Participative Management in India: Utopia or Snare?

Abstract

In India, the appeal of worker participation has derived from the utopian premises of the Indian develop ment model with its promise of rational planning and demo cratic processes. The former strengthened the directive role of the government while the latter served as the medium of interest-group mobilization and mediation. Whatever positive role one may attribute to these, in the absence of other structural changes they had, at best, negligible or un certain consequences in terms of favoring worker participa tion in management. One reason for this is that the cultural and economic distances between management and labor were great, with little to take the place of weakened tradi tional authority structures. The government scheme for worker participation, although beset by weaknesses, failed largely because the external environment was inhospitable, and one may expect this to continue into the foreseeable future. The Indian Emergency of 1975 signaled a dramatic change, with a more explicitly top-directed scheme. If made permanent, this would move Indian practice closer to that of the Communist countries, with an integrated structure of economic and industrial authority and provision for modest but subordinate labor inputs in the decision-making process.