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The Culture of Indian Politics: A Stock Taking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

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Abstract

Political culture in India is not merely a reflection of community life-style. It is also the link between historical experiences of politics and model identities, on the one hand, and the needs of new political forms, on the other. Defined thus, it becomes not only an emergine national idiom, but also a cultural vector diat is gradually entering the community's life-style as a legitimate force of social change.

There are four historical stages in the development if the culture of Indian politics. The contemporary political culture also consists of four strands, each with its own psychological problems of adaptation and their typical cultural expressions. These strands are related, on the one hand, to the four corresponding historical stages and, on the other, to different levels of personality functioning in the model Indian. Within this framework, a new approach can be taken to the analysis of the major themes and symbols in Indian politics. It is possible, for example, to decompose some of the major themes into their stage-specific contents which, again, can be related to the larger adaptive problems faced by the community at different historical phases.

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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1970

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References

The author is grateful to D. L. Sheth and Rajni Kothari whose reactions have structured this paper to a great extent.

1 The most successful of these is perhaps Weber, Max in The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism, (Glencoe: Free Press, 1958).Google Scholar

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6 The third and fourth stages and idioms they have generated have been studied in great detail. Two papers which deal specifically with political culture are Morris-Jones, W. H., “Behaviour and Idea in Political India,” Spann, R. N. (ed.), Constitutionalism in India, (Bombay: Asia, 1963) pp. 7491Google Scholar; and Weiner, Myron, “India: Two Political Cultures,” in Pye, L. W. and Verba, S. (ed.), Political Culture and Political Development, (Princeton: Princeton University, 1965) pp. 199244.Google Scholar

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34 See the papers in Kothari, R. (ed.), Caste in Indian Politics, op. cit.Google Scholar; also Bailey, F. G., Tribe, Caste and Nation, (Manchester: Manchester University, 1960).Google Scholar

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36 Ibid., particularly pp. 87–97, 112–119.

37 Weiner, M., op. cit., p. 166.Google Scholar

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44 Carstairs, , op. cit., passimGoogle Scholar; Koestler, Arther, The Lotus and the Robot, (London: Macmillan, 1960)Google Scholar, Part I.

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48 On the relative autonomy of politics from society see Weiner, M., “India's Two Political Cultures,” in Political Change in South Asia, (Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1965)Google Scholar; “India: Two Political Cultures;” Morris-Jones, , “Behaviour and Idea,”Google Scholar and “Stability and Change;” Srinivas, M. N., Caste in IndiaGoogle Scholar; Eisenstadt, S. N., “Transformation of Social, Political and Culutral Orders,” American Sociological Review, 30 (1965) pp. 659673CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, , op cit., pp. 5762.Google Scholar

49 Chaudhuri, , Autobiography, pp. 214215Google Scholar; Schweitzer, A., op. cit.Google Scholar See a review of this argument in Goodwin, W. F., “Mysticism and Ethics: An Examination of Radhakrishnan's Reply to Schweitzer's Critique of Indian Thought,” Ethics, 67 (1956) pp. 2541CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Brief discussions of this subject are available in Mahadevan, T. M. P., “Indian Ethics and Social Practice,” in C. A. Moore, op. cit., pp. 476493Google Scholar; also Keith, A. B., The Religion and Philosophy of Veda and Upanishads, (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1925) pp. 584586Google Scholar; Hume, , op. cit., pp. 5866.Google Scholar

50 Lamb, , op. cit., p. 113.Google Scholar

51 On the lack of mutuality and interpersonal distrust, see Chaudhuri, , Autobiography, pp. 212213Google Scholar; Carstairs, , op. cit.Google Scholar, Chapter 3, particularly.

52 Reincourt, , op. cit., p. 400Google Scholar; Panikkar, K. M., A Survey of Indian History, (Bombay: Asia, 1963) pp. 1820.Google Scholar

53 Mujumdar, , op. cit.Google Scholar, Chapter 1; Mishra, , op cit.Google Scholar, passim.

54 John, and Useem, Ruth, The Western Educated Man in India, (New York: Dryden, 1955)Google Scholar; Narayan, Dhirendra, op. cit.Google Scholar; Chaudhuri, , The Continent of Circe.Google Scholar

55 Some of the studies which provide empirical basis of the observations made in this section are Carstairs, op cit.; Rudolph and Rudolph, op. cit.; Hitchcock and Mintern, op. cit.