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Political Stratification and Unstable Alliances in Rural Western Maharashtra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

A. T. Carter
A. T. Carter
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Extract

Among the characteristic features of local and state politics in modern India are a tendency to reach decisions by consensus procedures and the instability of factional alliances. Thus, Mayer notes that the ‘dislike of an open vote is widespread in rural Indian society’.1 As to the instability of political alliances, Bailey has observed that in Orissa political allegiances are apt to change rapidly and there is a quite bewildering degree of impermanence at the lower levels, a constant stream of new recruits coming in, while others drift away to other bosses or out of the system altogether.2

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , July 1972 , pp. 423 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 Mayer, Adrian C., ‘Local Government Election in a Malwa Village’, Eastern Anthropologist, XI (1958), p. 201.Google Scholar For another discussion of consensus see. Rudolph, L. I. and Rudolph, S. H., The Modernity of Tradition (Chicago, 1967), pp. 187–9 and 258–9.Google Scholar

2 Bailey, F. G., Politics and Social Change, Orissa in 1959 (Berkeley, 1963), p. 152.Google Scholar See also Brass, Paul, Factional Politics in an Indian State (Berkeley, 1965), p. 179Google Scholar and Nayar, Baldev Raj, Minority Politics in the Punjab (Princeton, 1966), p. 279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Bailey, F. G., ‘Decisions by Consensus in Councils and Committees’, in Political Systems and the Distribution of Power, A.S.A. Monograph 2 (London, 1965), p. 10.Google Scholar

4 Bailey, F. G., in Political Systems, p. 10.Google Scholar See also Béteille, André, Caste, Class, and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village (Berkeley, 1965), pp. 151 and 161.Google Scholar

5 Brass, , op. cit., p. 232.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 152.

7 Ibid., p. 151.

8 Ibid., p. 238.

9 Ibid., pp. 168–82.

10 Ibid., p. 184.

11 I use ‘elite’ in the sense of Mills's, C. Wright ‘power elite’ to refer to those persons who are in a position to influence public decisions:The Power Elite (New York, 1959), pp. 3–29.Google Scholar For a discussion of the term ‘political class’ see Bottomore, T. B., Elites and Society (Harmondsworth, 1964).Google Scholar

12 The eldest of the six brothers is also Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Shriram Co-operative Sugar Factory in Phaltan Town.

13 Taluka Council.

14 District Council.

15 See Census of India, 1901, Vol. IX-B, Table XIII. I assume that the ‘Proper Marathas’ of the census are vatandar Marathas.

16 Four Zilla Parishad Councillors, one President of the Panchayat Samiti, one MLA, and the chairmen or presidents of the Municipal Council, the Phaltan Taluka Purchase and Sale Union, the Phaltan Urban Co-operative Bank, the Shriram Cooperative Sugar Factory, the Phaltan Co-operative Cotton Ginning and Pressing Society, the Phaltan Taluka Supervising Union, the Phaltan Education Society, and the Shriram Education Society.

17 See Karve, I. and Ranadive, J. S., The Social Dynamics of a Growing Town and Its Surrounding Area (Poona, 1965), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

18 I have described the caste, kinship, and economic features of the political class in Western Maharashtra in my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Political Alliances in Rural Western Maharashtra’ (Cambridge University, 1971), Chapters IV–VI.

19 See Latthe, A. B., Memoirs of His Highness Shri Shahu Chhatrapati, Maharaja of Kolhapur (Bombay, 1924).Google Scholar

20 For a discussion of proportionality in Dutch politics see Lijphart, Arend, The Politics of Accommodation (Berkeley, 1968), pp. 110–11 and 127–9.Google Scholar

21 Such was the case on the Phaltan Municipal Council from 1962 until 1967. See also the account of the Kanpur Corporation in Brass, op. cit., pp.188–94.Google Scholar

22 See Brecher, Michael, Succession in India (London, 1966).Google Scholar

23 See Mills, op.cit., pp. 242–68.Google Scholar

24 Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years' Crisis (London, 1949), p. 80.Google Scholar

25 Unfortunately I do not know when Jadhav was elected to the Board.

26 Mayer, A. C., ‘Caste and Local Politics in India’ in Mason, Philip (ed.), India and Ceylon: Unity and Diversity (London, 1967), p. 138.Google Scholar

27 Brass, op. cit., p. 32.Google Scholar