The Hindu Business Line : No longer a `functioning chaos'

Thanks mainly to the economic reforms, which have unleashed the productive powers of the nation and its people, India does not figure in the list of `failed states'. Indeed it has come a long way from being so described, in the 1970s, and a `functioning chaos', in the 1960s. For Noam Chomsky failed states are those "that do not protect their citizens from violence and... destruction... and that suffer from a democratic deficit... "

Last November, just before attending the 13th SAARC summit in Dhaka, some controversy was generated by Dr Manmohan Singh's remark (made in Delhi) about `failed States' in the region, so much so that the Prime Minister had to issue a clarification in Dhaka stating that when he made the comment he had no particular country in the region in mind. What the Prime Minister had said was: "The danger of a number of failed states emerging in our neighbourhood has far-reaching consequences for our region and our people. The impact includes crises, which generate an inflow of refugees and destabilization of our border areas."

As far as India is concerned, internal crises leading to a flow of refugees across the border would refer to neighbours such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, and it is hardly surprising that Dhaka has been among the capitals most perturbed by the statement.

The umbrage is perhaps justified because the tag of a `failed state' will in no way add to the image of a country in the world at large. At the same time, however, Dr Manmohan Singh was not being overly imaginative.

In fact, he was only referring to a category of countries which had been described as `failed states' by a 2005 report, some of which were located in South Asia.

AMERICAN IMPRIMATUR

In fact, even earlier, the US had imparted respectability to the term `failing states' when it proclaimed in its 2002 National Security Strategy thus: "For most of the twentieth century, the world was divided by a great struggle over ideas: destructive totalitarian visions versus freedom and equality. That great struggle is over.

The militant visions of class, nation, and race which promised utopia and delivered misery have been defeated and discredited.

America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. We are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies in the hands of the embittered few. We must defeat these threats to our nation, allies, and friends. And this path is not America's alone. It is open to all."

Going a step further, the document said that to keep the threat from `failing states' under check, Washington would "champion aspirations for human dignity; strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism and work to prevent attacks against us and our friends; work with others to defuse regional conflicts; prevent our enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our friends, with weapons of mass destruction; ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade; expand the circle of development by opening societies and building the infrastructure of democracy; develop agendas for cooperative action with other main centers of global power; and transform America's national security institutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century." Clearly, this is what Washington feels about the threat emanating from `failed' or `failing' states and how it proposes to combat it. Coming from perhaps the most powerful sovereign military outfit on the planet, these views cannot be shrugged off.

Even so, it is useful to know that the US has itself been designated as a `failed state' by some of the most powerful intellects of the 20th Century, which merely serves to throw light on the controversial cauldron of ideas about what constitutes a `failed state'.

DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT

Among others, Noam Chomsky has charged the US with being a `failed state' itself "and thus a danger to its own people and the world."

As Chomsky sees it, failed states are those "that do not protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction, that regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and that suffer from a `democratic deficit', having democratic forms but with limited substance."

In Chomsky's eyes, Washington is guilty of being a `failed state' on these and other counts, a conclusion which should comfort to an extent a capital like Dhaka, among others, but which also raises the question of what exactly are the criteria for describing a nation thus.

The 2006 Failed States Index drawn up by the prestigious journal, Foreign Policy, and the Fund for Peace points to 12 indicators spanning the social, economic and political spheres among which are mounting demographic pressures; massive movement of refugees or internally displaced people creating complex humanitarian emergencies; chronic or sustained human flight; uneven economic development along group lines; sharp and/or severe economic decline; criminalisation or de-legitimisation of the state; progressive deterioration of the public services; suspension or the arbitrary application of the rule of law and widespread violation of human rights; the operation of the security apparatus as a "State within a State"; and the rise of factionalised elites.

INDEX POSITION

The index — the second in the series — has also drawn up a list of `failed states' giving them a ranking according to weightage apportioned under the separate heads of the 12 indicators.

Expectedly, the US does not figure in the list of 60 most vulnerable states (from among 148 countries), the first seven slots — led by Sudan — hailing from Africa and West Asia (Iraq). Among India's neighbours, Pakistan is in the ninth position, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal in the 18th, 19th and 20th, Sri Lanka in the 25th and Bhutan in the 29th.

Of special interest is the fact that Russia and China occupy the 43rd and 57th slots, which should either make New Delhi (which does not figure in the list) happy or, alternatively, vest the exercise with an unacceptable degree of unrealism.

If the index is taken seriously, there is cause for cheer for New Delhi in that India has been singled out as one country (along with South Africa) which has been able to pull itself out of the category of `failed states' — an appellation that was staring the nation in the face in the 1970s. Today, according to the Index, India has turned itself around and "is the world's largest democracy, with a competitive economy and representative political system."

In the 1960s, one remembers, the country was described as a `functioning chaos'; today it is less so, thanks mainly to the economic reforms which have unleashed the productive powers of the nation and its people.

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