts at forming united fronts and parties.
While important in undermining the legitimacy of the Suharto regime it stood for no
coherent alternative. A major claim was that ‘civil society’ and the people themselves
should run the country. The movement failed to develop and alternative transitional
arrangement and snap elite-negotiated elections made activists to loose momentum. They
became socially and politically marginalised.
Why was it so difficult for the various fragments of the democracy movement to
come together and form a genuine political alternative? The answer is simple: there was
no strong reason for any of the actors involved to do so. This conclusion comes out
clearly from the extensive studies of the democracy groups, both before and after Suharto
(Budiman and Törnquist 2001, Prasetyo et.al. 2003, Priyono et.al. 2007, Samadhi and
Warouw 2009) and also covered in country-wide surveys in 2003 and 2007. Typically,
the pro-democrats only relate to sections of the population, rarely providing links
between them. There were only few attempts, for instance, to link activities in
workplaces, residential areas, and communities. Activists were engaged in specific
localities, paying little attention to wider issues of governance, development, and public
welfare. There was much focus on the rule of law, human rights, corruption, and civil
control of the army, less on citizenship and almost nothing on representation and the
capacity of governments to implement policies.
Activists rarely tried to mobilise followers inside public administration and to
engage in organised politics, nor were they present in public and private workplaces.
Their main achievement was to collect and disseminate information, engaging in
lobbying and pressure group activities and promoting self-management and self-help. The
way they gained authority and legitimacy was primarily on the basis of their superior
knowledge and their participation in the public discourse. This was at the expense of
organising with a view of obtaining a public mandate or winning elections. In spite of
some advances the activists remained poorly connected to social movements and popular
16
organisations (and vice versa). Collective action was mainly based on individual
networking and alternative patronage as opposed to participation in broad and
representative organisations. Parliaments and executive institutions were primarily
approached through lobbying by NGOs and critique through the media. Given the issues
that were given priority to, lobbying and media activism was simply a more effective
strategy, at least in the short run, than to engage in building mass politics, viable political
parties, or broad interest-based organisations.
Those involved in these group activities or as individuals no doubt gained some
important experience. As such it was a major achievement compared with the
subordination suffered under Suharto when organised politics (except in the government
party) was prohibited on the grassroots level in order to turn ordinary people into what
the regime called a ‘floating mass’. After Suharto, however, the pro-democracy activists
themselves were ‘floating’ by having failed to develop a solid social constituency. They
were unable to generate substantial improvements in terms of popular control of public
affairs on the basis of political equality. In many cases they even contributed to more
privatisation and polycentrism. It was not clear what people (demos) would control what
public affairs. In addition, the groups were often marginalised or co-opted by more
powerful local actors within politics, administration and business, as well as by
international organisations and donors.
This was not unique for Indonesia. The pro-democrats had similar experiences in
the Philippines. It is true that many of the CSOs were more closely attached to various
political movements and parties, but only in some few and innovative cases to which we
shall return did this point to ways of resolving the problem of fragmentation and only
marginally the insufficiently broad and solid social base. Moreover, many Indian CSOs
and social movements opted out of organised politics and especially the old Left parties,
giving priority instead to pressure politics, judicial and media activism as well as
lobbying. (C.f. Törnquist 2002)
Neglected links
Extensive research has been undertaken in cooperation with Indonesian pro-democracy
activists who, in response to these problems, have tried to develop new ways of engaging
in organised politics. Hence this chapter cannot be concluded before we have examined
their experiences in supplementary view of the experiences from similar attempts in the
Philippines and the Indian state of Kerala. How did these political innovators try to
overcome both their own social and political marginalisation and powerful elite’s
monopolisation of the political system? It is possible to identify eight trends or types of
actually existing projects and experiences (Törnquist et.al 2009).
(1) Communities for democracy
The first was characterised by attempts at democratising popular communities such as
customary (adat) groups, indigenous populations and Muslim congregations on the basis
17
of equal citizenship. This was meant to provide the foundations for alternative local
governance and interventions in mainstream politics. Typically, however, a community
would not claim equal citizenship rights for all people in the locality but for itself as a
special community. It was also not clear what public affairs (such as what natural
resources or citizen rights and obligations) that their community rather than people in
general or several communities together would control and on what grounds.
In this respect it is useful to recall the historical rise of the world renowned civil
society in the Indian state of Kerala that was one of the pillars of its model for human
development that formed the backbone of much of the thinking of the UNDP and
Amartya Sen. The roots are in the struggle by socio religious reform movements in the
1900th century against India’s possibly stiffest cast system. On the one hand, in brief, the
movements that called for special rights and support never did away with
communitarianism in the public sphere and politics and still constitutes the backbone of
conservative politics in Kerala. On the other hand the movements that organised along
communitarian lines such as caste and religion but demanded equal citizenship rights
including with regard to education and access to jobs in the public sector later on
contributed to the Kerala model of making welfare an integrated part of economic
development, and many of their demands were combined with the class struggle for land
and better standard of living among peasants and workers. (Cf. Tharakan 1998)
(2) Direct politics
In the second kind of project, there was an effort to bypass ‘rotten politics’ by building a
new model of ‘direct politics’ to develop media and public discourse, social auditing,
struggle against corruption, and participatory budgeting. Yet again it was not clear what
people would control what public affairs and how decisions were taken, who was
represented, and to whom activists were accountable. While many issues were no doubt
important, it seemed as if the most powerful and resourceful actors with best contacts
tended to dominate.
Similar strategies have been most common in the Philippines and India as well. This
also tend to be the kind of practices in favour of popular demands for accountability that
gain support from international organisations such as the UNDP as it fits into their
programmes for ‘good governance’. Progressive actors in the Philippines have however
tried to move ahead by relating the demands for accountability to political projects for
more comprehensive democratic alternatives on the village (barangay) and municipality
level. And in the Indian state of Kerala, as we shall return to, similar aspirations in
relations to the panchayats on the village, block and district levels have been combined
with political agreements with the mainstream leftist parties.
(3) Union politics
The third type of project that could be identified was that CSOs and labour leaders
facilitated trade union based politics and parties. In some cases this was combined with
community organising in neighbourhoods but also ethnic and religious groups.
18
Commonly, however, the differences between the unions, their leaders and other related
communities were also scaled up, thus preventing broader joint work and linkages to
other pro-democratic constituencies and wider popular issues. In the Philippines similar
attempts were better combined with other movements such as among peasants and urban
poor, but early party politicisation of the various groups and movements anyway
prevented broader and more unified work. An opposite local attempt in Tarlac (Central
Luzon) by the legendary founding father of the Maoist New Peoples Army (‘Dante’
Buscayno) who changed his priorities after the fall of Marcos in favour of building
alternative local politics on the basis of class interests and solidarity among small farmers
and their families also failed. This was partly because of the devastating volcanic
eruption of Mt Pinatubo, but mainly because of much more diverging economic interests
among the followers and insufficiently developed policies and politics. (Törnquist 2003)
In Kerala by contrast there were no similar efforts as the established old Left and other
parties already dominated and constrained the further development and unification among
the many trade unions. (Törnquist with Tharakan 1996, Törnquist 2004)
(4) Movement politics
A similar fourth kind of project was the promotion by CSOs and related leaders of
broader social movement based politics and parties. One such attempt was based on
environmental groups, another on farmers’ and agricultural workers’ organisations. To
counter the suspicion that the political activists would cater to their own interests, it was
agreed that candidates in elections would come directly from the basic organisations.
Most of these organisations, however, obviously deemed the political project to be too
risky and expensive as compared to their usual practices of fostering clients’ and
members’ interests as pressure and lobby groups. Moreover, the questions of how to
develop and decide on joint platforms and priorities as well as to elect and keep
candidates accountable were never really resolved.
After several years of trial and error, some of the Philippine activists were more
successful in these respects. While the dominant Maoists and a few other party-building
groups proceeded with their own projects, dissidents with different leftist persuasions
who agreed on the possibilities of advancing by way of democratic means and thus the
need for various CSOs, interest based organisations such as unions and political
organisations to not just be active outside but also within the framework of elections and
parliamentary politics to build a broad political party. A major source of inspiration was
the Brazilian labour party (PT), even if the trade unions that played such as crucial basic
role in Brazil were less strong in the Philippines. Remarkably, in the mid-1990s, nongovernmental organisation campaigners, social movement activists, socialists,
communists and former Maoists managed finally with what seemed to be impossible – to
build a joint citizen action party which was called Akbayan. This was based on a very
broad platform of joint visions and priorities rather than a closely worked out ideology
19
and strategy; and initially it allowed for both political groups and individuals to become
members. Akbayan vitalised cooperation and managed to gain some representation in the
parliament via a separate national so-called party list were groups and small parties could
get a maximum of three seats each. But this was obviously not an avenue for broader
representation; and aside from a few initiatives on the very village (barangay) level,
Akbayan rarely managed to make a difference in the main elections of political executives
such as mayors and of members to local councils and the national congress and senate in
spite of attempts to coordinate activists and groups behind a few leading progressive
politicians who tended to be members of mainstream political parties-cum-machines.
(Törnquist 1993, 1998, 2002, Rocamora 2004, Quimpo 2004, Törnquist et.al. 2009)
Meanwhile there were no similar attempts in Kerala as they would have been a threat
against the existing leftist movements and parties. Most activists tried instead to reform
and revitalise the Kerala model and its roots in CSOs and social movements combined
with party politics for equal citizenship and state led welfare politics. The main strategy
was to combine initiatives from below (and special attempts to include more women and
marginalised groups such as among fisher folks and dalits) with political alliances in
favour of participatory planning and democratic decentralisation. We shall return to this
below.
(5) Movement cooperation with parties and candidates
The fifth project that stood out in Indonesia was characterised by groups which tried to
make an impact by negotiating political contracts of co-operation with strong political
actors who needed to broaden their alliances and support base beyond a predominant
clientelist arrangements. The politicians engaged in programmes that attracted wider
sections of the population that wished to see, for instance, less corrupt governance and
better public welfare systems. In exchange for lending their good names and endorsing
the politicians in elections, pro-democracy groups typically tried to sign a memorandum
of understanding with the politicians to thus increase the capacity of wider sections of the
population. Many of the actual arrangements were however only statements of intentions
and limited to rather narrow issues. Furthermore, most civil and popular actors lacked
sufficient bargaining power to enforce the deals. They were typically unable to deliver a
substantial number of votes, and lacked an organisation that was able to keep successful
politicians accountable after the elections.
Generally speaking there were analogous problems in the Philippines. In addition
the more activist- than local governance oriented leaders also tried agreements with
crucial politicians, civil society personalities, business people and at times dissident
officers. Such agreements were related, for instance, to additional attempts at new people
power demonstrations against the abusive of power. Typically, however, there were
problems of combining these extra-parliamentary actions with the efforts at building
alternative social movement based politics from below and in relation to demands for
20
more democracy as a means to combine social welfare and economic development.
(Quimpo 2004 and Törnquist et.al. 2009)
(5 ½ ) The Kerala combination
The main innovative efforts that gained widespread international reputation evolved
however in Kerala during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000. This was a particularly
exciting combination of social movements based politics and political contracts in favour
of what may be called supplementary democracy and which call for a somewhat more
elaborated review already at this stage.
In the mid 1980s concerned scholars, school teachers and professionals, most of
whom were also political and civil society activists, became increasingly disturbed by the
problems of sustaining Kerala’s world reputed model of human development that was
mentioned earlier. This had been a crucial source of inspiration for actors such as the
UNDP and scholars like Amartya Sen. Now it was getting unviable. (Törnquist with
Tharakan 1996, Tharakan 1998, Isaac with Franke 2000)
Contextually there were three major historical factors behind the model. The first
was the promotion in the 19th and early 20th century of commercial agriculture by semiautonomous princely states in the southern part of today’s Kerala. The second was that
some of the extensive socio-religious reform movements which fought the rigid caste
system had as already indicated supported cultural pluralism in addition to demanding
equal citizen rights and state support rather than special privileges for specific
communities. In this way they initiated Kerala’s remarkable combination of an extensive
civil society and public welfare policies. The third was the class based agrarian reform
movement which grew strong in the 1930s. This was led by socialists and communists
who combined it with demands for homestead plots to the agricultural workers, a
multitude of profession-based trade unions, educational groups and credit cooperatives.
Later on this became the backbone of the leftist political fronts which won several of the
elections after the inception of the state of Kerala in 1956.
But by 1980s production stagnated, in-spite of the land reforms and more. The
leftist parties had failed to foster a new social pact that could combine welfare reforms
and growth. Rather they had become increasingly dependent on supporting their powerful
party-related interest groups and unions. In addition they relied on centralist governance
of both their parties and the state as well as on environmentally unsustainable projects to
generate cheap energy for Kerala’s few modern industries and ever increasing and
consumerist middle classes (which benefitted from extensive migrant labour remittances).
Meanwhile vulnerable people (such as among the most subordinated castes, tribal
populations and fisher folk) who had not benefitted from the reforms tended to rely on
community support and rarely supported the left.
By contrast to Indonesia however, the extensive mass based parties, popular
movements and organisations and citizen groups had not been eliminated. Hence, most of
21
the dissident scholars and activists did not turn their back to organised politics. To foster
change, however, the reformists could not just work from inside the existing parties and
organisations (of which many of them were anyway rather frustrated) but developed a
people science association into an educational mass movement (KSSP) of knowledgeable
and innovative reform facilitators. This movement initiated a number of campaigns
related to education and literacy, mapping of local resources and cooperation among
farmers. The main aim was to show how popular participation for community based
welfare- and development policies (by contrast to special interest driven policies) could
reform and thus reinvigorate the Kerala model in a sustainable way.
Initially the advocates in Kerala of the supplementary democracy perspective
were very successful. Temporarily they even gained hegemony in fostering democratic
decentralisation combined with a full range of the kind of supplementary channels of
democratic popular influence that were instrumental in promoting inclusive development
agendas on the local level. The initiatives were even broader than the participatory
budgeting practices in Brazil. Yet there were also a number of serious challenges.
(Törnquist with Tharakan 1996, Törnquist 2004, Tharakan 2004, Törnquist et.al 2009,
Isaac with Franke 2000, Heller 2005, 2007)
The primary one was to combine the new channels of participation with the
established system of interest based representation and the elected institutions of local
government – all of which was also affected by the fact that Kerala was modernised in
the context of case and religious based reform movements. The contradictions between
the established liberal democratic system and the new forms of participation and
representation were a problem of democratic principles as well as of power. In the
Brazilian case, mainstream political representation as well as interest and community
groups were severely delegitimised by being elitist and clientelist while the new workers
party that initiated the participatory budgeting was seen as a fresh new comber. In Kerala
the established system of representation had indeed deteriorated but was still channelling
the most powerful interests and popular aspirations. Actually, most major leftist leaders
and parties were very much rooted in the old system too. So when the reformists initiated
new channels of democratic popular influence by way of top level support for
decentralisation and popular participation, this was seen as a threat by a wide array of
established politicians, interest organisations (e.g. among labour, farmers, employers
special casts and religious communities) as well as central level bureaucrats, linedepartments and connected contractors. Moreover, this was not just a question about
central versus local but also between vested interests in different channels of influence,
including on the very local level. So when the new planning and participation proceeded
beyond discussion to the altering of power relations and distribution of funds, conflicts
increased, accusations ran wild and compromises and accommodation of various interests
became inevitable. This made implementation quite difficult, even to the extent that the
participatory new channels of influence could rarely be utilised to hold back special
22
political and other interests and to contain abuse and corruption. Hence it is remarkable
that the reformists who wanted to foster more democratic space for ordinary people that
were marginalised or critical of the special interests anyway never paid serious attention
to how it would be possible in theory and practice to combine conventional democratic
representation and interest-group influence, on the one hand, with new and additional
channels of more direct participation, on the other hand. (And at the time of writing it is
obvious that the issue remains unresolved even at the national level, given the current
conflict over the authority of elected but often corrupt politicians versus self appointed
anti-corruption campaigners.)
Another major challenge was the focus on targeting the poor in the decentralised
planning of various development and welfare measures. On the one hand it was a priority
that all people in need of support should be considered on an equal basis irrespective of
political or other affiliations, in addition to special support for women’s concerns. And in
principle this was applauded by so many people who were frustrated with the special
privileges to well connected persons and were sympathetic to more universal and
impartial practices. On the other hand however, the targeting of the poor also meant that
the huge numbers of less vulnerable people and not least the resourceful and
entrepreneurial middle classes felt that there was very little for them in the decentralised
participatory planning; and hence they rarely engaged.
A third stumbling block was the lack of a viable strategy for linking the democratic
practices and welfare measures to a strategy for economic growth. The most fundamental
reason for the decentralisation and participatory planning was that the Kerala model of
human development had been undermined by economic stagnation. Yet the new efforts
never managed to foster growth coalitions that acknowledged and even benefitted from
welfare measures. (C.f. e.g. George 1993 and 2011)
Decentralisation and participatory planning had insignificant effect on production
and employment. One apparent reason was that this would have called for politically
uncomfortable exposure of petty rent-seeking among some of the supporters of the leftist
parties themselves as well as for much more priority to production oriented measures in
the development planning than to separate welfare measures that might attract specific
voters.
A final major challenge was that most of the reformists tried to stay out of
organised ‘dirty’ politics without forming any alternative vehicle, thus being easy to
silence and marginalise. When the old communist patriarch E.M.S Namboodiripad
passed away in 1998 it was even possible for conservative communist critics to suggest
that those who subscribed to his long standing ideas of decentralisation and reduction of
the party-politicisation of interest organisations in favour of development priorities were
actually influenced instead by the World Bank and neo-liberalism. Likewise,
conventional politicians were fielded as candidates is that in face of the local and state
elections in 2000 and 2001 respectively even in constituencies where reformists
(including several women) had gained positive reputation. Ironically thus, the left
23
oriented parties did not just make a poor election in the state at large but also lost where
decentralisation and participation had been quite successful. Meanwhile the conservative
communists gained the upper hand in various ideological and factional struggles inside
the parties. And this in turn implied that many of the civil society activists who were not
very active or even formally enrolled in any of the parties lost influence and confidence
in the concerted efforts and campaigns, no matter whether they were expelled or branded
as next to traitors by the conservative party leaders. It is true that decentralisation had
survived when the left parties got back in power in 2006 and that several leaders now said
that they would support a second phase of participatory planning. But critical public
discussion and evaluation remained secluded and most of the political and popular
momentum to use decentralisation to foster local democratisation and to combine welfare
and growth was no more.
(6) Advancing from within the mainstream
The sixth project was to build political fronts from within an already powerful party or
movement (or to take over the weak local chapters of such parties), turning them into
instruments of change. The problems, however, included the risk of being co-opted and
the uphill task of building strength enough to advance when being unable to build
fractions inside the party or movement.
This strategy was avoided in Kerala as any factionalism within especially the
main leftist party the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) would have been
counterproductive. Yet of course leading reformists were active also within this and other
parties and their political clout rested primarily with their supreme knowledge, expertise
and links to external movements and efforts. Over the years this proved to be a difficult
balancing act. The activists who primarily were based in non-party led movement were
rarely entrusted as candidates in elections, some of them were even expelled and many
were thus disappointed and became less interested in organised party politics. A number
of researchers have argued that the remarkable people’s planning campaign in Kerala
rested almost entirely with the political power of the leftist parties. But if fact one may
well argue instead that much of the successful parts of the Kerala experience were inspite of rather than thanks to the political support of the CPI-M in particular. As already
indicated some leading leftist politicians did indeed support the efforts, especially in its
initial stages. But the major parts of the CPI-M as well as other leftist parties and their
related interest associations were quite hesitant to the introduction of decentralisation and
supplementary institutions and practices of participatory democracy; after 2001 some of
them denounced the efforts as revisionist. It may also be added that when the CPI-M
leaders for a brief period of time in 1999 and 2000 did came out in defence of the efforts
it was mainly to stand up against the critique by competing leftist parties and even caused
some CPI-M cadres to try to dominate the new institutions, thus at times causing more
harm than providing support. (Törnquist with Tharakan 1996)
24
In the Philippines by contrast the work from within was embraced by rather many
activists who wanted to go beyond agreements and alliances. The paradigmatic case was
the efforts by rethinking former Maoists campaigners to frame and run the presidential
campaign of nationalist oriented senator-cum-film actor Estrada in such a successful way
that they would gain influential seats in his administration. Initially this proved successful
but ended up in next to a catastrophe as Estrada himself and quite other ‘advisors’ got the
upper hand and the President was discharged for having abused his powers.
(7) Local parties and candidates
The seventh type of project was to fight for the legalising of local parties and
independent candidates in elections. This project was mainly developed and also proved
to be successful in the autonomous war-thorn and tsunami affected province of Aceh.
Remarkably, these leaders and activists even managed to build an alliance and to win the
2006 elections of local executives, in spite of resistance from semi-aristocratic GAM
leaders in exile and mainstream Indonesian politicians. Thus it was possible to project the
new institutions as a model for the country at large as well as for other conflict areas. The
advances, however, were rapidly undermined. The international community were busy
with the post-tsunami reconstruction work without making much effort to also employ
the massive programmes in attempts at better governance in Aceh. This helped making it
possible for the semi-aristocratic leaders and local strongmen with access to the
command structure of the rebel movement to become dominant, to develop powersharing agreements with former enemies and to do away with their utmost to marginalise
the reformists. Moreover, the reformists themselves were not very successful in using the
positions that they had gained in the elections to foster interest based representation and
initiate alternative development. Hence most actors turned instead to lobbying,
clientelism, and corruption in their efforts to retain their positions. (Törnquist et.al. 2011)
In the Philippines, one of the major similar strategies was to draw on the political
influence and legitimacy of CSOs and social movements to initiate local political
coalitions and to launch more or less independent candidates in cooperation with
supposedly progressive mainstream actors. This proved possible at times on the very
local level but very difficult to scale up within the framework of a non-proportional
electoral system where votes counts quite fraudulently and where bossism, resources and
fame decide. Moreover, extra parliamentary campaigns often gained more attention as
they seem to offer more immediate gains. (Törnquist et.al. 2009)
By contrast however, the Kerala activists never tried to form local parties or to go
for independent candidates, preferring instead various forms of cooperation with the
mainstream left of centre parties and to provide space for direct or CSO- and movement
based participation in local government, especially with regard to development planning.
25
(8) A principled party of once own
The final major project in Indonesia was to build a national ideology-driven party to
provide political guidance and coordination to the CSOs and the social movements.
Firstly, however, there were simply no strong and broad popular movements. Secondly,
the would-be leaders were better read into radical literature than capable of serving as the
representatives of the movements that nevertheless existed,
There were no similar attempts by the pro-democrats in Kerala, only among some
Maoist inspired groups. Ideology was not negated by the rethinking Left but centralist
enactment was. The radical leftist Philippine democrats argued similarly but had given up
on the mainstream radical parties as well as on the capacity of any of the hard-core
alternatives. Hence they opted instead, as we have seen, for the building of a rainbow
party without a clear cut ideology. In this party various political tendencies could
cooperate and combine their work with individuals from various CSOs and movements.
This fostered much joint work and innovative thinking and was hardly a problem as such.
The problem of less than expected political outcomes was rather related to the
unfavourable opportunities and political priorities that have been pointed to above.
.
Possible openings in comparative perspective
The projects that have been identified above usually reflected existing priorities and
organisational practices among the pro-democrats. Their aims were modified, but not
their politics. With partial exceptions in Kerala and the Philippines, their main focus was
still on issues of immediate concern for their own movement rather than on interests of
wider concern that would have called for broad alliances and mass politics. Moreover,
when anyway trying to cooperate, they had problems of poor political representation,
both within the groups and organisations themselves and in relation to political parties,
parliaments and state institutions.
To discuss possible ways ahead, these specific problems (as opposed to general
models or projects) need to be analysed in comparative theoretical perspective. Why, for
instance, have similar dilemmas been less important and tackled more successfully in, for
instance, the paradigmatic historical cases of Scandinavia? (Cf. Törnquist 2011,
Törnquist and Stokke 2012)
Tentative studies indicate that the Scandinavian actors related to similar
challenges by engaging in three levels of intermediary and transformative politics.
Firstly, parties and their policies were directed by popular movements which realised that
they had to engage collectively in organised politics to further some of their most vital
issues; and in doing this they deliberated and coordinated their actions and demands in
so-called labour communes.
Second, one basic demand was joint institutionalised participation in relevant
sectors of public governance (so called plural or social corporatism). This was in addition
to typical liberal democratic and civil society based lobbying and pressure politics in the
26
workplaces. And there were also crucial transformative outcomes: that popular
representation in sectoral public policy development and implementation facilitated
stronger and unified popular organisations which could take part in it as well as control
and thus also trust in public institutions.
Third, the popular movements and interest organisations soon opted for
demanding social, welfare and labour market reforms that would be to the benefit of all
affected people and not just their own members through state policies rather than via their
own organisations and self-help civil society groups. The price for this was weaker
popular organisations but the benefit was that the popular movements themselves were
able to contain ‘special interests’ in favour of the ‘common good’, to gain support from
popular majorities, and to not just include workers but also the unemployed, peasants,
small business actors and civil servants.
One lesson is thus that transformative democratic politics can not just be built
from below. There is a need for enlightened leadership to foster labour communes for the
deliberation and coordination of the demands and actions of popular movement based
parties and other political organisations. Sectoral interest based representation (social
corporatism) strengthened broad and unified popular organisations, contained abuse of
public resources and fostered trust in public institutions. Demands for universal social
security and other public policies as well as social pacts by way of state policies and
facilitation fostered even stronger organisations as well as welfare based economic
growth. Such nodes for improvements may be given priority to and gain special support
in international cooperation between actors that are interested in transformative
democratic politics.
Conclusion
The ‘old’ left in Indonesia but also the Philippines and partly in India too failed by not
making democratisation an integral part in the struggle to control primitive accumulation
and the rise of capital. Although the new Indonesian generation gave priority to
democratisation against Suharto, it focused on rights that did not call for popular
representation in a context of mass based politics for social and economic welfare and
growth. It was assumed that by establishing a liberal political space and a well entrenched
culture of civil rights the necessary preconditions would be provided for class-related
mass politics. Even after 1998, when much of this ‘space’ was at hand, there were,
however, no sustained attempts to connect the two and influence the direction of
democratic politics. Several socially and politically marginalised democracy groups have
recently tried to go more ‘political’, but their politics still reflect old priorities and
organisational practices. Thus the problems of democratic representation in the relations
between the groups themselves as well as in their links to organised politics and the state
remain unresolved. There are no major attempts to combine the focus on civil rights with
27
questions of social and economic welfare and growth that call for mass politics, viable
political parties, or broad interest-based organisations.
Similar problems have been important in the different contexts of the Philippines
and the Indian state of Kerala too even if the conditions vary and even though there have
been more advanced and pioneering attempts to move ahead here. This indicates that the
problems are more about politics than structure.
Meanwhile, the weaknesses of the Indonesian pro-democracy movements have
provided space for a pattern of elite-based, shallow democratisation. And unfortunately
this holds true for the Philippines and the deterioration of the Kerala model and politics
too. At best shallow and elitist democracy can contain demands for the restoration of
‘politics of order’, but it is potentially unstable and incapable of fostering genuine
representation, welfare-based growth, and fighting corruption.
When these problems in the democracy movement are analysed in comparative
theoretical perspective such as with reference to the historical Scandinavian experiences,
it is clear that the challenges can not only be solved on the grassroots level among the
organisations and movements themselves. To a large extent there is also a need for
enlightened demands from below for transformative politics from above such as for
sectoral interest based representation and universal public welfare policies which may
both facilitate broader popular organising as well as social pacts on economic growth.
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