Unit-1

Definition of political process

The process of the formulation and administration of public policy usually by interaction between social groups and political institutions or between political leadership and public opinion

Anything can be considered as part of the political process if it is a process through which governmental institutions interact with the people. To understand what this means, look at Greenberg and Page’s American Government textbook, The Struggle for Democracy. The book’s authors conceive of a three level system. The first level is the structural level, made up of things like our political culture, our demographics, our constitutional rules, and other such things.

Political Modernization

The political aspects of modernization refer to the ensemble of structural and cultural changes in the political system of modernizing societies. The political system comprises of all those activities, processes, institutions and beliefs concerned with the making and execution of authoritative policy and the pursuit and attainment of collective goals.

Political structure consists of the patterning and interrelationship of political roles and processes; political culture is the complex of prevailing attitudes, beliefs and values concerning the political system.The process of modernization refers to the changes in all institutional spheres of a society resulting from man's expanding knowledge of and control over his environment. Political modernization refers to those processes of differentiation of political structure and secularization of political culture which enhance the capacity – the effectiveness and efficiency of performance –of a society's political system.

The political framework of modernization is essentially rooted in the changing sources of legitimation of authority and process of its diffusion and centricity in the social structure. In a society having a traditional polity source of power is in the traditionally established and institutionalized offices of kings or chiefs. In such a system authority has a hierarchical character and not consensual. Democratic political framework radically alters such role structure with regard to power. Power ceases to have a closed hierarchical characters, the sphere of political action is broadened to the level of mass participation.

Basic features of political modernization

The old traditional authority structures –feudal or religious authorities close their importance. A single, secular and national political authority emerges and there is centralization of authority.

There is a growth of a network of differentiated and specialized political and bureaucratic institutions to meet the challenges of ever changing political system. There is increased differentiation and specialization of political and bureaucratic institutions. There is a growing involvement and participation of people in the modern political system. The main agents to bring about the process of modernization in the political system are: colonialism, elites, revolutionary leaders, political parties, military and bureaucracy. Major characteristics of political modernization

As the dominant empirical trend in the historic evolution of modern society, differentiation refers to the process of progressive separation and specialization of roles, institutional spheres and associations in the development of political systems.It includes such universals as social stratification and the separation of occupational roles from kinship and domestic life, the separation of an integrated system of universalistic legal norms from religion, the separation of religion and ideology and differentiation between administrative structure and public political competition. It implies greater functional specialization, structural complexity and interdependence and heightened effectiveness of political organization in both administrative and political spheres.

The second is the notion of equality as the central ethos and ethical imperative pervading the operative ideals of all aspects of modern life. Equality is the ethos of modernity; the quest for it and its realization are at the core of the politics of modernization. It includes the notion of universal adult citizenship, the prevalence of universalistic legal norms in the government's relation with the citizenry and the predominance of achievement criteria in recruitment and allocation to political and administrative roles. Even though these attributes of equality are only imperfectly realized in the modern politics, they continue to operate as the central standards and imperatives by which modernization is measured and political legitimacy established. Popular participation or involvement in the political system is a central theme in most definitions of political modernization.

The third characteristic is that of capacity as the constantly increasing adaptive and creative potentialities possessed by man for the manipulation of his environment. The acquisition of enhanced political administrative capacity is the third major feature of political modernization. It is characterized by an increase in scope of polity functions, in the scale of the political community, in the efficacy of the implementation of political and administrative decisions in the penetrative power of central governmental institutions and in the comprehensiveness of the aggregation of interests by political associations.

The political modernization process can be viewed as an interminable interplay among the process of differentiation, the imperatives and realizations of equality and the integrative, adaptive and creative capacity of a political system. Political modernization is the progressive acquisition of a consciously sought and qualitatively new and enhanced, political capacity as manifested in the effective institutionalization of new patterns of integration and penetration regulating and containing the tensions and conflicts produced by the processes of differentiation and of new patterns of participation and resource distribution adequately responsive to the demands generated by the imperatives of equality and the continuous flexibility to set and achieve new goals.

Perspectives on Political modernization

Political modernization can be viewed from historical, typological and evolutionary perspectives.

1.Historical political modernization:

It refers to the totality of changes in political structure and culture which characteristically have affected or have been affected by those major transformative processes of modernization like secularization, commercialization, industrialization etc which were first launched in Western Europe in the 16th century and which subsequently have spread, unevenly and incompletely throughout the world. Typological political modernization: It refers to the process of transmutation of a pre modern traditional polity into a post traditional modern polity.

Evolutionary political modernization: It refers to that open-ended increase in the capacity of political man to develop structures to cope with or resolve problems to absorb and adapt to continuous change and to strive purposively and creatively for the attainment of new societal goals. From the historical and typological perspectives political modernization is a process of development toward some image of modern polity.

2.Political Processes

Political institutions are social arrangements for making and enforcing laws, protecting the public health and welfare, distributing public funds and tax burdens conducting foreign affairs and deciding the issue of war and peace. Political institutions are the ultimate source of legitimate power in a social system whether the system is based upon the rule by the many or rule of the few.

Political institutions are concerned with the distribution of power in the society. Max Weber defined the state as a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. The state is one of the important agencies of social control whose functions are carried out by means of law backed ultimately by physical force.

Caste and Politics

The relationship between caste and politics in Indian society has been subject of intensive study for many years. Many sociologists including Andre Beteille, Rajni Kothari, and Anil Bhatt have highlighted various aspects. According to M.N Srinivas the role played by caste in politics is in close approximation to that of the pressure group.

The modernizing forces will however reduce the influence of caste over the politics. However Andre Beteille holds that while westernization is taking individual away from caste identity the role of caste in politics is taking the people towards the caste identity and thereby strengthening it.Rajni Kothari studied the nature of relationship between caste and politics. He has also examined the type of changes that have taken place in the political system as a result of the involvement of caste organization. Caste has three important indigenous elements -secular which refers to relevance of caste in politics in terms of the relations within and between castes. Integrative which refers to castes being relevant to politics through differentiation and integration and ideological which is heightened by its value structure. The analysis of Dominant Caste and political process by Anil Bhatt reveals the crucial role played by castes in politics and awareness of the lower castes of their political gains. He found that the higher caste groups had lower political interest and low castes higher political interests. Political awareness was high among the higher castes and was low among the lower castes. Lower castes by organizing themselves in pursuit of collective interest were able to emerge successfully.

The involvement of these castes organization in politics has changed their position in hierarchical pattern of Hindu society. Caste solidarity and political power helped them to achieve higher social, economic and political success. This was highlighted by the studies conducted by Rudolf and Rudolf. The same was highlighted by Andre Beteille's study of Tanjore district in Tamil Nadu.Caste has become one of the most formidable element of group formation within political parties in India. The patronage and pecuniary resources available to the political leaders enable them to create a coalition of factions on caste basis, whose leaders are bound to political elites in power in a complex network of personal obligational ties.

Each of these leaders had a group of followers tied to him in accordance with the same set of caste principles. The personnel of these castes factions may vary but whatever may be their social composition they demand and to a higher degree receive from their members full support. Political parties mobilize caste support in various ways. According to Andre Beteille two kinds of changes seem to be taking place in relation between caste and politics - power shifts from one dominant caste to another and the focus of power shifts from one caste itself to another on caste basis. He maintains that loyalties of castes are exploited in voting. New alliances cutting across castes are also formed. Rudolph is of the opinion that caste association has given caste a new vitality and democracy has enabled caste to play an important political role in India.

Caste federations are formed not of one caste but many. His further observation pointed out that caste enters the political process by making appeals to caste loyalties in a general way. Also by activating networks of inter-personal relation both during elections and at other times for mobilizing support along caste lines and by articulating caste interests in an organized manner.Beteille has also pointed that the political process has a dual effect on the caste system. To the extent that caste and sub-caste loyalties are consistently exploited, the traditional structure is strengthened and to the extent that it leads to new alliance cutting across caste, it loosens the traditional structure. Political parties utilize the support of caste for their functioning and seek their support in winning elections. Grass-root political arenas as well as political parties have always remained and continue to remain dominated by elites of castes which compete with each other to form caste coalitions of supporters strong enough to maximize control over local resources and enhance opportunities to become players in political system.

Karl Marx-MARXIST APPROACH

Karl Marx's (1818- 1883) thought was strongly influenced by :

 The dialectical method and historical orientation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel;

 The classical political economy of Adam Smith and David Ricardo;

 French socialist and sociological thought, in particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The most important concepts of Karl Marx

v The following concepts of Marx have aided sociological thought significantly;

v Dialectical Materialism

v Materialistic Interpretation of History i.e Historical Materialism

v Class and Class conflict

v Alienation

Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically and discern tendencies of history and the resulting outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx concluded, therefore, that a communist revolution is inevitable. However, Marx famously asserted in the eleventh of his Theses on Feuerbach that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it", and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world. Consequently, most followers of Marx are not fatalists, but activists who believe that revolutionaries must organize social change.

Marx's view of history, which came to be called the materialist conception of history (and which was developed further as the philosophy of dialectical materialism) is certainly influenced by Hegel's claim that reality (and history) should be viewed dialectically. Hegel believed that the direction of human history is characterized in the movement from the fragmentary toward the complete and the real (which was also a movement towards greater and greater rationality). Sometimes, Hegel explained, this progressive unfolding of the Absolute involves gradual, evolutionary accretion but at other times requires discontinuous, revolutionary leaps - episodal upheavals against the existing status quo. For example, Hegel strongly opposed the ancient institution of legal slavery that was practiced in the United States during his lifetime, and he envisioned a time when Christian nations would radically eliminate it from their civilization. While Marx accepted this broad conception of history, Hegel was an idealist, and Marx sought to rewrite dialectics in materialist terms. He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, and that it was necessary to set it upon its feet. (Hegel's philosophy remained and remains in direct opposition to Marxism on this key point.)

Marx's acceptance of this notion of materialist dialectics which rejected Hegel's idealism was greatly influenced by Ludwig Feuerbach. In The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach argued that God is really a creation of man and that the qualities people attribute to God are really qualities of humanity. Accordingly, Marx argued that it is the material world that is real and that our ideas of it are consequences, not causes, of the world. Thus, like Hegel and other philosophers, Marx distinguished between appearances and reality. But he did not believe that the material world hides from us the "real" world of the ideal; on the contrary, he thought that historically and socially specific ideologies prevented people from seeing the material conditions of their lives clearly.

The other important contribution to Marx's revision of Hegelianism was Engels' book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution.The notion of labour is fundamental in Marx's thought. Basically, Marx argued that it is human nature to transform nature, and he calls this process of transformation "labour" and the capacity to transform nature labour power. For Marx, this is a natural capacity for a physical activity, but it is intimately tied to the human mind and human imagination:A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. (Capital, Vol. I, Chap. 7, Pt. 1) Karl Marx inherits that Hegelian dialectic and, with it, a disdain for the notion of an underlying invariant human nature. Sometimes Marxists express their views by contrasting "nature" with "history". Sometimes they use the phrase "existence precedes consciousness". The point, in either case, is that who a person is, is determined by where and when he is - social context takes precedence over innate behavior; or, in other words, one of the main features of human nature is adaptability.

Marx did not believe that all people worked the same way, or that how one works is entirely personal and individual. Instead, he argued that work is a social activity and that the conditions and forms under and through which people work are socially determined and change over time. Marx's analysis of history is based on his distinction between the means / forces of production, literally those things, such as land, natural resources, and technology, that are necessary for the production of material goods, and the relations of production, in other words, the social and technical relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Together these comprise the mode of production;

Marx observed that within any given society the mode of production changes, and that European societies had progressed from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist mode of production. In general, Marx believed that the means of production change more rapidly than the relations of production (for example, we develop a new technology, such as the Internet, and only later do we develop laws to regulate that technology). For Marx this mismatch between (economic) base and (social) superstructure is a major source of social disruption and conflict. Marx understood the "social relations of production" to comprise not only relations among individuals, but between or among groups of people, or classes.

As a scientist and materialist, Marx did not understand classes as purely subjective (in other words, groups of people who consciously identified with one another). He sought to define classes in terms of objective criteria, such as their access to resources. For Marx, different classes have divergent interests, which is another source of social disruption and conflict. Conflict between social classes being something which is inherent in all human history:The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. (The Communist Manifesto, Chap. 1)

Marx was especially concerned with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour-power. Marx wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception. For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labour - one's capacity to transform the world - is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature; it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss in terms of commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behavior merely adapt. This disguises the fact that the exchange and circulation of commodities really are the product and reflection of social relationships among people. Under capitalism, social relationships of production, such as among workers or between workers and capitalists, are mediated through commodities, including labor, that are bought and sold on the market.

Commodity fetishism is an example of what Engels called false consciousness, which is closely related to the understanding of ideology. By ideology they meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which are presented as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels' point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). Thus, while such ideas may be false, they also reveal in coded form some truth about political relations. For example, although the belief that the things people produce are actually more productive than the people who produce them is literally absurd, it does reflect the fact (according to Marx and Engels) that people under capitalism are alienated from their own labour-power. Another example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding of religion, summed up in a passage from the preface to his 1843 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. Whereas his Gymnasium senior thesis argued that the primary social function of religion was to promote solidarity, here Marx sees the social function as a way of expressing and coping with social inequality, thereby maintaining the status quo. Marx argued that this alienation of human work (and resulting commodity fetishism) is precisely the defining feature of capitalism. Prior to capitalism, markets existed in Europe where producers and merchants bought and sold commodities.

According to Marx, a capitalist mode of production developed in Europe when labor itself became a commodity - when peasants became free to sell their own labor-power, and needed to do so because they no longer possessed their own land or tools necessary to produce. People sell their labor-power when they accept compensation in return for whatever work they do in a given period of time (in other words, they are not selling the product of their labor, but their capacity to work). In return for selling their labor power they receive money, which allows them to survive. Those who must sell their labor power to live are "proletarians." The person who buys the labor power, generally someone who does own the land and technology to produce, is a "capitalist" or "bourgeois." (Marx considered this an objective description of capitalism, distinct from any one of a variety of ideological claims of or about capitalism). The proletarians inevitably outnumber the capitalists.

Marx distinguished industrial capitalists from merchant capitalists. Merchants buy goods in one place and sell them in another; more precisely, they buy things in one market and sell them in another. Since the laws of supply and demand operate within given markets, there is often a difference between the price of a commodity in one market and another. Merchants, then, practice arbitrage, and hope to capture the difference between these two markets. According to Marx, capitalists, on the other hand, take advantage of the difference between the labor market and the market for whatever commodity is produced by the capitalist. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that this surplus value had its source in surplus labour.

The capitalist mode of production is capable of tremendous growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies. Marx considered the capitalist class to be the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly revolutionized the means of production. But Marx argued that capitalism was prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labor. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labor is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. When the rate of profit falls below a certain point, the result would be a recession or depression in which certain sectors of the economy would collapse. Marx understood that during such a crisis the price of labor would also fall, and eventually make possible the investment in new technologies and the growth of new sectors of the economy.

Marx believed that this cycle of growth, collapse, and growth would be punctuated by increasingly severe crises. Moreover, he believed that the long-term consequence of this process was necessarily the enrichment and empowerment of the capitalist class and the impoverishment of the proletariat. He believed that were the proletariat to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, and a system of production less vulnerable to periodic crises. In general, Marx thought that peaceful negotiation of this problem was impracticable, and that a massive, well-organized and violent revolution would in general be required, because the ruling class would not give up power without violence. He theorized that to establish the socialist system, a dictatorship of the proletariat - a period where the needs of the working-class, not of capital, will be the common deciding factor - must be created on a temporary basis. As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

In the 1920s and '30s, a group of dissident Marxists founded the Institute for Social Research in Germany, among them Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse. As a group, these authors are often called the Frankfurt School. Their work is known as Critical Theory, a type of Marxist philosophy and cultural criticism heavily influenced by Hegel, Freud, Nietzsche, and Max Weber.The Frankfurt School broke with earlier Marxists, including Lenin and Bolshevism in several key ways. First, writing at the time of the ascendance of Stalinism and Fascism, they had grave doubts as to the traditional Marxist concept of proletarian class consciousness. Second, unlike earlier Marxists, especially Lenin, they rejected economic determinism. While highly influential, their work has been criticized by both orthodox Marxists and some Marxists involved in political practice for divorcing Marxist theory from practical struggle and turning Marxism into a purely academic enterprise.Other influential non-Bolshevik Marxists at that time include Georg Lukacs, Walter Benjamin and Antonio Gramsci, who along with the Frankfurt School are often known by the term Western Marxism. Henryk Grossman, who elaborated the mathematical basis of Marx's 'law of capitalist breakdown', was another affiliate of the Frankfurt School. Also prominent during this period was the Polish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg.In 1949 Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman founded Monthly Review, a journal and press, to provide an outlet for Marxist thought in the United States independent of the Communist Party.In 1978, G. A. Cohen attempted to defend Marx's thought as a coherent and scientific theory of history by reconstructing it through the lens of analytic philosophy. This gave birth to Analytical Marxism, an academic movement which also included Jon Elster, Adam Przeworski and John Roemer. Bertell Ollman is another Anglophone champion of Marx within the academy.

LIBERALISM:-

MEANING:-

The word liberty is derived from the word liber which means ‘free’. We all want to be free and have as much freedom as possible. But what exactly to be free means or should mean. Should there be restrictions on freedom and what and how much? . What if the freedoms enjoyed by two people leads them to come into conflict. Such questions have been attracting thinkers from the earliest times. Almost all liberal thinkers commented on liberty but they all brought their own flavour to it and one can't assert that there is an exact uniform view. Also this is one concept on which the views have been more philosophical and ethical than either political or political-economic.

DEFINITIONS:-

Hobbes defined liberty as the ‘absence of external impediments, which impediments may oft take part of man’s power to do what he would do’2The German philosopher Hegel, liberty strangely was simply obedience to the law. John Stuart Mill, one of the most important thinkers in the liberal tradition, commented ‘the only freedom that deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it’3Later after the limits of liberal capitalism became apparent. Marxian and Socialist thinking emerged to interpret liberty as (1) liberation from the coercive social apparatus and institutions (which the working class faces), and (2) to establish an atmosphere in

which man could build a world according to the needs of humanity as opposed the needsof capital and capitalists who own the capital. Post the socialist critique of the liberal interpretations of liberty, the positive liberals in the early part of the twentieth century refined the old liberal notions.

Laski, for instance, defines liberty as the ‘absence of restraints upon the existence of those social conditions

which in modern civilization are a necessary guarantee of individual happiness’ And McPherson defined liberty as living life to the fullest. (Obviously he meant if you had all the freedom and liberty but not enough food or decent shelter and were worked like an animal or a machine all day, liberty would be a theoretical meaningless notion for you.)So at one stage of history, liberty merely was understood to be ‘absence of restraint’ in the free competition of men with being law being as ‘silent’ as possible and ‘state interference’ at its least. Soon it was realized after the experience of a century or so, that liberty needs to be ‘attained’ by all and can not merely be left to the lack of impediments. The state and social institutions need to actively help in that process of attainment it was left. So while the earlier concept of liberty which was in the nature of bar on the state was a sort of a ‘negative liberty’ the latter conception asking for the involvement of the

state and society in helping people get achieving liberty was ‘positive liberty’.

There are three problems or aspects that arise when analyzing or thinking about the

concept of liberty:

(i) the nature of liberty

(ii) the institutions to safeguard liberty and

(iii) hindrances to achieve liberty.

As far as the ‘nature of liberty’ is concerned the early Liberal thinkers were obsessed with individual liberty, may be because they were principally fighting against medieval orthodoxy, feudalism, ignorance, and a society based on privileges of kings and landed feudal lords. They were arguing that once man is freed from these chains, man will individually, each according to his preference, find his own individual happiness. All that was needed was rule of law and political rights, representative government with separation of powers and independence of the judiciary. Political parties were conceived and became the principal ‘institutions’ to safeguard liberty. It was realised it is not enough for the rights and freedoms to be granted but there was a need for institutions like political parties, parliament etc. But since the number of people who would unselfishly and honestly uphold liberty and who had the means to do so was extremely small due to the class divide in society, Socialist and Marxist ideas of liberty emerged which argued that ‘hindrances’ in the path of liberty are not only the absolute and dictatorial politica l institutions, the removal of which will provide liberty, but also much more deep rooted and difficult problems like poverty, hunger, ignorance, alienation, and economic inequality etc. (They also argued women, who were one-half the population of course have always been denied liberty.) They argued that a collective initiative was needed From humanity as a whole in which some people may even loose their individual liberties which liberalism considers as sacred. So the emphasis moved on from preventing the state or anybody else denying an individual living his life to asking what would the quality of that life be? .

Liberal thinking on liberty changed from negative liberty to positive liberty over acentury and a half, from Adam Smith to Hobhouse and Laski, from the notion of ‘silence of laws’ as liberty to ‘the presence of socio-economic conditions and political conditions ’to ensure true freedom.

The development of the initial concept of negative liberty happened over a century or so as a result of the contribution of thinkers like Adam Smith (1723-90), John Locke, David Hume, Thomas Paine, Herbert Spencer, Bentham and John Stuart Mill (1806-73). Later in the second half of the last century, mainly among some economists, advocating maximised free markets and free international trade, the early concepts of liberty made a come back. Thinkers like economists like F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman and Robert Nozic etc and Sir Isaiah Berlin, also sometimes referred to as neo-liberals, are the principal

Advocates of this latest trend in liberal thought.

The most eloquent of the early liberals who advocated what we now call Negative Liberalism was John Stuart Mill (1806-73) whose essay On Liberty (1859) went beyond mere liberty from the interference of the state. It also talked of liberty for the individual from the pressures of society, public opinion and social customs and conventions. Hereally saw liberty as the means to an end, the end being self-development. (This was also the concern of the classical Green thinkers like Socrates and Plato.) As long as an individual did not harm others or interfere with others interests he should be free to pursue his own development and interests the way he wanted or deemed good. So even if a person wanted to smoke, drink, gamble, take drugs, watch pornographic films all day and even decide to commit suicide, he should be free to do so because these are his personal individual decisions and he needs to have full liberty to pursue his own path of growth.

(It is safe to assume Mill would had no problem with many of the modern debates of the day like marriage between homosexuals or allowing full freedom for abortion or allowing euthanasia. He would have heartily supported all of them. Quite something for a man of that long ago clearly.)

Mill also of course, like other early liberals, extended his theme of personal liberty to the economic sphere to advocate what Adam Smith had advocated a hundred or so years back - that is the capitalist model of classical economics, which saw maximum economic benefit for all in allowing and promoting maximum economic licence and freedom for operations in trade and commerce. Mill was convinced social and political progress depended mainly on the originality and energy of the individual and his free choice and so every encouragement was needed for each person to assert himself in his own peculiar way. For this reason very interestingly he objected even to state provisions for education because he feared this may lead to brain-wash or to the moulding of each person like another. Most significantly for his times, he was even suspicious of democracy for he felt it could lead to the tyranny of the majority over the minority and wanted protection for the minority from the interference of a democratic state. He commented:

‘The notion, that the people have no need to limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic... such phrases as ‘self-government’ and ‘ the power of the people over themselves’, do not express the true state of the case. The ‘people’ who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the ‘self-government’ spoken of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people... precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power. The limitations, therefore, of the power of government over individuals loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community... and in political speculations ‘the tyranny of the majority’ is now generally included among the evils against which society is required to be on its guard’

(This was probably the earliest realisation by any thinker of the perils of oppressive rule by a majority that democracy clearly can lead to. This was also the reason one has to assume why Mohd. Ali Jinnah asked for the partition of India and the creation of a separate state of Pakistan at the time of the partition of India for he feared that without the presence of the British the Hindu majority would use it’s majority position to create a parliamentary tyranny against the Muslim minority. Also another example of a more personal liberty being violated would be the recent reports from some states where some universities have tried to impose a dress code on women students barring them from wearing jeans to college and have received the support of some elected representatives for the same as well. Clearly this would be a case of a minority of the population of girl students who want to wear jeans to college having to face a bar on their personal liberty with the support of democratically elected representatives who are by definition winners of majority support in a society. Similarly but morally at a different level perhaps would be the recent case of the issue of closure of Dance Bars in Mumbai where a minority of the people, those who work for dance bars and those visit them are seeing their personal liberties, the liberals of the Mill pattern of thinking would argue, being trampled upon and extinguished by the majority. One can look for and find numerous examples from our colourful and varied democracy even, where in however small a way, there is a tyranny of the majority.)

Apart from Mill in more recent times, the neo-liberals like Sir Isaiah Berlin, Cranston andMilton Friedman have gone back to many of the views of the early negative liberals. Sir Isaiah for instance has commented that ‘you lack political liberty or freedom only if you are prevented from attaining a goal by human beings’. He even said that if a man is free to purchase food or go on a world tour, but can not do so for lack of money, it his fault –he has the liberty but he himself is incapable of enjoying it. He comments:

‘If my poverty were a kind of disease, which prevented me from buying bread or paying for the journey, or getting my case heard, as lameness prevents me from running, this inability would not naturally be described as a lack of freedom, least of all politicalfreedom’7

He clearly distinguished between the presence of liberty and the socio-economic and political-economic conditions necessary for enjoying liberty. He says for instance:‘ Thus the distinction between freedom and the conditions for freedom is not a mere pedantic distinction, for if it is ignored, the meaning and value of freedom of choice is apt to be downgraded. In their zeal to create social and economic conditions in which alone freedom is of genuine value, men tend to forget freedom itself’So clearly, the main characteristics of the belief system of the liberals - the classic early

Negative liberals and the more recent neo-liberals also to some extent are the following:

1. All individuals are rational beings and know what his interests are.

2. Liberty is essentially negative – the absence of restraints.

3. The state or society can not interfere with an individuals liberty. The main

liberties, which are all personal essentially, the liberties of thought and discussion,

of association and assembly.

4. There is no conflict between personal interest and collective social interest for it is

by serving his own interests that an individual serves the social interest. Personal

liberty is a pre-condition of any social progress.

5. Those actions of individuals which influence or harm the society can be

controlled and stopped by the state through the use of laws and the justice system

but this interference should be the minimum.

6. There should be a constitutional guarantee against the state taking away personal

liberties through laws. Even people’s representatives sitting in parliamentary

democracy should not have the right to enact laws beyond a point that take away

an individual’s liberties. Democracy is not a sufficient guarantee of personal

liberties as it may lead to the tyranny of the majority over the minority.

7. There is a difference between liberty and necessary socio-economic conditions for

the realisation of liberty. Liberty may be against justice and equality. Free market

capitalism is the only system for organising economic activity, which ensures the

liberty of each individual and also optimises production and economic benefit in

any society.

The objection that one can have in accepting the above negative concept of liberty are of

three kinds:

1. Philosophical (One finds it hard to believe that man is either as isolated and individualistic or selfish or rational in choice as they assume. In fact most of us would argue that man is essentially a social animal. Man has lived in united and collective communities since time immemorial and has formulated social rules and customs for smooth functioning of societies. They have not been felt as a bar or restriction on free operation for character and personality development at all times and by all participants. There have been exceptions of course. And also of course the case of women and lower castes in the Indian context is totally different.)

2. Moral (Morally freedom to do as one wills or ‘free will’ can be quite difficult to digest at times. What if one man’s freedom is harming another and the man doing the harm cannot or fails to see that he is harming others. It can be argued moral norms exist not against freedom but they exist to ensure the right use of freedom.)

3. Economic (Free competition and markets as will be later discussed often only leads to the wild volatile gyrations or up and down in prices of commodities and services, leaving for the duration of those extremes in pricing the poor and the vulnerable without the availability of those essential commodities and services even those without which life is not possible and can cause starvation for instance.Also free markets over time it has been observed leads to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of those individuals and families who emerge the winners in the free market business competition that the early negative liberals and modern day neo-liberals advocate. What about others? . Should they be forgotten about? . What use is there to argue that the losers in the free competition or the poor have all the rights and they need only work their way up using those rights when clearly only a few at any given time can be the winners and all the rest must be the losers given the nature of the game. There can be only a few winners in any game and there is a winner only if there is a loser. This realization led to the development of

Socialist and Marxist thought and even to the new school of Liberal thinking that is called Positive Liberalism and is discussed below.)

After the Socialist and Marxist critique of the liberal view of the world the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and following the historic lacuna that capitalism in the classical liberal sense threw up in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century (which peaked in the Great Depression of 1929),

new positive concept of liberty emerged which as explained above is also referred to asPositive Liberalism. The foremost thinkers of this new school of liberal thought were

Green, Bosanquet, Barker and Laski. In more recent times McPherson, John Gray andJohn Rawls have also made noteworthy contributions. The positive concept of libertyemphasises the moral and social aspect of man and views liberty in relation to society,

socio-economic conditions for the realisation of liberty, law, morality, justice and

equality.

Liberty according to the positive liberals is a positive thing and is not merely the absence of restraint.The most influential of positive liberal thinking that emerged was that of H. J. Laski. He defined liberty as follows:

‘By liberty I mean the eager maintenance of that atmosphere in which men have the opportunity to be their best selves. Liberty, therefore, is a product of rights... Without rights there cannot be liberty, because without rights men are the subjects of law unrelated to the needs of personality. Liberty, therefore, is a positive thing. It does not merely mean absence of restraint’

.Taking the opposite view of John Stuart Mill, he declared ‘Liberty thus involves in its nature restraints, because the separate freedoms I use are not freedoms to destroy the freedoms of those with whom I live’10. While he believed that personal liberty cannot be enjoyed in isolation from society he did nevertheless maintain that liberty should not be left at the mercy of the State because ‘state action is action by government... Liberty, therefore, is never real unless the government can be called to account; and it should always be called to account when it invades rights’11

.Laski classified liberty into three kinds – private, political and economic. He saw all of them as essential for the development of the human personality. By private liberty he understood mainly the personal individual liberty, which he saw essentially as negative like the negative liberals. Political liberty he defined ‘means the power to be active in the affairs of the state. It means that I can let my mind play freely about the substance of public business’12. He saw the need for two conditions to prevail for political liberty to be real. One, education and the other, provision of an honest and straight forward supply of news. Economic liberty he defined as ‘the security and opportunity to find reasonable significance in the earning of one’s daily bread... I must be safeguarded against the wants of tomorrow’13. Thus he clearly sees political and economic liberty as meaningless without the necessary conditions being available for their realisation. The responsibility for creating these conditions Laski saw as principally a job of the government and hence

Laski supported positive intervention of the state. Laski therefore put down three positive conditions that are required for liberty to be achievable and to be meaningful:

1.The Absence of Special Privileges: No person, family or class or group od persons in a society can be granted special privileges according to Laski for liberty to be achieved. Special privileges he opined are incompatible with freedom and search for freedom is a characteristic of all humans alike. Thus liberty is possible only when equality is there.

2. The Presence of Rights: Liberty can only be enjoyed in the presence of rights. There cannot ‘be liberty where the rights of some depends upon the pleasure ofothers’14 and it is the duty of the state to maintain equal rights.

3. Responsible Government: The government must be responsible which means it is responsible for creating the socio-economic conditions and political conditions so that all can realise liberty and rights in actual practice. Or in other words the government should be a welfare state.(Later in 1929 Laski reacting mainly to the rise of fascism changed his views some what. He wrote in the send edition of his book A Grammar of Politics in 1929:‘In 1925, I thought that liberty could most usefully be regarded as more than a negative thing. I am now convinced that this was a mistake, and the old view of it as an absence of restraint can alone safeguard the personality of the citizens’ .In more recent times, the liberal thinker McPherson has forcefully argued for positive

liberty and has preferred to rename it developmental liberty even though he has arguedthere is no division between negative and positive liberty. Not accepting the logic for theclassification or division of liberties he has argued negative liberty is the absence of anyextractive power and it is counter-extractive liberty. Counter-extractive liberty meaningthat in which there is no exploiting force in the society and it is a precondition todevelopmental liberty. McPherson defined liberty to mean availability of life (or life’sbasics) and labour (or employment) to each member of society. He suggested thatcapitalist mode of production, based on private property, should be replaced by someother system. Liberty cannot merely be the negative liberty he argued because the libertyof one individual (to trade and engage in accumulation of wealth through business forinstance without any limit or bar of the state) can destroy the liberty of another individual(the worker for instance who becomes like a slave to his owner employer after sometime). He comments since ‘each individual’s liberty must diminish or destroy another’s,the only sensible way to measure individual liberty is to measure the aggregate net libertyof all the individuals in a given society’15. By focussing on total liberty of all in a society

McPherson is giving importance to the social dimensions of liberty.John Gray put the same thoughts more clearly:‘The political content of the positive view of liberty is that if certain resources oramenities are needed for self-realisation to be effectively achievable, then having theseresources must be considered a part of freedom itself’16(It is the content of the above thoughts of the positive liberals starting with Laski’s in theearly part of the twentieth century that led to the gradual development of the concept ofwelfare state as freedom enhancing or establishing institutions particularly after the

Keynesian revolution in Economics. In India too, what is referred to as ‘NehruvianSocialism’ - for the welfare state that Nehru launched after independence from the British- had its roots in this school of thought.)

Liberty – The Two Concepts

NEGATIVE LIBERTY POSITIVE LIBERTY

1. Focuses on the personal aspect of man’s

liberty and regards it as inherent to the personality of an individual.

1. Looks upon it in totality in the socio-economic and political conditions of society.. Sees liberty mainly as absence of restraints.

2. Emphasizes the essential availability of positive conditions for meaningful realisation of liberty by individuals in society.

3. Sees the state as an enemy of personal liberty Sees the state as the essential responsible agency for creating socio-economic and other conditions, which will ensure the realisation of liberty.

4 Emphasizes the personal philosophical and political aspects of liberty.

5. Emphasizes the social and economic aspects of liberty.

6. Does not wish to associate concepts of rights, equality, morality and justice with the concept of liberty.

7. Regards liberty, justice and equality as mutually related and different aspects of one and the same thing. Wants the state to be minimised and as tiny as possible.

8. Wants a welfare state that will actively intervene to create adequate socio-economic and political conditions for a meaningful realisation of liberty.

9. Believer in the concept of each man for himself. Free competition between freemen that will maximise utility for society as a whole with no special allowance or care shown for those left behind or the losers of the free competition.

10. Believer that man is a social animal and hence collective effort for collective benefit via the welfare state is the way forward if necessary by denying the absolute right to private property. (The Socialist also supported this view.)

It has already been explained how and in what circumstances the rise of radical Socialist and Marxist thought happened as a reaction to early negative liberal thinking just as that classical negative liberal thinking had emerged in reaction to the feudal-monarchical mercantilist order that preceded the rise of liberalism. The early liberals were supporters of free market capitalism that by the middle of the nineteenth century had begun to show its limitations. While there was great development new industry and technology led manufacturing and great wealth as a consequence for some individuals and families, there was also emerging oppression, exploitation, unemployment and starvation and liberty it was clear was while being available in theory was not available in practice for the vast majority.

The Socialists (as indeed the later positive liberals) were unwilling to accept the absolute nature of the right to property and property accumulation that the Negative Liberals advocated. They argued that liberty has no meaning if you did not have the basics – food, clothing and shelter. And that free market capitalism eventually leads to the real (as opposed to theoretical) undermining of liberties in this sense because a vast majority loose or don’t have the basics. Further that there needs to be central planning and intervention in the economy and government ownership of productive resources, either fully or substantially, for the creation of conditions that will aid the realisation of liberties.

Marxian Socialism went further and suggested the complete abolition of private property or any productive resource (not the most fundamental basics like personal belongings etc). Karl Marx (1818-1883), the most influential socialist thinker in history, went so far as to predict that on its own a point is reached in a capitalist free market economy where the majority of the population, the working class, rise in revolt at their plight of exploitation and misery at the hands of the upper classes and owning classes, and overthrow their rule to establish the rule of the ‘proletariat’. Marx carried out an incisive analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the sort of capitalism that prevailed in his day in the middle of the nineteenth century and argued that all commodity value is determined by labour content – direct and indirect in the form of capital equipment like machinery. For example, the value of a shirt comes from the efforts of the textile workers who put it together, plus the efforts of the workers who made the looms. By implying that the value of the output is really the value of the labour ultimately, Marx showed in a mathematically argued theory that the part of the output that is produced by workers but received by capitalists amounts to “unearned income” which Marx saw as an injustice. He also argued that technological advances enable capitalists to replace workers with machinery as a means of earning greater profits, but this increasing accumulation of capital has two contradictory consequences. As the supply of available capital increases, the rate of profit on capital falls but at the same time, with fewer jobs, the unemployment rate rises, and wages fall. Marx’s predicted the “reserve army of the unemployed” would grow, and the working class would grow progressively alienated from their jobs because working conditions would deteriorate. So he concluded this unbalanced growth could not continue forever. He predicted that there would be an ever increasing economic inequality which would lead to the gradual emergence of class consciousness among the downtrodden proletariat. Business cycles would become ever more volatile as mass poverty resulted in macroeconomic under consumption. Finally a cataclysmic depression would sound the death knell of capitalism .Just as happened with feudalism before it, capitalism would contain the seeds of its own destruction.

(The Great Depression of the 1920s in the western world, particularly in America, and the overthrow of the Russian Czar and the Russian Revolution were the high points of Marx’s predictive model coming true - it has to be accepted. But then Positive Liberal thinking arrived on the scene and under the leadership of economists like J.M. Keynes massive reforms were carried out to the capitalist model, and capitalism the 1920s and1930s onwards, wasn’t the same as that of the nineteenth century. Massive investments and interventions were undertaken by the state in the economy (by creating massive productive resources in the public sector) and the business environment and concepts like‘ minimum wage’ and maximum working hours introduced for workers under President F.D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) rule, for instance, in America. All measures that now a days would be promptly dubbed “leftist” and hence somewhat suspect under the neo-liberal influenced and dominated economic and social policy environment that we live in.)

He felt deeply for the animal like plight of the working class at the receiving end of boththe business owning employers (capitalist class) and the state and state institutions, whowere usually under the influence of the capitalist owners. This led him to give a call forthe overthrow of the capitalist class in the Communist Manifesto (1848) saying: ‘Let theruling classes tremble at Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains’. His also penned the following words that appear on his gravestone:‘ Up till now philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point ,though, is to change it’.

Marx was the first major thinker to carry out an entirely economic interpretation of history and he was probably the first to focus on how economic interests mainly lie behind and determine our values. He would argue for instance, why do business executives and owners support parties that want to focus on economic reforms that will help them expand business and profits whereas labour leaders support parties that advocate putting in place and raising if necessary minimum wages or introducing unemployment benefits and legislative acts for employment guarantee. Marx was convinced principally people’s beliefs and ideologies reflect the material interests of their social and economic class.

The Marxian concept of Liberty is based on the Marxist concept of freedom. Marx and Engel argues that in a capitalist bourgeois society Liberty comes to have no real meaning ultimately for the vast majority. And this majority eventually gets alienated from society. Since this vast working class gets dehumanised and loses the objective of living for self-development because of poverty and exploitation and social injustice, there is no question of the development of moral and social personality using legal and constitutional guarantees of liberty. Marx argued in a constitutional capitalist democracy there might be all the liberties available legally but in such a society neither the rich man is free nor the poor man. The rich man is the slave, rather than the master, of the wealth that he owns and the poor man is the slave of his unmet material needs. Man is not an isolated being but is defined in relation to the society he lives in for man is a social animal. Marx defined liberty to mean freedom he did not regard mere absence of restraint as freedom. Nor did he agree that personal and political freedoms are the highest ideals and other freedoms are based on these. He linked freedom to the essence and purpose of man. Marxist thinkers Huberman and Paul Sweezy explain this as follows:

‘Freedom means living life to the fullest – the economic ability to satisfy the needs of the body in regard to adequate food, clothing and shelter, plus effective opportunity to cultivate the mind, develop one’s personality, and assert one’s individuality’. Rejecting the liberal individualist position, that says man seeks maximised happiness and pleasure(in the absolute sense), and that therefore is the priority, Marxism rejects ‘all attempts to seek man’s purpose outside of social relations in the realm of abstract ideals, the sphere of the instincts, or that of individual psychology, in activity directed to the satisfaction of selfish interests, not to mention attempts to find it outside the world of real things...Man’s purpose in the Marxian view is creative activity directed towards improved well-being and the achievement of free all round development for society and all its members’. Or in other words, man’s purpose is not merely his own well-being or self-interest than it will be contrary to his essence. Man cannot separate his happiness and development from social happiness and development. Marx advocated a ‘revolutionary’ and conscious effort at overthrowing oppressive systems and creating new systems which will be in tune with the socialist concept of humanism. According to the Marxist view ‘a life devoted to the joy of others, their happiness, freedom, equality and welfare, for the triumph of genuinely human relations, conscious struggle for a new social order, for socialism and communism’18 - that is what constitutes the meaning of life and real happiness.

The best thinkers in the liberal tradition have taken the position as Rousseau took that‘ man is born free’. Marx argued man is not independent from natural and social laws as immediately after his birth, he becomes the slave of natural forces like hunger, weather, illness, etc. One of the most important facets of the Marxian approach to liberty and freedom is its analysis from the class point of view. If the Liberal view of freedom is accepted, Marxists would argue, what it means or comes to mean eventually is that freedom for the owners of property will mean freedom to own private property without restrictions (without urban land ceiling laws for instance to illustrate with the help of an example we urban Indians are familiar with), of earning profit from employing property without restrictions(like taxes for instance), of employing someone or removing him (with the least labour laws or none at all) etc etc. On the other hand, Marxists argued, for the property-less it can only mean in effect or in reality the freedom to starve, to be laid off from one’s job when the employer doesn’t need him anymore or if he doesn’t like him for any reason, working conditions and salary terms that are bad and exploitative but which must be accepted because that is what the contract with the employer stipulates (full freedom of contract is of the essence of liberal constitutional democracy) and there are no other jobs available to earn one’s living and avoid starvation etc etc. So Marxists argue, in a class-divided society freedom will be meaningless for working people. For them freedom means emancipation from exploitation, starvation, poverty, excessive hours of work, social insecurity, etc and hence for him freedom can only mean the struggle for the establishment of a class less society which is only attainable via a socialist revolution.

To summarise the main points of the Marxist view on freedom and liberty:

1. The issue of liberty is associated with humanism and can only be considered with due consideration to it.

2. The essence of man is in his social relations, the sum total of it. In a class-divided society based on private property, man is alienated eventually and his existence contradicts his essence and hence in that case the question of his freedom can notarise.

3. Freedom means the availability of conditions for the multi-dimensional development of man as a social being which alone leads to self-fulfilment and self-realisation.

4. There cannot be free will ultimately as man’s free will is subject to the objective laws of nature and society (material want) which exist independently of human will.

5. Man can achieve freedom by developing scientific understanding of these objective laws.

6. Once scientific understanding is attained, there should be revolutionary social activity on that basis to change society because without changing society and nature, freedom is not possible.

7. In a class-divided society the freedom of owners of property is built upon the un-

freedom of the property-less. So freedom in such a society is class determined.

8. Freedom is only possible in a classless society and because in only such a society man gets the socio-economic conditions for the free development of his personality.

9. The struggle for a socialist revolution is thus justified and is really a struggle for freedom.

Liberty – The Liberal VS. The Marxist View Negative Liberalism is based on the philosophical concept of free will and believes free will being the absolute ideal there should be no social or political restrictions on individuals. Positive Liberalism also believes in the absolute validity of individual free will but advocates state creation of some soci0-economic conditions to make free will meaningful.

Marxism believes there can not be free will because the laws of nature and society restrict fee will and make it meaningless. But Marxism maintains that by understanding the scientific laws of nature and society and by working to counter them, one can make gradual progress towards greater freedom and free will.

The principal purpose of man is to serve his own selfish ends and to seek happiness in his own way and society is an artificial invention that exists to serve individual ends. Man needs liberty for personal development and the fundamental character of liberty is personal and not social. Marxism suggests there can be a contradiction between man’s essence and his existence. Man’s essence is the sutotal of his social relations and in a capitalist society because of alienation the essence of man does not correspond with his existence and he gets dehumanised.

Negative Liberalism regards the State as an enemy of individual freedom but considers it necessary only for the purpose of maintaining security and law and order or, governance. Positive Liberalism wants the

Marx believes both the State and Class divisions in a society need to disappear for a free society to be established.state to enlarge and grow as big as necessary to create socio-economic conditions for the meaningful realisation of individual liberty. Liberalism is focused on the political aspects of liberty even though Positive Liberalism does regard it also necessary that adequate socio-economic conditions be created.

Marxism and socialism regards all the other liberties to be based upon economic liberty in a true sense for all and believes till economic exploitation is eliminated no liberties can be realised. Marxism goes further and advocates the abolition of all private individual means of production and the state to take over.

Liberalism talks about freedom in abstract philosophical terms linking it to the philosophical concepts of free will and free soul of atomised individuals, and maintains personal freedom can be restricted by society, social organisations and institutions. So the less of these the better.

Socialism and Marxism views freedom in relation to social, economic and historical circumstances.

Liberals have no problems with society being divided along class lines and believe freedom and liberty can be provided to all classes, both rich and poor. Freedom according to Liberalism basically means free choice. They believe all classes and individuals can co-exist harmoniously in what they call an ‘open society’.

Marxism regards class struggle as fundamental and maintains in a class-divided society, a class struggle will always eventually inevitably break out since freedom is basically only available to the business owners of means of production and the working class is usually exploited. So only in class less free society is freedom for all possible since a wolf and sheep cannot live side by side. The struggle for the establishment of a class less free society is therefore a freedom struggle and is referred to as a ‘socialist revolution’ by them.

Liberals are divided on the issue of negative and positive freedom. Classical early liberals and present day neo liberals, both support basically the idea of a negative concept of liberty and freedom. But the revisionist liberals of the early 20thcentury like Laski called for a positive concept of liberty. Positive Liberals don’t specify the exact conditions necessary for achieving liberty but want the ‘democratic state’ to take upon itself this task.

Socialism and Marxism also support the positive concept of freedom but unlike Positive Liberalism defines the exact conditions necessary. Marxism for instance defines an exact “scientific way” way to achieve liberty and specifies abolition of private means of production, equality, socialist revolution and material development as the means to that end.

UNIT-2-CASTE POLITICS

Relationship between Caste and Politics in India

Introduction:-The relationship between caste and politics has been analysed at two levels: one, how caste affects politics, and two, how politics affects caste. We will first take up the relationship in terms of awareness of castes in politics.

The interest and awareness of various castes in politics may be studied in terms of four factors: interest of castes in politics, political knowledge and political awareness of castes, identification of castes with political parties, and influence of castes on political affairs. These four aspects were studied by Anil Bhatt in the 1970s by studying 1,713 persons of high, middle, and low castes with different backgrounds in four states (Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh).

Analysing the political interest by taking all castes together, he found that about 25 per cent castes had high interest in politics, 45 per cent had moderate interest, and 30 per cent had no interest at all. With regard to the awareness of political changes and major political problems in the country, he found that higher castes had more interest than the middle and the lower castes. He did not find any relationship between caste status and identification with political parties. Lastly, he found that some high castes are politically influential while middle and low castes dominate only in few villages.

The Relationship between caste and politics:

Rajni Kothari (1970) examined the relationship between caste and politics by analysing the issue as to what happens to political system because of the vote of castes. He found that three factors—education, government patronage, and slowly expanding franchise (including 18-21 year old young persons in electorate)—have penetrated the caste system because of which it (caste system) has come to affect democratic politics in the country. Economic opportunity, administrative patronage, and positions of power offered by the new institutions and the new leadership drew castes into politics.

The Effects (of castes in politics) resulted in two things:

The caste system made available to the leadership the structural and the ideological basis for political mobilisation, and two, leadership was forced to make concessions to local opinion and organise castes for economic and political purposes.

The use of caste in politics was analysed by Rajni Kothari (1970) in two different stages. The first stage involved intellectuals, and antagonism and resentment between high entrenched castes (like Reddi in Andhra Pradesh, Pattidars in Gujarat, Lingayats in Karnataka, Bhumihars in Bihar, and Rajputs in Rajasthan) and high ascendant castes (like Kayastha in Bihar, Jats in Rajasthan).

The second stage involved factionalism and fragmentation within the competing (entrenched and ascendant) castes as a result of which multi-caste and multi-factional alignments develop. The lower castes also are brought in to support high caste leaders and to strengthen a faction.

In the first stage, only three components of caste are involved—the power structure of caste, distribution of economic benefits, and caste consciousness. But in the second stage, other components of castes like caste consciousness, client loyalties etc. also come to be involved. Further, three sub-stages are pointed out by Kothari in the first stage. In the first sub-stage, the struggle for power and benefits is at first limited to the entrenched castes, i.e., those which exercised preponderant influence economically and politically but not necessarily numerically. In the second sub-stage, ascendant castes (i.e., unsatisfied castes wanting higher roles) also start competing for power.

n the third sub-stage, there is not only competition between entrenched and ascendant castes (for power and benefits) but also within these castes. In the second stage, called as the stage of caste fragmentation or factionalism, the leadership cleavages are created and multi-caste and multi-factional alignments come into being. This also creates the problem of rival caste leaders in politics. These leaders come to involve masses too because they (leaders) want to appeal to wider identities. There is also change in leadership in this stage.

Kothari has talked of the third stage also in relationship between caste and politics. While in the first stage, ‘entrenched’ high castes are first politicised and ‘ascendant’ high castes respond with resentment and feeling? of relative deprivation (e.g., entrenched caste of Brahmins and ascendant caste of Marathas in Maharashtra) and in the second stage factions emerge within the competing (entrenched and ascendant) castes and lower castes are also brought in for support, in the third stage, identifications other than those of caste are likely to become more important with advancing education, urbanisation and adoption of modern achievement orientation. There, thus, emerge cross-cutting alliances.

The process of fusion of castes is illustrated by the DMK in Tamil Nadu and Republican Party (consisting of Mahars and other untouchable castes) in Maharashtra. The former party is politically powerful but the latter party has not yet wielded much political power.

In panchayats at the village level these days, elections are often contested on cross-cutting votes. Large landless castes now have the power of voting strength; so they challenge the traditionally dominant caste which has power derived from land control. Dominant castes as well as ascendant (higher) castes are usually tied in with the important political parties of the region and upward mobility through the political party organisation takes place. Thus, today on the one side caste ceases to be an exclusive political support-base and on the other it greatly affects politics.

Kothari draws four conclusions from the present relationship between caste and politics:

(1) New elite structure has emerged in politics which is drawn from different castes but shares a common secular outlook and is homogeneous in terms of some values.

(2) Castes have assumed new organisational form Thus (i) caste associations are now functioning at various levels (universities, hostels, clubs, government offices, and so forth; (ii) caste conferences have become broad-based; and (iii) caste federations have emerged.

(3) Castes have started functioning on factional basis. These factions divide not only political groups but also social groups.

(4) The caste identifications have given a new relevance to the electorate system. It is not only the large castes which affect politics but also the smaller castes which have become important in seeking votes.

UNIT-4 CHAP.3-Caste and Voting Behaviour:

Voting provides an opportunity to castes to assert their influence. Scholars like Rajni Kothari (1970), Lindzey Gardner, Miller (1950), Key (1955), Campbell (1960), and Norman Palmer (1976) have referred to caste as a voting determinant. Just as in Britain, voting is class-determinant, in United States, it is race-determinant, in India it is caste-determinant. For those castes which are at the bottom of the hierarchy, voting right serves as a powerful activity. The lower the social and economic status of a caste, the higher the importance of the vote.

Several studies like those of Kothari, Mayer, Verma and Bhambhri, Ramashray Roy, Cohn, etc., have shown that castes exert influence and have gained a bargaining power because of their voting strength. Andre Beteille (see Kothari, 1970:291) has also said that loyalties of caste are exploited in voting.

New alliances cutting across caste are also formed. Rudolph is of the opinion that caste association has given caste a new vitality and democracy has enabled caste to play an important political role in India. D.L. Seth (Economic and Political Weekly, January 1970:147) conducted a study in 1967 in which he interviewed 2,287 persons from different constituencies of India and found that among various factors, voting behaviour was determined on the advice of caste leaders only in 1 per cent cases, by family in 46 per cent cases and by voters’ own decision in 49 per cent cases.

In 4 per cent cases, the determinant could not be traced. Another study conducted among 1,000 voters in Puna in the same year (1967) revealed that caste affected voting in 58 per cent cases. In the last three Lok Sabha elections (1996, 1998 and September 1999) as well as in the Vidhan Sabha elections in four states in December 1998, caste was found to be an important factor in voting. Harold Gould (Economic and Political Weekly, August 1977), however, is of the opinion that caste has ceased to be a determinant of politics in India.

Political Elite, Political Parties and Caste Mobilisation:

Caste has become a determinant factor of ‘political elite’ status. Studies conducted on political elite by scholars like Sirsikar, Sachchidananda, Ram Ahuja, S.K. Lai, etc., have all pointed out that in the emergence of elite, higher castes have an extraordinary advantage over the middle and the lower castes. Before independence, generally the upper caste groups occupied the centre of the political stage in the Congress party engaged in the freedom struggle but after independence, individuals from the middle and the lower castes also entered political power field.

The reservation policy enabled individuals from the lower castes to emerge as leaders, while elite from the middle castes emerged due to their improved educational and socio-economic status. Thus, caste system which had only ritualistic function (including determining occupation and social status) assumed the new role of regulating political behaviour of the people.

In villages also, caste has assumed great significance in emerging power structure. In offices, universities, secretariats, etc. we hear of Jain lobby, Rajput lobby, Brahmin lobby, Yadav lobby, Kayasth lobby, Reddy lobby, etc. If activists operate as casteist in social and occupational life, how can they think in terms of operating as non-casteist in political life? Our political elite, thus, may talk of secularism and denounce caste and casteist politics but in practice they function under the pressure of caste, since their own emergence as leaders has a caste background.

Political parties also mobilise caste support. In fact, the problems of mobilisation of masses today (1999) are the same as they were four decades ago. Just as in the 1930s and the 1940s social reformers believed that without the enlightment of masses, their organisation for political activity was not possible, similarly today also politicians try to get support from the caste leaders and at the same time drive home to them the utility of political means in achieving their goals.

Some scholars have studied mobilisation of castes by the political parties in different states in the last three or four decades. For example, Richard Sission analysed the development of Congress party in one district (Na- gaur) in Rajasthan in the 1960s in terms of the caste support; Ramashray Roy studied recruitment to a political party on caste basis in Bihar in the 1960s; Andre Beteille (see Kothari, 1973: 259- 297) studied shift in the power of political parties through the caste system in Tamil Nadu in the 1970s; Anil Bhatt studied political mobilisation of castes in Gujarat, Donald Rosenthal in two cities (Agra in Uttar Pradesh and Poona in Maharashtra in 1963- 64), and Harold Gould in Uttar Pradesh in 1990. All these studies showed that political parties mobilise castes for their functioning and seek their support in winning elections.

The Use of Caste in Politics:

How do people perceive the use of caste in politics? We can classify people in three groups on the basis of their perceptions: one, who lament this role and think that politics should be free of caste and casteism; second, who think that political relationships have no independent capacity to influence social relationships; lastly, who claim the autonomy of either caste or politics or both.

As regards the first view, Rajni Kothari does not agree with it. He says that politics is the acquisition of power for the realisation of certain goals and power is acquired by consolidating positions through mobilising the group (caste) support.

Since in India social system is organised around caste structure, therefore, caste and politics can never be separated. Thus, casteism in politics is nothing but politicisation of caste. As regards the second view, politics is seen as an instrument to consolidate or raise its position. As such, politics does not affect the structure of society. Kothari has criticised this view also. He says, there is always mutual effect of caste and politics on each other. As regards the third view, this includes progressive economists, indologists and political and social anthropologists.

They want to protect caste and free caste from politics and politics from caste. Kothari has criticised this view too, holding that all these scholars have failed to see that there never was a complete polarisation between the caste system and the political system. A.R. Desai, K.M. Kapadia, G.S. Ghurye also held the same view. Politics has used caste and will continue to use it for socio-political purposes.

UNIT-3- RELIGION-POLITICS

Introduction:-

In the Indian way of life religion plays an important role and the basis of our day-to-day life is religion. Political leaders right from the beginning felt that if there is any possibility of retaining unity in India, it should be by remaining secular. That is why Gandhiji had been preaching brotherhood among the different religious groups. Nehru was a strong supporter of secularism. Their efforts could not divorce religion from politics rather in politics the vested interests started exploiting caste and religion for gaining political advantage.

Historical causes:-

With the passage of time India was divided into Pakistan and Bharat only because two nations theory was accepted by the Britishers. Even after Independence, the religious fervor could not be finished because the trail of the memories of the partition haunted the minds of the people, Still India managed to keep the communal forces under check. But the opposition parties exploit religion and theocratic States established in Pakistan and Iran encouraged fundamentalism all over the world. Recently in Punjab religion and politics are so closely interwoven that it has become difficult to separate them.

Political causes:-

Religious places are used for political propaganda and the religious sentiments of the people are excited in order to gain political control of the State. This emergence of religion-political party has threatened the secular character of India. It is feared that if it succeeds there is a possibility that many other political parties with caste and religion as the basis may come up.

Mixing of religion with politics is a dangerous trend because religious attitude is diametrically opposed to democratic feelings. Religion encourages fanaticism and suspends our reasoning power and we repose full faith in leaders. We are prepared to make sacrifice because sacrifice will be considered martyrdom. This mental attitude is directly opposed to democratic spirit. Democracy demands open mindedness, universal brotherhood and thinking based upon reason and capable of taking its own decision. In such cases, there is no herd tendency and the person is liberal in outlook.

Territorial causes:-

If religious forces are allowed to become powerful there will be disintegration of the nation and sovereignty of the State will be in danger. There are a large number of religions, castes and sub- castes in India, and unfortunately some of them are opposed to one another as far as their practices are concerned. Under such circumstances, there is no possibility of keeping them together if once there is fragmentation.

Social causes:-

Religion is a private affair and if it is allowed to appear in public affairs it will corrupt politics. All the crimes committed in the name of religion in the past as well as in the present one cannot forget. A large number of people have been put to death in Iran only because they do not follow the Islamic religion up to the last Point. So religion makes a a man blind and it will never encourage opposition.

Conclusion:-

So if we want to consolidate democracy give firm foundations to it and make its working successful, it is necessary that the people should keep religion apart from politics. It is wrong to think that with the help of laws it is possible to divorce religion from politics. Till the attitude of the people is changed, and till they rise above the petty considerations it is not possible to keep religion and politics apart. By keeping them independent of each other, we can retain democratic set-up.

Unit-4-The Indian model of politics

In the first 20 years of independence out of the twin facts of a highly diverse social structure and its territorial spread, on the one hand, and the need to provide a framework of consensus and integration to carry out the major tasks facing the country, on the other. The model had two interrelated aspects: a structure of government which allowed for an authoritative exercise of power and implementation of key decisions across the country, and a wide and diffuse sharing of power at various levels which legitimized such a structure of authority and made it responsive to the diverse needs and demands of the population.

It was a framework of integration based on a structure of participation—within the Congress Party, through a wide continuum of shades of interest and opinion and periodic turnover of elites in it, between such a continuum within the Congress and a large spectrum of opposition groups and other organized groups at regional and local levels outside the Congress, between centralized organs of planning and decision-making and a dispersed and voluntaristic structure of socio-economic and regional groups, and between a pyramidal framework of officialdom and a horizontal framework of political middlemen.

The “system” that emerged out of such a structure of participation was one in which, while the Congress Party retained a major share of power and authority, it continued to enjoy widespread acceptance and legitimacy thanks largely to its remarkable capacity to share power within its own wide-open and pluralist framework and with other parties and groups at regional and local levels, as well as in parliamentary bodies, various committees, and other organs of decision-making where opposition parties and leaders were given not only due regard but often a position that was out of proportion to their numerical strength. The “power game” was thus played in a way that was seen to be fair despite its unevenness and inherent inequality.

This was, by any standard, a highly complex and sophisticated operation. But it worked and worked rather well for almost two decades, A good part of it was based on unwritten conventions and modus operandi.And central to its success was one key factor: the ability of the operators of the system to understand its logic and their willingness to play it out.

Over the last few years, this understanding seems to have been lacking on all sides of the political spectrum, with the result that the fine balance on which the system rested has been upset, and the game of power is being increasingly played without regard for its rules. If the end of the Emergency is also to mean an end of the crisis that gave rise to it, it is necessary for all sides to show the understanding and perception that are so essential to the efficient functioning of the system.

Thus it is necessary not just to end the culture of confrontation and restore a framework of consensus based on acceptance of the rules of the game, but also to play it in a manner that provides due scope for participation to various elements in the system. The two aspects are intimately inter-related.

In doing this, it is necessary to grasp that the key to both the framework of consensus and the structure of participation, through which such consensus is to be made meaningful, is the federal axis of the political system. The federal axis is to be viewed as not just a vertical chain of government but also a continuum of power in which different parties and factions and groups can participate, It is necessary to allow power to be enjoyed at the state and local levels by parties or coalitions of parties other than the Congress Party where they come to power through the normal process of electoral choice.

There is really no threat to the Congress Party at the national level for a long time to come; it will also continue to be in power in a majority of states. But if it does not get into power in one or more states, local bodies, cooperatives, and so forth, this should not be lamented but welcomed. It is precisely through such a sharing of power that various parties and groups can find a stake in the system and their frustration and extremism can be overcome. The tendency to snatch power from other parties even where they have a legitimate claim to it by toppling them by any means must be put to an end through a conscious exercise of restraint and moderation.

The “federal axis” does not stop at the level of the state; it involves decentralization at lower levels of the polity as well. Here again we have had a setback. The Indian political model had laid special stress on decentralization, both through the structure of the Congress organization and through institutions of local self-government. In the last few years, both these structures have lost their position, thanks in part to the overall trend towards centralization which has made the holders of power at local levels feel insecure and impelled to either take their cue from higher levels or simply give up functioning, but also in part due to direct encroachment on local party and government units by state politicians and bureaucrats.

It is necessary to revive these local bodies, devolve on them adequate functions, powers, and resources, and involve them in major tasks of economic reconstruction and nation building. A large part of the economic agenda before the country, from increased food production to the creation of employment opportunities to special programs for the weaker sections of society, has to be carried out in rural areas. Our earlier experience with community development has shown that this cannot be achieved through the administrative structure alone and will necessitate the involvement of the people and their representatives. Such a strategy of participation should be institutionalized by developing a multi-tier structure of political functioning. The necessary reforms in territorial, administrative, and representational systems for this purpose should also be carried out.

We have had many ups and downs and considerable experience on the interplay between democracy and development, and by now it is conclusively clear that federalism and democratic decentralization are crucial to reviving our pluralist form of government, which alone provides the basis for both national integration and economic performance. It is impossible to rule this vast and enormously diverse country from New Delhi. The sooner we realize this the better for everyone—including the wielders of power in New Delhi.

It is to these twin tasks of removing the climate of confrontation and restoring a framework of consensus through participation of diverse elements along the federal axis that the leadership ought to devote itself in the coming months, Crucial to both these tasks is the need to revive the political system from its present state of suspension and make it the vehicle of national regeneration. More than a year and a half of rule under the Emergency has shown that while it may have been able to suspend the bandh-gherao culture, take a few steps to curb unhealthy trends in the economy, and even register a few gains, there are limits to what can be achieved by fiat only. If these gains are to be continued and consummated in terms of lasting benefits and at the same time if sudden and unforeseen consequences are to be avoided, it is necessary to return to more open and predictable institutionalized channels.

Only thus can both the long chain of decision-makers and the people and their representatives at various levels be involved in the policy process. And only thus can enough pressures be built at local levels for the implementation of various schemes, for adequate feedback to take place, for conflicting interests to be resolved in an orderly manner, for the system to perform on a long-term and enduring basis.

Discussions with a variety of people along this whole continuum suggest that there has been far more talk than action, that vital decisions have just not been taken in the key ministries and at lower levels, that there is hardly any coordination between different parts of the same government, that there is a great deal of anxiety among administrators and politicians as to the scope and limits of one’s power, that there are deep divisions within the Congress Party in the states which are, however, not being resolved, and that at the level of the people the initial impact of a new kind of regime is wearing out and they are getting impatient at too much talk and too little action.

In the meanwhile, while everyone in the government and the party is too eager to express his loyalty and chant the same slogans for fear of being left out, the top leadership is led to believe that things are indeed happening and, with the exception of stray incidents, everything is under control. In point of fact, little of substance is happening and little can happen under the present set-up. And of the few things that have happened, there is more likelihood than not of unforeseen consequences taking place and creating new problems.

This is true even in apparently non-political spheres such as family planning and the conduct of foreign policy. In the former, it was perhaps felt that one way of legitimizing the Emergency was to show some dramatic results, and the one area where this could be done was population control. This understanding was quickly seen by some as a green light for using all kinds of measures to force the people, mostly the vulnerable sections among them, and to show results. Soon this got out of hand and created an atmosphere of shock and disbelief, producing severe backlash and, in the process, discrediting the family planning program as a whole.

As for foreign policy, without going into detail, it is clear that while the country has taken major initiatives to adopt an independent posture in foreign affairs, the fact that its domestic political process is virtually closed and its future uncertain has created all kinds of mental blocks both for its own policy-planners and for the major powers with whom they have to deal. This is quite apart from the fact that foreign powers, too, learn to operate differently in closed systems, often fish in troubled waters, and in trying to influence local political currents create new and unforeseen problems for the leadership. All this has started happening in India. Despite the widely held belief that closed systems are better able to manage their external relations and defense and strategic matters, history points to the opposite conclusion.

All in all, it is essential that the openness of the political process be restored and that this be done by not only lifting the Emergency—which is an essential prerequisite—and holding elections soon thereafter—which should, of course, naturally follow—but also simultaneously opening negotiations among the various parties and groups with a view to reviving the system. We have discussed this matter in some detail in this article. We have deliberately focused on the two essential aspects of it: an end to confrontation by restoring the rules of the game and revival of a framework of consensus by reestablishing channels of participation. There are many other issues that need early attention—reform in electoral financing, legislation or code of conduct on floor-crossing, etc.—but these and other matters can be gone into a little later.

We would argue the same about constitutional changes, which are needed, especially the ones that will expedite social justice. But the present is not the time for them. These are abnormal times and a degree of normalcy is needed before major reforms can be considered objectively, coolly, and dispassionately. The important thing just now is to heal the deep scars that have resulted over the last two or three years, bridge the wide chasm that has divided people, and gradually restore mutual trust and confidence. This is the key to the revival of the political process that was put in cold storage a year and a half ago.

The year 1975—76 was a year of depoliticalization— of substitution of political participation by certain other instruments of management and control. There are some people who find this congenial. But these are invariably people who are either politically naïve or mischievous. Theirs is a dangerous scenario: they would rather do away with the political system than participate in it; instead, they would rely solely on instruments of manipulation and coercion. Their plea is that “politics” is responsible for all our ills, and it is best to cut it out. But depoliticalization cannot be an answer to politics gone astray and having become purposeless. The only answer is to put politics back on sound tracks and to make it once more viable and vigorous. For, without an active political process, no civil society can endure for long.

Political parties in India:-

As India is a federal parliamentary democratic republic, in which the President of India is the head of the country and the Prime Minister of India is the head of the government. India follows the dual polity system, i.e. a double government which consists of the central authority at the center and states at the periphery. The constitution defines the organization powers and limitations of both central and state governments, and it is well-recognized, rigid and considered supreme; i.e. laws of the nation must conform to it.

There is a provision for a bicameral Union legislature consisting of an Upper House, i.e. Rajya Sabha, which represents the states of the Indian federation and a lower house i.e. Lok Sabha, which represents the people of India as a whole. The Indian constitution provides for an independent Judiciary which is headed by the Supreme Court. The court's mandate is to protect the constitution, to settle disputes between the central government and the states, inter-state disputes, to nullify any central or state laws that go against the constitution and protect fundamental rights of citizens, issuing writs or their enforcement, in case of violation.

The governments, union or state, are formed through elections held every five years (unless otherwise specified), by parties that claim a majority of members in their respective lower houses (Lok Sabha in centre and Vidhan Sabha in states). India had its first general election in 1951, which was won by the Indian National Congress, a political party that went on to dominate the successive elections up until 1977, when the first non-Congress government was formed for the first time in independent India. The 1990s saw the end of single party domination and rise of coalition governments. The elections for the 16th Lok Sabha, held from April 2014 to May 2014, once again brought back single-party rule in the country, with the Bharatiya Janata Party being able to claim a majority in the Lok Sabha.

In recent decades, Indian politics has become a dynastic affair. Possible reasons for this could be the absence of party organizations, independent civil society associations that mobilize support for the parties, and centralized financing of elections.

Political parties and alliances

For other political parties, see List of political parties in India. An overview on elections and election results is included in Elections in India.Compared to other democratic countries, India has a large number of political parties. It has been estimated that over 200 parties were formed after India became independent in 1947.

Some features of the political parties in India are that the parties are generally woven around their leaders, the leaders actively playing a dominant role, and that the role of leadership can be transferred, thus tending to take a dynastic route. The two main parties in India are the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress, Indian National Congress dominates Indian Politics. On the left-right political spectrum, the Indian National Congress is the typical welfare heavy, centre-left party, whereas the BJP is a fiscally conservative, center-right party.

Types of political parties

There are many types of political parties in India - National Party and Regional/State party. Every political party must bear a symbol and must be registered with the Election Commission of India. Symbols are used in Indian political system as an identity of political parties and that illiterate people can also vote by recognizing symbols of party.

In the current amendment to the Symbols Order, the Commission, has infused the following five principles, which, in its view, should govern the polity in the country, situate as it is in its present state:

Legislative presence is a must for recognition as a National or State party.
For a National party, it must be the legislative presence in the Lok Sabha and for a State party, the legislative presence must be reflected in the State Assembly.
In any election, a party can set up a candidate only from amongst its own members.
A party, that loses its recognition, shall not lose its symbol immediately, but shall be given the facility to use that symbol for some time to try and retrieve its status. [However, the grant of such facility to the party to use its symbol will not mean the extension of other facilities to it, as are available to recognized parties, like, free time on Doordarshan/AIR, free supply of copies of electoral rolls, etc.]
Recognition should be given to a party only on the basis of its own performance in elections and not because it is a splinter group of some other recognized party.

Criteria -

A political party shall be eligible to be recognized as a National party if :-

it secures at least six percent(6%) of the valid votes polled in any four or more states, at a general election to the House of the People or, to the State Legislative Assembly; and
in addition, it wins at least four seats in the House of the People from any State or States.

OR it wins at least two percent (2%) seats in the House of the People (i.e., 11 seats in the existing House having 543 members), and these members are elected from at least three different States.

Likewise, a political party shall be entitled to be recognized as a State party, if :-

it secures at least six percent (6%) of the valid votes polled in the State at a general election, either to the House of the People or to the Legislative Assembly of the State concerned; and
in addition, it wins at least two seats in the Legislative Assembly of the State concerned.(0r)

it wins at least three percent (3%) of the total number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the State, or at least three seats in the Assembly, whichever is more.

At present there are 5 national parties and many more state parties.

Alliances

India has a history of alliances and breakdown of alliances. However, there are three alliances on a national level in India, competing with each other for the position of Government. The member parties work in harmony for gratifying national interests, although a party can jump ships whenever it may deem fit.

The three alliances -

National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - Centre-Right coalition led by BJP was formed in 1998 after the elections, NDA formed the government although the government didn't last long as AIADMK withdrew support from it resulting in 1999 general elections, in which NDA won and resumed power. The coalition government went on to complete the full five years term, becoming the first non-Congress government to do so. In the 2014 General Elections NDA once again returned to power for the second time, with a historic mandate of 336 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats. BJP itself won 282 seats thereby electing Narendra Modi as the head of the government.
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) - Centre-Left coalition led by Indian National Congress, this alliance was created after the 2004 General Elections, with the alliance forming the Government. The alliance even after losing some of its members, was reelected in 2009 General Elections with Manmohan Singh as head of the government.
Third front - The coalition of parties which do not belong to any of the above camps due to certain issues. They are not bound together due to any ideological similarities but primarily due to their stand of maintaining distance with both major parties. One of the party in the alliance CPI(M), prior to 2009 General Elections was a member party of the UPA. The alliance has no official leading party and generally smaller parties keep coming and leaving the alliance as per political convenience. Many of these parties ally at national level but contest against each other at state level.

Role of political parties

For other political parties, see List of political parties in India. An overview on elections and election results is included in Elections in India.

1. As with any other democracy, political parties represent different sections among the Indian society and regions, and their core values play a major role in the politics of India.

2. Both the executive branch and the legislative branch of the government are run by the representatives of the political parties who have been elected through the elections.

3. Through the electoral process, the people of India choose which representative and which political party should run the government. Through the elections any party may gain simple majority in the lower house. Coalitions are formed by the political parties, in case no single party gains a simple majority in the lower house. Unless a party or a coalition have a majority in the lower house, a government cannot be formed by that party or the coalition.

India has a multi-party system

where there are a number of national as well as regional parties. A regional party may gain a majority and rule a particular state. If a party is represented in more than 4 states, it would be labelled a national party. Out of the 66 years of India's independence, India has been ruled by the Indian National Congress (INC) for 53 of those years, as of March 2014.

The party enjoyed a parliamentary majority save for two brief periods during the 1970s and late 1980s. This rule was interrupted between 1977 and 1980, when the Janata Party coalition won the election owing to public discontent with the controversial state of emergency declared by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The Janata Dal won elections in 1989, but its government managed to hold on to power for only two years.

Between 1996 and 1998, there was a period of political flux with the government being formed first by the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) followed by a left-leaning United Front coalition. In 1998, the BJP formed the National Democratic Alliance with smaller regional parties, and became the first non-INC and coalition government to complete a full five-year term. The 2004 Indian elections saw the INC winning the largest number of seats to form a government leading the United Progressive Alliance, and supported by left-parties and those opposed to the BJP.

On 22 May 2004, Manmohan Singh was appointed the Prime Minister of India following the victory of the INC & the left front in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. The UPA ruled India without the support of the left front. Previously, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had taken office in October 1999 after a general election in which a BJP-led coalition of 13 parties called the National Democratic Alliance emerged with a majority. In May 2014, Narendra Modi of BJP was elected as Prime Minister of India.

Formation of coalition governments reflects the transition in Indian politics away from the national parties toward smaller, more narrowly based regional parties. Some regional parties, especially in South India, are deeply aligned to the ideologies of the region unlike the national parties and thus the relationship between the central government and the state government in various states has not always been free of rancor. Disparity between the ideologies of the political parties ruling the centre and the state leads to severely skewed allocation of resources between the states.

Causes for Social issues

1. The lack of homogeneity in the Indian population causes division between different sections of the people based on religion, region, language, caste and race. This has led to the rise of political parties with agendas catering to one or a mix of these groups. Parties in India also target people who are not in favour of other parties and use them as an asset.

2. Some parties openly profess their focus on a particular group; for example, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's focus on the Dravidian population, and the Shiv Sena's pro-Marathi agenda.

3. Some other parties claim to be universal in nature, but tend to draw support from particular sections of the population. For example, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (translated as National People's Party) has a vote bank among the Yadav and Muslim population of Bihar and the All India Trinamool Congress does not have any significant support outside West Bengal.

4. The narrow focus and votebank politics of most parties, even in the central government and central legislature, sidelines national issues such as economic welfare and national security. Moreover, internal security is also threatened as incidences of political parties instigating and leading violence between two opposing groups of people is a frequent occurrence.

Economic issues

Economic issues like poverty, unemployment, development are main issues that influence politics. Garibi hatao (eradicate poverty) has been a slogan of the Indian National Congress for a long time. The well known Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) encourages a free market economy. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) vehemently supports left-wing politics like land-for-all, right to work and strongly opposes neo-liberal policies such as globalisation, capitalism and privatisation.

Law and order

Terrorism, Naxalism, religious violence and caste-related violence are important issues that affect the political environment of the Indian nation. Stringent anti-terror legislation such as TADA, POTA and MCOCA have received much political attention, both in favour and opposed.

Terrorism had effected politics India since its conception, be it the terrorism supported from Pakistan or the internal guerrilla groups such as Naxalites. In 1991 the former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during an election campaign. The suicide bomber was later linked to the Sri Lankan terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as it was later revealed the killing was an act of vengeance for Rajiv Gandhi sending troops in Sri Lanka against them in 1987.^[9]

The Babri Masjid demolition on December 6, 1992 by Hindu Karsevaks resulted in nationwide communal riots in two months, with worst occurring in Mumbai with at least 900 dead. The riots were followed by 1993 Mumbai Bomb Blasts, which resulted in more deaths.

Law and order issues, such as action against organised crime are issues which do not affect the outcomes of elections. On the other hand, there is a criminal–politician nexus. Many elected legislators have criminal cases against them. In July 2008, the Washington Post reported that nearly a fourth of the 540 Indian Parliament members faced criminal charges, "including human trafficking, child prostitution immigration rackets, embezzlement, rape and even murder".

Paper-I	Western political Thought-I
Paper-II	Public Policy Analysis
Paper-III	Classical Administration
Paper-IV	Government and Politics in Andhra pradesh
Paper-V	Party System in India

Paper-I	Western political Thought-I
Paper-II	Modern Political Analysis
Paper-III	Indian state and Administration
Paper-IV	Indian Political Thought
Paper-V	Comparative Politics

Paper-I	Theories of International Relations
Paper-II	Modern Indian Political Thought
Paper-III	Rural Development
Paper-IV	Research Methodology
Paper-V	Foreign Policy Of India

Paper-I	National Security of India
Paper-II	Theories and Concepts of E-Governance
Paper-III	Technology and Politics
Paper-IV	Indian Political Economy
Paper-V	Human Rights in India

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Tuesday 17 July 2018

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SEMESTER-4 POLITICS E.M NOTES