Brass-IndiaMyronWeiner-2002 Development

India, Myron Weiner and the Political Science of Development
Author(s): Paul R. Brass

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Jul. 20-26, 2002, Vol. 37, No. 29 (Jul. 20-26,
2002), pp. 3026-3040
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4412388
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Special articles
India, Myron Weiner and

the Political Science of Development
The argument here, in brief, is that the political science of development has itself been
implicated in the developmentalist framework of India's elites. Further, despite the rhetoric of
socialism that accompanied that framework under Nehru, both the practice in India and the
development theory that justified it were fundamentally conservative. The conservative element
in the developmentalist framework comprised an ideology of state-exaltation arising out of a
fear of disorder' or an orientation towards the elimination of 'the causes of unrest'. So
implicated were political scientists in the developmentalist goals of India's elites that they
failed to provide an independent basis for critique that has become increasingly necessary as
has become nlore and more obvious that those goals have failed to transform India into
the modern, industrial state of its elite's imaginings, have failed at the same time to
provide for the basic minimum needs of its people, have failed to eliminate 'the causes of
unrest' and have instead drawn the country into the ugly morass of state terrorism in the
north-east, Punjab and Kashmir and have failed to provide a basis for accommodation
between the Hindu and Muslim populations of the country.
PAUL R BRASS
outside, western world as to Indian soci-

nition that it contained traditional compo-
Introduction nents, was modernistic and rationalistic. ety. Weiner thought it inevitable that the
The elite culture was the metier of the two cultures would clash as they expanded
n 1963, Myron Weiner published an developmentalist elite determined to de- in opposite directions towards each other.
article that I regard as one of his most velop and modernise India: its economy, He thought there was a danger to be feared
important short pieces on Indian poli- political institutions, and some aspects from
of such a clash, which might arise
tics. In that article, he posited the existence its social customs as well. The mass po- especially from the conflict between the
in India of what he called two 'political litical culture, on the other hand, was 'utopian' elements in the elite modernising
cultures', one that manifested itself in the 'permeated with traditional elements', but vision and the orientation of politicians in
districts and localities, 'both urban and 'not wholly traditional'.5 Its inhabitants the mass political culture towards their
rural',1 and the other that inhabited the occupied the lower rungs of Indian politics caste, kin, and ethnic groups and the
national capital, whose denizens occupied and were in closer touch with the Indian demands for 'patronage and power'7 that
the Indian Civil Service, the Planning masses. emanated from them and their clients.
Commission, and the leading body in the Weiner

Both cultures were also expanding: was sympathetic to the mass
the
governing party, the Working Committee elite culture was radiating out from
political its and the concerns that arose
culture
of the Indian National Congress.2 Weiner political centre in New Delhi,from
while theat the same time sharing the
it while
clearly thought carefully when he chose mass culture was expanding elite
from developmental
the goals for India. He
names for these two cultures. He-rejected localities up to "the state legislative
thought, however, that it was necessary for
the idea that one was a modern culture, assemblies, state governments and
the state elites to recognise that, in
governing
the other traditional because, as he said, administrations."6 The mass political one had to modify one's
a democracy,
"there are aspects of both modernity and culture reflected the social organisation utopian expectations to the realities of
traditionalism penetrating both views,"3 and attitudes of the bulk of the struggle and demands emanating from
country's
thereby anticipating by a few years the population; local politicians who below. He feared that, in its desire to
inhabited
Rudolphs' book, The Modernity of this culture understood and knew how to modernise India as rapidly as possible, the
Tradition.4 He chose instead the terms, operate within the categories of caste,elites might be tempted to sacrifice demo-
'elite' political culture and 'mass' political tribe, ethnicity, and local and regional cratic practices and impose an authoritar-
culture. The former was elite not only or languages. The elite culture operated largelyian regime to deal with the inevitable crises
even primarily in social background, but in English, had a vision for the country as that would arise as the two cultures came
in its outlook which, despite Weiner's recog- a whole, and was attuned as much to the into more direct conflict.
3026 Economic and Political Weekly July 20, 2002

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Weiner was not alone in his awareness processes, such as caste mobilisation, that
is an 'upper discourse' in India, articulated
of this kind of tension in Indian society
secular institutions were designed to byig- 'the ruling modernist elites' and a 'lower
and politics, which some observers also nore or transcend. l discourse' that is indigenous. The former
thought described the basic dilemma of theAfter independence, Nehru, whom Dua is a secular, liberal, rational, Enlighten-
ment discourse derived from the west, the
has characterised aptly as "a great myth-
developing, democratising third world. The
general idea of the dilemma as a problem maker of political institutions," soughtlatter
to is not clearly specified except that
for all developing countries was perhaps maintain the secular institutions established
it is popular. The problem of the gap that
first articulated by Shils in his concept byof the British while simultaneously Kaviraj sees is one of incoherence between
'the gap' between the national and the democratising them. After his death, how- the upper and the lower; that is, the very
parochial cultures that existed simulta- ever, the very crisis that Weiner predicted terms used by the Nehruvian elites were
neously and in actual or potential tension began to develop, as Nehru's daughter, incomprehensible to the lower orders.
within all the developing countries.8Indira Gandhi, undermined the institutions Kaviraj does not refer to the lower orders
Morris-Jones also formulated a similar that Nehru cherished and imposed instead in Indian society in terms of caste or
conundrum for India in his trichotomous an authoritarian interlude to head off a ethnicity for, following Benedict Ander-
conceptualisation of the simultaneousboiling cauldron of discontent from below son, he sees these categories as merely
presence of three idioms in India, whichthat threatened her hold on power, substi- imagined, having 'nothing objective' about
he characterised as the modern, the tradi- tuting for the elite institutional culture a
them. Indeed, the whole picture that we
tional, and, in his own original contribu- new 'culture of illegalities'.12 The resto-have of Indian society is a construction of
tion to the discussion, the saintly. Theration of the competitive parliamentary British Orientalism. Kaviraj, joining the
latter term referred to those political per-system in 1980 did not, however, restore ranks of Nandy, Madan, and Chatterjee,
sons in India who adopted the style, tone, the secular institutional culture of Nehru. seeks a new discursive framework for
and moral outlook of Gandhi in their Instead there followed an intensification analysing Indian society and politics. He
approach to Indian social, poltical,ofand criticises the "inadequate theory of
the crisis of political cultures in conflict,
economic problems.9 Morris-Jonesinalso which broadened bases of mass partici- modernisation worked out by Parsonian
was careful to assert that these terms did pation made possible the mobilisation developmentalists"16
of and the "blundering
not necessarily reflect the existence of national constituencies while simulta- inadequacies of modem American develop-
sharply differentiated ideologies, world neously there was an expansion of regional menttheory."'7 Unfortunately, Kaviraj and
views, or cultures by his very choice ofelectoral constituencies based upon his dis-colleagues offer nothing intelligible to
a term to describe them. The term idiom tinctive patterns of social and political take its place, except such phrases as "the
carries the sense that these were ways organisation
of and conflict based upon castes,recovery of religious tolerance"18 in In-
talking about and articulating India's prob-religious communities, language, and tribal dia. In fact, Kaviraj himself bemoans the
lems and their solutions, which might groups.or In the Rajiv Gandhi landslide absence even of "an indigenous vocabu-
might not reflect fundamental differences victory of 1985, in the aftermath oflary hisfor making sense of the political world"
among those who had command of them. mother's assassination, the plebiscitarian of contemporary India.19
There have been many other ways base in that his mother had built from the new But, in fact, there is a kind of indigenous
which this simultaneous existence of dis- mass culture prevailed for the timevocabulary be- to make sense of India's po-
tinct, but interpenetrating cultures haveing,13 but did not efface the local, district litical world to ordinary Indians. It is a
been articulated. Before Shils and Weiner, bases of power that continued to survive vocabulary that draws upon the religio-
there was Redford and Singer's Greatand to provide the 'core political support' mythological history of India, that draws
Tradition and Little Tradition, which, infor opposition parties.14 its symbols from Indian epics and the deities
effect, posited a gap within the traditional The Rudolphs too have articulatedthat the are depicted therein.20 Moreover, it
society itself, which naturally becameconcept of the gap between the twomanages cul- to combine this vocabulary with
furthercomplicated with the entry of Britishtures in their own way in their distinction a modernist outlook that challenges the
rule and European culture operating along-between the forms of politics in India secular ideology that was dominant in India
side. In this view, there was then a double expressed by organised interest groupsduring that Nehru's lifetime, proposing to
gap in contemporary India that was me- "work primarily in institutionally defined substitute instead true secularism for the
diated through two distinct processes, the policy arenas" and make use of "expertise 'pseudo-secularism' of the Nehru era, a
Sanskritisation process that Srinivas10and lobbying skill," on the one hand,Hindu and secularism based on Hindu pride,
described and the westernisation process 'demand groups' that rely more 'on sym- Hindu history, and Hindu heroes. While
that many social scientists and historiansbolic and agitational politics'. The latter, Nandy, Madan, Chatterjee, and KaViraj
discussed. Washbrook articulated a simi- as the Rudolphs describe them, "have were making their own critique of the
lar kind of dichotomy that arose during become a highly elaborate politicalNehruvian art developmentalist strategy, the
British rule as the British sought 'to buildform that speaks to India's indigenous strategy and its ideological bases were
the Raj as a modern secular state', whose political culture" through specifically In- crumbling. As Jaffrelot has put it,
already
principles came into conflict with 'com- dian types of 'tactics' and 'public dramas' "secularism and socio-economic develop-
petitive ethnicity', 'status-derived privi- that are used to mobilise sometimes ment hugewere supplanted by entirely different
lege', 'religiously based personal law', crowds of demonstrators.15 values in the nation's political discourse,
and 'caste mobilisation'. British attemptsFinally, the gap has also been articulated and the Congress itself appealed to ethno-
to accommodate to some of these tradi- in postmodernist form, using the religious sentiments."2 Although I do not
tional practices only complicated matters Foucauldian term, 'discourse'. In this accept the argument sometimes made that
further, in some cases stimulating the very formulation, contributed by Kaviraj, there Nandy, Madan, Chatterjee and Kaviraj are
Economic and Political Weekly July 20, 2002 3027

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crypto-Hindu nationalists,22 the problem The examples are, in part, arbitrary; manydemands constituted 'problems' for the
is that they offer no serious political al- other examples could have been provided.polity that required proper 'handling'26 or
ternative, no sound basis for critique of the 'managing',27 which was another way of
I have chosen for purposes of illustration
political and social crises through which three sets of examples. The followingreferring to this aggregative-filtering pro-
India is passing today, nothing substantial section discusses statements about Indiancess. Such demands could become quite
to counter the rise of militant Hindu na- 'serious' when they took 'an ethnic
politics that refer to the relationship be-
tionalism and its leading organisations tween organised demands and political form'.28
today: the BJP, the RSS, the VHP, and the development. (I have arbitrarily left aside In 1987, in their book, In Pursuit of
Bajrang Dal. for this purpose the even more compli- Lakshmi, the Rudolphs took a somewhat
In the remainder of this essay, I want to different view of these matters from Weiner.
cated issues surrounding the relationship
argue that there has indeed been an intel- between mass movements or the Rudolphs' They examined more closely the internal
lectual gap in our approach to Indian politics 'demand groups' and political develop- functioning of organised groups or, put
that derives from the developmentalist ment, but only because discussion of this
another way, groups in the organised sectors
perspective, which was reflected also in of the economy, particularly organised
and so many other issues would fill a small
Weiner's work. At the same time, I want book.) In the third section, I consider the
labour and organised capital and minimised
to suggest how Weiner made a significantspecific question of 'democratic develop- their potential threat to the processes of
move away from the developmentalist ment', again leaving aside here other very modernisation, public order, and economic
framework in his last book on India and interesting and important questions such development. They argued to the contrary
how we may move further away from as how democracy has been defined and
that that the trade unions were so divided,
framework and modify the methods that the meaning of such terms as 'participa- 'fragmented'. and competitive with each
we have used to analyse Indian society tion'
and with reference to Indian democracy. other that they lacked the ability to have
In the fourth section, I discuss the ques- a major impact on 'national policy'.
politics in order to better comprehend what
tions of governance and governability as On the other side, 'organised capital',
is happening in India today. My argument,
in brief, is that the political sciencethese
of terms have been used by politicaloperating in a restricted, but protected
development has itself been implicated scientists
in of India. Section five discusses economic environment, was largely depen-
the developmentalist framework of India'ssome epistemological issues under the dent upon government and could not and,
rubric of research methods, particularly
political elites. Further, despite the rheto- in fact, did not oppose the thrust of the
ric of socialism that accompanied that how the latter have been implicated in the economic development strategy of import
framework under Nehru, both the practice developmentalist discourse and how they substitution.29 Both organised labour and
in India and the development theory that have nevertheless also in the past and may organised capital, in the Rudolphs' reckon-
in future show a way out of the clutches
justified it, were fundamentally conserva- ing, emerged as the weaker parties in a
tive. The conservative elements in the of that framework. The last section sum- triangular relationship with the Indian state,
developmentalist framework comprised marises
an my arguments with a plea for which a had the capacity to prevail over
ideology of state-exaltation, arising out of
substitution these and other organised interests not
of a stance of critique of Indian
a "fear of disorder" that I have analysed
society and politics for - and outside of
only because the state was the strongest
elsewhere or, as Inden has put it, an -ori-
the developmentalist position.24 party, but also because it had "won wide
entation towards the maintenance of order acceptance for its claim that it has a special
and towards elimination of 'the causes of II responsibility for nation building and
unrest'.23 So implicated were we in the Political Development and economic development,"30 in other words,
developmentalist goals of India's elites Organised Demands that it had legitimacy that overrode the
that we failed to provide an independent interests oforganised groups such as labour
basis for critique that has become increas-The conservative, institutional-organi- and capital. In short, the Rudolphs, while
ingly necessary as it has become more and sational bias in the political development coining the term 'weak-strong' for the
more obvious that those goals have failed studies framework was reflected in Indian state, took the view that the state
to transform India into the modern, indus- Weiner's second book on The Politics of
was strong enough to prevail against such
trial state of its elite's imaginings, have Scarcity, the weakest of his books on interests.
India,
failed at the same time to provide for the inferior both to his first on opposition As I have pointed out elsewhere,31 Atul
basic minimuul needs of its peoples, have parties and to the one that followedKohli it ona few years later took a less sanguine
failed to eliminate 'the causes of unrest' the Indian National Congress. Among view of Indian state capacities, which he
and have instead drawn India into the uglyWeiner's principal concerns in this thought book, had been severely eroded during
morass of state terrorism in the north-east,one which persisted into his later Indira works Gandhi's tenure in office to such
Punjab, and Kashmir, and have failed toto some extent as well, were the conse- an extent that India was now confronted
provide a basis for accommodation be- quences for 'the modernisation process' with a crisis of governability. Using Samuel
tween the Hindu and Muslim populations and for 'public order and economic devel- Huntington's framework and terminology,
of the country. opment' of demands made by 'organised he argued that there had been, in effect,
The remainder of this essay is divided interests'.25 In the political development a political decay of Indian institutions and
into four sections. In the next three, I framework, organised interests made de- an unwillingness on the part of govern-
provide examples from the literature that imands that might endanger modernisation, ment under Indira Gandhi's hegemony, to
demonstrate the theoretical hold that the public order, and economic development incorporate the 'growing demands of power
developmentalist perspective has had over unless they were aggregated by the politi- blocs in the polity'. Although his book
most of us during the past several decades.cal parties and by 'party systems'. These constitutes a considerable indictment of

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Indira Gandhi and her policies and prac- values, it is transparent - all protestations Ill
tices, he nevertheless takes the position denying normative preferences to the Democratic Development
that she 'perceived - not without some contrary notwithstanding - that the state
justification - that such moves would While denying that their developmental
and its capacities to promote modernisation,
weaken the centre and thus both national maintain public order, and promote socio-model contained a' built-in, ethnocentric
economic development constitute the
integrity and the state's capacity to steer bias towards Anglo-American political
practices as the end result of political
economic development'. She opted insteadapex value for political scientists of India
for strategies that involved the 'undermin- as well as for the elites who have development, there can be no doubt
ing of democratic institutions',32 includ-(mis)governed the country for the that past
most of50 the developmentalists
ing the weakening of her own party, the years. Second, it is sufficient forfavoured such a result. Further, among
political
Indian National Congress, the premierscientists of India simply to mention India specialists
those - including Weiner, of
institution in Indian political life. Adheringprocesses of modernisation and course - both democratic development
socio-
closely to Huntington's argument, while and the relationship
economic development to be understood by between democratic
denying any 'normative suggestion' their colleagues and vaguely understood
practices and 'socio-economic' develop-
implied by it, he deplored this dismantlingby their students, despite the actuality ment have been the central concerns of
that
of the Congress and the weakness of otherneither these terms nor their sub-referents,our research. Here, as elsewhere, there
political parties in India. 'Widespread such as secularisation, restratification, was a consensus almong practitioners
politicisation', he remarked, 'does put aurbanisation, and the like have any kind in India - the politicians, on the one
high premium on a polity's institutional of concrete reality other than those pro- hand, and political scientists, mainly
capacity simultaneously to accommodate duced by manipulating census data. One American, on the other hand --concerning
the resulting demands and to promote can talk, for example, of urbanisation "theas desirability of a secular, democratic
socio-economic development. Well- an aspect of modernisation and cite census state dedicated to economic development
organised political parties thus become and national unity."34 That consensus,
figures to show its rate, the sources of the
especially crucial'.33 migrating populations, and some of the especially on the role of a democratic
We have here, despite the differences inpolitical results produced by migration of state in directing economic development,
emphasis, an essentially congruent set ofethnically. distinct migrants into an urban in fact was formed in India as early as the
arguments about what is important inmetropolis. One then also attaches some late 19th century, at the beginnings of
Indian political development and how that nationalist thought and political organi-
significance or value to these processes for
development may be endangered. Interest which summary terms are also used, such sation.35 While this consensus might
groups, organised or not, present demands seem admirable from a liberal democratic
as 'rapid' or moderate for the rate of change,
that naturally proliferate in a heteroge-
'rural' for the source of migrants, inter- perspective, it is further evidence of the
absence of distance between intellectuals
ethnic conflict for the consequences of
neous society such as India's that is also
undergoing extensive politicisation. These migration, and the like. and politicians, a distance that is necessary
demands are presented to the state which, What is wrong with all this is that it for is critique.
throughout most of this period, made the without doubt a conservative, state-sup-In place of critique, Weiner and other
crucial decisions affecting organised in- porting politico-moral framework that India specialists warned, preached, and
terests. Between the interests and the Indian ignores the lived realities of the Indian
cautioned the political elites in India after
state stood the Indian National Congress, people. These concepts are all misguiding. independence. Following Shils, our writ-
which had the capacity for two decades to These old concepts and terms not only ings were supposed to 'enlighten' the
aggregate, accommodate, and incorporate mislead us, but they are of no predictive political elites about the rieaning of de-
such demands and the power to deflect and value, which is so highly valued in the mocracy, its practices, and its dangerous
resist them when necessary. After the death modern social sciences. These concepts
shoals.36 Thus, Weiner pointed to the
'danger' that India's political elites might,
of Nehru and during the long period of rule start from the top. We need to start from
by Indira Gandhi, the balance shifted in the bottom to look at relations between in their search for utopian solutions to
India's vast problems, 'fail to recognise'
such a way that the institutions, particu- people, which for us as political scientists
larly the Congress, that had performed means especially relations of power.the The inevitability of conflict, the arousal of
these functions had weakened and now vast majority of the Indian people have 'ethnic
no loyalties', 'the struggle for patron-
lacked the capacity to deal effectively withidea of what is meant by modernisation, age and power', and the essential presence
them, thus producing a 'crisis of socio-economic development, state capa- of both 'political parties and pressure
groups' in the 'democratic process'. They
city, and the like. They have specific needs
governability'. That crisis in turn cast doubt
on the ability of the Indian state 'to pro- and wants and have to interact with inight
per- feel their plans threatened by all
mote socio-economic development'. sons in positions of authority in order toelements and opt instead for authori-
these
Now, what is wrong with all this? As attain them. But does not Indian 'demo- tarian solutions.37 While Weiner phrased
a broad summary statement of what has cracy' provide the means for those atthesethepoints in neutral terms, they amounted
happened in India during the past 50 years, nevertheless to advice to India's political
bottom to gain influence, respect, resources,
it cannot be said that it is wrong. Neither and power? Is not 'democracy' in fact elites. But, at the time Weiner wrote these
for that matter can it be said to be true. lines, India's political elites did not need
working in India to the increasing advan-
It is, however, a framework for attaching tage of the lower orders? Let us see suchhow advice, for they had their own preacher
meaning, significance, and value to sets and tutor, Jawaharlal Nehru, who under-
this question has been taken up in one type
of processes abstracted from political of answer to this question of democraticstood all these points and was himself
happenings. Beginning first of all with development in India. committed to the values and practices of

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contemporary democracy and democratic cess. Once again, these sympathetic state-
This is not the place to discuss the history
development. of the organisation of such panchayatsments in have been made in impeccably
Nehru himself, however, largely escaped India. For purposes of this essay, itneutralis English social scientific terms, but
critical analysis. He was by far, among all sufficient to note only that they posedthey no cannot be interpreted otherwise than
the leadeli' of the postcolonial world, the obstacle whatsoever to the centralisation as sympathetic. The special overall prob-
darling of liberal academic political of power, the development of the com- lem that India and its political elites are
scientists in the west. Only during the last mand economy, and the proliferation said of to have faced-from the start is the
decade have his ideals and policies come political parties and interest groups that necessity of confronting all the develop-
in for increasingly sharp intellectual cri- Gandhi opposed. There can be no doubt ment problems at once instead of in a
tique, mostly from Indian social scientists that here also political development spe- gradual sequence, as in the west. As Das
of the postmodernist persuasion. How- cialists shared the same views as the Gupta has put it, echoing the earlier
ever, during virtually the entire period ofmembers of the Indian constituent assem- theoretical development literature on
his political dominance after the death of bly, namely, that a strong state structure sequences of political development,44
his rival, Sardar Patel, until the fiasco of was essential to India's development - "democratic systems in developing coun-
his handling of the war with China in 1962, political, economic, and social - and that tries have the unenviable [my italics] task
Nehru faced no serious opposition to his it was the Gandhian alternative, not the of simultaneously and rapidly developing
rule and his ideals either from within the Nehruvian approach, that was utopian and the polity, economy, and society."45 The
Indian political process or from intellec- unrealistic, not to say obscurantist. phrasing is important. It is not only an
tuals, though there was subterranean sen-Although Ralph Retzlaff published a unenviable task, but it is a task, that is, a
timent amongst the then politically weak book on Indian village government in duty, or, as the American Heritage dictio-
militant Hindu nationalists against him. 196239 and others of us have from time nary puts its, 'a piece of assigned work',
The current critique of Nehru's ideals to time commented on the functioning of 'a difficult or tedious undertaking'.
and policies derives from two sources, one those systems of panchayati raj (village Who assigned to India's political elites
indigenous, the other once again western. self-government) that have been introduced this unenviable task? Well, they assigned
in several states in India,40 the bulk of our it to themselves and political development
The first is the political thought, ideas, and
practices of Gandhi, the second is the writing has focused on the institutions specialists on India also assigned it to
contemporary postmodernist critique ofassociated with the modern state and with them. The consensus remains intact here
the intellectual apparatus as well as the its democratic development. Weiner andas well and any critique of the undertaking
ideals derived from the Enlightenment and LaPalombara raised questions such as itself was for long absent, though there has
its enshrinement of Reason as the solution whether or not 'mobilist single-party sys-been ample critique of measures taken
for all social problems. which Nehru tems' could be compatible with 'demo-along the way to implement it or deviate
embodied. I will return to the second cratic political values'41 or whether or not,from it. We all reacted with shock and
critique of both Nehru and the develop-
"from the standpoint of long-range demo- anger, reflecting our deep commitment to
ment perspective later. Here, however,
cratic it
political development a bureaucracythe democratic development process in
needs to be noted that Gandhi anointed subject to party patronage, even to a certainIndia, when Indira Gandhi temporarily gave
amount of political corruption, is to beup 'combined development' on the plea
Nehru as India's prime minister despite the
fact that he certainly knew that Nehru's preferred to one in which, while it nicelythat the democratic part of that develop-
political goals and practices were utterly conforms to the Weberian requisites of ament was undermining social stability and
incompatible with his own. Gandhi'slegal - rational authority system, is alsoeconomic development goals and when
thought, ideals, and practices were anti- by this very reason in a position to distort she, instead of pursuing the unenviable
He development of political parties andtask, "set out to dismantle the democratic
statist, anti-party, and anti-industrialist.the
proposed the disbanding of. the Indian interest groups and even to subject themsystem of persuasion and replace it with
National Congress and the creation of a
to bureaucratic domination."42 Once again,an authoritarian mode of creating and
new political order based on village self-
though stated in neutral academic terms,enforcing public assent."46 But we did not
government and rural development. The it is obvious that Weiner at least preferred criticise the whole enterprise, not to
makers of the Indian Constitution ignoredthe development of a multiparty system formention its increasing association with
the total incompatibility of the two Indiaap- that aggregated group interests andanother form of development, namely,
proaches to India's political future and that he was, in effect, saying to India'smilitary development that led to India's
ignored Gandhi's hopes.38 In the nearly political elites that it was more importantfirst 'peaceful' nuclear explosion under
400 articles of the exceedingly long Coni-
to nurture these institutions than to worryIndira Gandhi in 1974, and in the May,
overmuch about political penetration of1998 nuclear explosions at Pokhran, to its
stitution of India, there is only one brief
article that refers to the favoured form and
of corruption in the bureaucracy. Herefurtherdevelopment undera militant Hindu
Gandhian political organisation, the vil-too India's political elites needed no suchgovernment. That this striving for great
lage panchayat. Article 40 in the Directive
advice as they transformed the Indian politypower status was inherent in the develop-
Principles of State Policy - that, in fact,
into what I have called a corrupt bureau- ment process from the beginning was, for
have no directive power - says only thatcratic state.43 the most part, neglected,47 along with its
Specialists in Indian political develop- implications for the well-being of the Indian
"the state shall take steps to organise village
panchayats and endow them with such ment have also repeatedly expressed theirpeoples.
powers and authority as may be necessary
sympathies with the problems faced by Far from criticising the whole enterprise
to enable them to function as units of self-
Indian political elites in pursuing the of India's "simultaneous development of
government." various aspects of the development pro-social, economic, and political resour-

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ces,"48 we heaped praise upon its elites deaths, and genderdiscrimination that takestimes raised whether or not a particular
- always expressed in neutral social sci- combination of parties may be able to
the form of extremely low literacy rates
entific terms - for adhering to the path of for women, victimisation of females in thegovern effectively or not. That usage of
'democratic political development'. Das the term also became quite prominent in
family with regard to provision of food and
Gupta remarked in 1989, for example, how medical facilities, persistence of casteIndia after - and ever since - the results
India's democratic political development disabilities, and on and on. As the reader of the 1967 General Elections, as a con-
had "not been constrained by the slow will note, I wax more eloquently on thesequence of which the Congress lost its
development of the so-called social and latter set of issues than on the former, butmajority at the centre53 and in half the
economic requisites of democratic being." most of my colleagues manage to maintainIndian states, introducing a period of
Indeed, 'Indian democracy' in this respect a more perfect equilibrium in their cannedunstable coalition governments in many of
stood 'as a deliberate act of political articles and speeches. them. It has also.been used by political
defiance of the social and economic con- In fact, I have been accused of being analysts
a in India with reference to Con-
straints of underdevelopment'.49 Theprophet of doom and gloom, of paintinggress rule at the centre both before and
adverbs and adjectives are missing from a picture of an India heading seamlessly after the 1967 elections. For example, one
these statements, but they are nonethelesstowards catastrophe, as one of my critics writer, remarking upon the diversity of
apparent; they were commendably 'not ... recently put it. What I want to say here aridinterests contained within the Congress,
constrained' and the act of defiance was now, however, is that India is not heading thought it explained "why the Congress
commendable. towards catastrophe: India is a living Party cannot adopt rational policies or
Those who have criticised and worried catastrophe and its people, including its govern effectively; it has to contend all the
more about India's political future intellectuals,
and time against itself."54 Finally, it has also
know it. But that line will get
have seen present circumstances as less us nowhere but into endless, unsolvable been used in the sense of 'self' versus
commendable have, nevertheless, donearguments.
so More important, from an ana- 'other' forms of governance, as in self-
from within the same developmentalist lytical rather than a polemical point of government for India after British rule and,
perspective. I refer once again to Kohli view,
- I want to say that this develop-in India itself after independence, in the
with whom I have also been bracketed50 mentalist perspective, this endless talksense of restoration of self-governance to
- who coined in 1990 the term, 'crisis about
of simultaneous development, thisfederal units whose government has been
governability' for India's political condi-grand celebration of Indian democracy istaken over by the centre for a time, that
an intellectual dead-end that has us going
tion in the late 1980s, and asked the question is, restoration of 'its own governance'.55
whether "India's democratic government round in circles like this all the time. We When talking about India, however, the
[can] simultaneously accommodate con- have all been caught in it and cannot seem terms governance, govern, and govern-
flicting interests and promote socio- to get out of it. ability convey a much broader range of
economic development."51 It is, once concerns.
I want to propose how to get out' of it: It is used more often in the
again, the unenviable task that India's to show how Weiner's best work points conventional meanings of the term; that is
political elites may not, after all, be able to rule, control, direct, steer, regulate
a way out and how other kinds of questions
to bring off. may be asked that will lead us out of this determine, and/or restrain. Thus, Indian
Well, 55 years have passed. Have they dead end. However, I want first to consider use the term govern and governance t
brought it off or not? Whenever we India another set of terms that I have spotted refer to British rule in India, which did al
specialists are asked to give an answertrotting
to along beside us that have led of
us those things. However, like so many
this type of question of assessment ofstill the further astray. other things that were carried over from
results of India's 'experiment' in so-called British authoritarian rule, the idea of
simultaneous development, we have what IV governance was also carried over into the
I have called elsewhere52 a canned speech Governance and Governability new Indian democracy along with its
or a canned paper in which we recite the opposite, namely, the possibility that the
achievements of the Nehruvian planning Much of the writing about India by India country or its parts, that is, the former
process, mostly in aggregate or abstract specialists has been concerned with the provinces - now states - of the country
terms such as the creation of a broad and question of 'governance'. It is a curious might be misgoverned or mismanaged.
diversified industrial base, the maintenanceword to apply to a state deemed demo- This possibility was very much in the minds
of the 'Hindu rate of growth', the absencecratic. We do not use it much in the US of members of the constituent assembly,
of famines, the rise of a new urban middle where mostly the common term govern- among whom the fear of disorder was very
class, and most of all the maintenance of ment is used, which is sometimes calledprominent and who associated the notion
democratic practices. We then recite the'good' as in good government, though we of disorder with these terms, mismanage-
deficiencies: failure to cross the 50 per rarely use the opposite term, bad government and misgovernance. As I have shown
cent literacy line, absence of clean drink- ment. When we say good government, elsewhere,we that fear was used to justify the
ing water, absence of sanitation and usually mean a government that is freeinclusion
of in the Indian Constitution of the
hygiene in most of the country, absence the taint of corruption, 'governs' - that right
is, to make use of extensive emergency
of anything that can be called medicaladministers - the government efficiently powers, including the imposition of what
is called president's rule upon any state
treatment in most of the country and vir- and convinces a majority of the people that
tually none that can be called antiseptic,it does so in 'the public interest' whatever
whose government failed to maintain 'law
and order'.56
proliferation of urban slums the like ofits specific policy goals. The term 'govern'
which the world has never before seen, is more often used with reference to multi- Dua, among others, has noted that India's
increased communal violence, dowry political leaders in the constituent assem-
party systems, where the question is some-

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bly in fact "borrowed the concept of own citizens. In this new world order, it
taged groups', which he argues has "made
emergency governance from the Govern- seems,. there are really no citizens, only
India both a more genuine democracy and
ment of India Act of 1935."57 But it was beneficiaries and victims, those with in-
a more difficult country to govern". Manor
not just disorder that these political elites means by the latter that conflicts have fluence and those with none.
feared, but especially a particular type, that become more difficult 'to manage'. What Kothari's call is for a 'return to humane
which might threaten "the integrity and has made matters especially difficult is
governance', including a concern for 'hu-
unity of the Indian union."58 Provisions that, as this democratic awakening has man rights and ethical imperatives', for the
for emergency governance were justified taken place, political decay of India's 'recovery of the human, the good, and the
because disorder or misgovernance might principal 'political institutions', thosejust'.67
of In restoring such a conception and
lead to such a breakdown of order that the state as well as the Congress, has taken
form of government, the intellectuals have
India's territorial statehood itself mightplace.64
be Huntington's shadow is here a role to play, which includes 'exposing
endangered. Such concerns about mis-again, obviously, with his formula misgovernance
for and oppression', creating
government and mismanagement could democracy as a regime defined by the a "knowledge base for transformative
only have reflected another kind of autonomy
con- of its institutions from social
politics and democratic governance", and
forces and, as well, his formula for disaster
tinuity between the new governing elites identifying themselves "with the victims
and the former British rulers, namely, an
arising of history and with the democratic move-
from the imbalance between parti-
cipation/social mobilisation and insti-
attitude of distrust of the ordinary politi- ment waged on their behalf'. Instead of
tutionalisation.65
cians of the country and a lack of faith in This formula, of course,
playing "the role of rationalisers and
eliminates the 'self' from 'governance',
the ability of a mostly newly-franchised legitimisers" of existing political forms,
population to check the misbehaviour of the possibility that self-governance
ignores presenting a vision of the future derived
their elected governors. may only become possible through politi-from developmentalist perspectives for the
There is also built into the concept
calofdisorder, the dismantling of institu-
benefit of the people, their role should be
governance in India the underlying tions, to listen to the people and build that
fear the displacing of old political elites
that India itself is so big and heterogeneous knowledge base from what they them-
by new ones, and the articulation of a new
'political formula' that better reflects selves
that it might in fact be impossible to govern the hear from the people.68
effectively at all, a fear unstated but aspirations
pre- of the formerly disadvantaged. I will come back to the issues raised by
sumably felt by its Constitution-makers This formula also eliminates the 'human' Kothari in a moment, but will say now only
and asserted openly by foreign specialists and the 'humane' from governance, as that Kothari too has been caught in the
on Indian politics. It is sometimes argued Kothari has put it in his poignant and discursive framework of the term, govern-
also that several of India's states are them- powerful essay. Kothari argues in a para- ance, which presumes an abstract entity
selves too large and heterogeneous to be doxical formulation that not only in India, above the people that will somehow govern
governed effectively and efficiently by but a globally, "governance has been usurped better, that is, more humanely, in the
single government and should, therefore, by governments" and further that "govern- interests of the people. For reasons that
be split up into much smaller units.59 ments have been taken over by corporate will, I hope, become clear in a moment,
The most striking assertion of the ques- interests and the military-technocratic I do not believe that there can be any such
tion of whether or not India as a whole order, and by the ideology of national form of governance.
could be governed at all was made by interest Selig and national security."66 Although However, I want to refer first to another
Harrison in 1960.60 It has been reasserted the first part of the statement sounds source for the contemporary usage of the
paradoxical, it is as clear as can be and term, 'govern', namely elite theory and the
most recently by Kohli who has remarked.
that "the area that is now identified as
means what I have just said, that the self, arguments that have surrounded it. In
India was never easy to govern" and meaning
has 'the people', has been taken outclassical elite theory associated with Mosca,
of the term governance, and, further, that Michels, and to a considerable extent
in recent years, in fact, "become difficult
to govern".61 However, uilike Harrison, governments no longer rule humanely in Lasswell as well, democracy cannot exist
who was raising the underlying fearthe ofinterests of the people but in the in- in reality. The idea of democracy itself is
early Indian nationalists that the country terests of multinational corporations in merely a political formula in the modern
might disintegrate, Kohli means by 'gov- which the good society has become one age that hides the reality that all large-scale
in which happiness is identified with organisations, including the state and
ern', "the state's capacity ... simultaneously
to promote development and to accommo- possession and utilisation of the latest political parties that vie for power within
date diverse interests",62 the simultaneoustechnological devices, in a world made it, are oligarchies controlled by elites who
development question once again. He safe for those who posses and use them,govern in the name of the people. Those
argues even more strongly that the great by a state whose primary concern is notelites cannot be replaced by 'the people',
fear of disorder of the Indian Constitution-
even governance but the mere protection by any genuine form of self-rule, but only
makers has materialised, that 'political of the interests and safety of its citizens, by counter-elites. Even when the ruling
order in contemporary India' has, in fact, especially of its privileged citizens. India, elites are overthrown in the course of a
broken down.63 of course, was not part of the inner circle mass revolutionary movement, the end
It needs to be noted also that the way of such states when Kothari wrote these result can only be the re-establishment of
in which the term 'governance' is used lines,
in but rather was at once a victim of some form of elite rule or governance. The
the literature on Indian politics separatesthe new global order and an increasingly reigning democratic theory in contempo-
it from democracy. Thus, Manor refers to participant in it, creating its own rary American political science associated
eager
the 'political awakening' that has occurredinternal victims among the poor and dis- with the name of Robert Dahl departs from
in recent years among India' s 'disadvan- advantaged, that is, the vast majority of its this theory only to the extent of denying

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the inevitability and the reality in the US the centre and in the states, particularly the is' or 'what or who is governed'.73
of the argument that a single elite always ministries, departments, and public sector The militant Hindu politicians, on the
rules. Dahl instead argues that the struggle undertakings, which they gradually con-other hand, are saying: you pseudo-secu-
of interests and parties in the US "produces verted into increasingly bountiful sourceslarists and appeasers of minorities are not
a 'pluralist' rather than an 'elitist' distri- of corrupt income. In the meantime, as allgoing to'govern any longer; only those
bution of power"69 But Dahl's polyarchal India specialists know, what is called thewho declare themselves to be Hindus are
democracy remains itself an elitist form of basic human needs of the people were going to govern. They are also saying that
rule in which the participation of the people disregarded, the institutions that sustained we know better 'what governing is'., that
consists primarily in the act of voting.70 this plunder began to collapse, and the funds is, 'how to govern:'74 we will rule hon-
It is fully consistent with the Schumpeterian to continue to sustain them were depleted. estly, impartially, without discrimination
redefinition of modern democracy as rule As the state and its agencies and agentsamong persons and groups, all of whom
by elected elites.71 became more and more corrupt and self- are to be included in the great Hindu family,
Elite theory in its early phase constituted serving, gradually also new social forces, and we will maintain law and order, in
containing in their midst new sets of elites,respect to all of which you others have
a sharp critique of then existing regimes
that claimed to be democratic. In its
began to challenge the old order, but notfailed at the risk of critically endangering
contemporary form, however, it consti-
its corrupt foundations, in which they allthe country and the nation. They are also
wish to
tutes a justification for such regimes. Inshare or control themselves or redefining 'what or who is governed'. The
neither form is elite theory fully adequate
divide more equitably. Simultaneously also, what is a united India, free from the conflicts
as the old institutions declined and the old
to comprehend the functioning of contem- and disorders among its peoples that have
elites in
porary regimes of symbol manipulation lost their bases of power, so did the divided it till now. The 'who' is the un-
societies whose lives are controlled and political formula under which they gov- divided Hindu nation that is to include
erned, whose key terms were moderni-
disciplined in great detail by multinational Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, all Hindu castes
corporations rather than by governments, sation, development, secularism, and so- and classes and sects, not that composite
such as the US. or of corrupt bureaucraticcialism. In their place, the ascendant mixture of cultures that formed the nation
developmentalist regimes such as India's. political formula contains the terms Hinduof the 'pseudo-secularists'.
There remain nevertheless several aspects nation, respect for the (Hindu) faith of the It should be obvious, by the very fact
people, unification of the (Hindu) nation,
of early - not late elite theory - that remain that it contains answers to all three ques-
superior to the developmentalist paradigm abandonment of policies of appeasement tions while the lower and backward caste
of minorities,
as well as to critiques of it such as Kothari' s. honesty and integrity in parties and movements do not, that the
First is the very recognition that there is
government, militant Hindu response is potentially the
law and order, and respect for
India in the world of nations. Some of
an inevitable tendency for elites to emerge more powerful and persuasive one. The
in all societies, in all social movements,thesein terms are carry-overs that were former offers only the spoils from the
contained within the old political formula,
all formal organisations, and in the agencies existing state apparatus to those previously
denied access to them. The latter offers a
some are distortions of it, some are out-
of the state themselves. Second is the recog-
nition that elites and governments rageously
rule, vision of a future great India - never mind
false in their implications, though
how dishonest, pathological, and danger-
widely believed (e g, that militant Hindu
govern under the guise of a 'political formula'
ous to some social forces in India, to its
politicians in the Bharatiya Janata Party
in which they may or may not themselves
(BJP) are less corrupt than others).neighbours,
believe, but which provides a justification But and to others it may be - that
has a considerable appeal to the still-
those who have articulated the new politi-
for their rule that sustains them in power
cal in
as long as most of the people believe formula themselves come predomi-
dominant classes in society, the upper
classes and castes, and to a part of the
nantly from the elites that dominated India
it. Third is the notion that political struggle
in modern regimes that operate under the the Nehru period. On the other middle
during side, classes and castes as well.
political formula of liberal democracy is
the rising Both movements in contemporary India,
social forces and the elites within
a continuous engagement of social forces. that of the lower classses and castes, and
them adhere to elements of the old political
If we apply this scheme in its bare bones formula to which they have addedthat the of the militant Hindus, however, are
to India, one can say with a fair degree ofdemands for equality, economic better- participating in a critique of the political
summary accuracy that, in the early years ment of the lower castes and classes, orderand that was created by Nehru and the
after Independence - throughout the Nehrurule by the real majority (the 'bahuljan' in
Congress in the first two decades of Indian
period, in fact - India was ruled by anthe party called the Bahujan Samaj Party).
independence and that has been falling
upper class, upper caste elite whose po- These rising castes and classes and social
apart for the past 25 years. They are joined
litical formula was the very develop- forces are challenging in India a part in of
this critique by several of the most
mentalist ideology that. I have been dis-the wider notion of governance: "whorespectedcan intellectuals in India as well,
cussing so far in this article. During thosegovern; what governing is; what or such who as Ashish Nandy and T N Madan.
years, the struggle of social forces wasis governed".72 The militant Hindus, how- This critique responds to another question,
contained primarily within a 'ruling class'ever, are challenging all three parts of namely,
this 'how not to be governed', that is
of westernised professional persons, com-particular statement of governance.to Thesay, "how not to be governed like that
mercial and industrial elements, and ex- rising backward and lower caste move- [italics in original], by that, in the name
landlord and upper peasant groups. Underments are saying: you brahmans and other of those principles, with such and such an
the cover of the political formula, personsupper castes are not going to govern usobjective
any in mind and by means of such
from these classes gained control overlonger; we are now going to govern.procedures, But not like that, not for that, not
most of the instruments of governance atthey have no notion of 'what governing by them".75

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The answers to the 'how not to be such phrases as 'the recovery of religiousemphasise difference between and defer-
governed' questions are again different tolerance', respect for the indigenous valuesence of the low to the high. Fourth, comes
from the side of the lower classes and and faiths of the people, and the like. Such violence: from the violence of everyday
castes and from the militant Hindus. That intellectual constructions have no powerlife against women in the family to the
from the former has already been partlyto confront the militant Hindu ideology,violence against the poor and other unpro-
noted above: we will not be governed bywhose leaders are as much or more in touch tected persons perpetrated by the police in
you uppercaste people as if we were inferiorwith the indigenous values and faiths ofpolice stations and in the countryside to
beings; we will not accept the leavingsthe people and who know how to manipu-the criminal violence of so-called Hindu-
from your tables any longer; we will havelate them to their political advantage. Muslim riots, which are often in fact
our share and our rights. And, we will not For those who wish to challenge the oldpogroms against Muslims in which the
have our share and our rights as benevolentorder and the old political formula withoutpolice are participants or quiet bystanders.
gifts from you; we will take them throughfalling into the net of the BJP and its family Fifth, comes corruption: pervasive, sys-
our own efforts and we will take them from of militant Hindu organisations, somethingtematic, graded, corrosive of all institu-
you, if necessary. However, the partiesmore is needed. Neither pleas for 'humanetions and agencies in Indian society in
representing these social forces are notgovernance' nor for respect for the valueswhich all are implicated, in which all
rejecting the old political formula of and beliefs of the ordinary people of Indiaparticipate from the lowest to the highest
developmentalism and secularism. Theycan offer much of political substance. in Indian society. Sixth, and related to all
cannot reject developmentalism becauseResistance is called for, but resistance to the above, the continued diversion of the
there is no other way open to them in what? Against whom? How? And what resources of the country from any serious
this land without opportunities for theshould be the role of intellectuals in India attempt to satisfy the basic human needs
disadvantaged outside of government. and the west who are sympathetic to the of the population to big dams, nuclear
They cannot reject secularism because it need for resistance. power plants, military projects, and nuclear
is only through coalition among diverse The greatest failing of the develop-weapons and delivery systems.
castes and communities, including espe- mentalist/institutionalist approach is that One needs also to open one's eyes to
cially Muslims, that they can achieve it utterly lacks any basis for critique. Its what denial of the basic human needs of
control over government and government last vestiges need to be utterly disownedthis population approaching one billion
resources. and discarded. It has contributed in its own means. One has to keep before one's eyes
The militant Hindu response way to to the
the catastrophe that is India today. what one sees everyday in India and that
question 'how not to be governed' Nor doesis the
more classical elite theory out- one tends to forget almost instantly as soon
encompassing. It is in some ways
lined above also
take us far enough. We need as one settles into the seats of the departing
more 'radical', not in the Left's sense of a framework for the analysis of the rela- flights: people living in garbage dumps on
tions of power in Indian society and of the the outskirts of cities from which they
radical, but in the sense of distancing from
the old political formula. Militant Hindus interrelations of state and society. We need scavenge their food and clothing; children
share many, if not most, of the original to build a political ethnography, that is, an lying listlessly on the ground outside rural
objectives of Nehru and the Congress. ethnography of power relations in Indian medical dispensaries where they have come
They want to build a new India that society is and an ethnography of the Indian because they have a flu or stomach ailment
industrialised, technologically modernised, state. Such an ethnography can be built or perhaps something more serious and
and militarily powerful enough to overawe only from empirical observation of Indian life-threatening, their bodies covered with
its neighbours in south Asia, to equalise realities, not from developmentalist or anti- flies from head to toe and no one there or
its position in relation to China, and to developmentalist abstractions.76 We need interested in or capable of attending to
gain the respect of the western industrial to begin with the other side of our canned them; peasants tilling tiny plots of land
powers. They even claim to be secularspeeches - about Indian development and insufficient to feed their families, some of
and they are in a different, sophistical way: Indian democracy. them still tied in relations of bonded labour
once all Indians declare themselves to be So, let me presenta list ofstarters. Poverty to those with larger landholdings; police
politically Hindu, all will be treated in the is first, but not poverty as an abstraction, raising their lathis against bicycle rick-
same way. Those who do not accept the not poverty as a counting of the numbers shaw drivers sweltering in unbearable heat
political Hindu designation (particularly of people below an imaginary line - even to beat them because they have made some
Muslims and Christians) are to be treated if that line is constructed and commented minor traffic error; old Muslim men
as, in effect, non-Indians, non-citizens, upon by a radical theorist such as Amartya walking up a hill to tell the mufti at the
who should go somewhere else, to Pakistan Sen - but poverty as a way of life that one end of riot curfew how they were beaten
or to England. cannot escape and that dramatically con- by police, their beards grabbed and pulled,
But there is also a more radical critique strains one's abilities and relations with how they have lost sons in the riots; women
of the old political formula that comes the non-poor. Second, and associated with telling their stories of husbands, sons, and
from some of India's intellectuals and has poverty, comes illiteracy: continuing, in- brothers killed in the same riots; men sitting
been articulated also by Ronald Inden. creasing illiteracy that makes a mockery listlessly in government offices doing
That critique rejects lock, stock, and barrel of the idea of equality in Indian society, absolutely nothing hour after hour, day
the entire developmentalist perspective andespecially forwomen whose illiteracy rates after day; the rich, privileged, and power-
the secular political framework as well.are very high indeed. Third, comes in- ful sitting comfortably in their new
However, while the critique is powerful, equality itself: the persistence at all levels bungalows, their five-star hotel suites, their
the prescriptions are ineffectual. It offersof Indian society - outside the most restaurants, oblivious to all the above and
no sensible political alternatives beyond westernised - of relationships that prepared to deny that any of it actually

49.36.210.214 on Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:02:35 UTC
exists in their country; politicians moving depth personal interviews as the primary (though some of them that arose from the
about with guns in their holsters beneath source of political knowledge of India. developmentalist perspective were not
their kurtas, with shadows and bodyguards; Weiner's use of his interview materials really answerable). These 'why' questions
ministers in the government moving about and, associated with interviews, personal are interlaced throughout his books and
in retinues of cars, accompanied by smart- observations over the years, changed some-articles, from the first to the last, whether
stepping Black Cats who rush out to open what. In his earlier work, the interviews or not he is addressing interview respon-
their doors and surround them with their were mostly used as footnoted source dents or a theoretical problem or puzzle
automatic rifles until they are safely insidematerials in the preparation of coherent
to be solved through a survey of compara-
their huge bungalows. I have many otherand factually accurate accounts of events.tive conditions in other parts of the world
such images in my mind's eye gatheredSometimes also he included extracts from or in different parts of India. Why does
over 38 years of personal observation, somehis field notes as part of his narrative
India have a multi-party system? "Why
of them too noisome to mention in print,accounts. In some of his middle and later have the reactions to migrants been more
which the phrase 'absence of sanitation' work, however, especially in Sonis of acutely
the hostile and nativist in some regions
does not capture even euphemistically. ToSoil and The Child and the State, he than in others, and toward some but not
refer to such things in a scholarly paper published long excerpts from his inter- all migrants?"79 "Why did government
is to immediately elicit the following re-views that conveyed the feelings and pointcommissions reviewing child labour and
sponses: 'Mother India', drain inspector'sof view of his respondents. In the case education
of policies as recently as 1985-86.
report, what about conditions in the US? Soils of the Soil, his interviews brought to
not call for compulsory education or for
You have spent too much time in Uttarlife the quality of the interactions between legislation to abolish child labour?"80
Pradesh.77 Or simply silence. cultural groups in conflict with each other,Weiner did not ask 'why' questions only
But I am not interested in the shock value the cultural values they expressed, the or even usually to elicit attitudes. Most of
of these images for their own sake, but prejudices they harboured, and the iden- the time, he was seeking factual, testable
rather as a spur to new research on Indiatities they felt. These interviews added answers. The answers he received were
that carries forward some of the empirical authenticity to his accounts and to his usually tested against comparative expe-
methods of Weiner to myriad areas yetefforts to explain events and movements. rience. f a respondent or the documentary
untouched, but with the intellectual bag- In The Child and the State, an even more evidence gave a particular answer, Weiner's
gage of development theory, the institu-significant departure from his earliest work next question to himself was: Does this
tional approach to Indian politics, and the in several respects, Weiner added photo- hold up elsewhere? Weiner sometimes also
fulsome praise of Indian 'democracy'graphs to supplement his interviews.78 asked 'how' and 'what' questions, but
banished from the field or at least to some Insofar as the interviews are concerned, mostly to elicit further facts that could be
reservation where it may be preserved as however, there are two other major differ- used to answer the 'why' questions. Weiner
an example of an outmoded practice. Let ences between the ones reported here and had complete faith in causal analysis and
me now, therefore, refer to what we have in his other work. One is Weiner's own the ability of the comparative method of
learned from Weiner's life world in India, presence in them. Weiner was also 'present'
John Stuart Mill - as filtered through into
contemporary political science - to find
what remains of lasting and, I believe, of in his earlier interviews, but his presence
permanent value, and how Weiner's here is different, almost blatant. In Sons
true answers to precise questions.
methods may be turned in different direc- of the Soil, he listened sympatheticallySince to Harold Lasswell's famous little
tions to serve other purposes. book, Politics; Who Gets What, When,
his respondents and did not challenge them.
In The Child and the State - and this is How, was published many years ago, many
V the second difference - he challenged hispolitical scientists have taken the title of
Methods respondents, contradicted them, eventhat book as covering all the questions that
humiliated them by demonstrating to themmight be appropriately asked to find out
Weiner's principal method of researchtheir own ignorance of their own respon-all we need or want to know about political
was the in-depth personal interview, atsibilities and the laws governing theirbehaviour. However, it is striking to note
which he was a master. I know of his duties. In short, Weiner was personallythat the 'why' question is not contained
involved
mastery not only because of the reports of in an issue on which he had in the title. Yet, the second sentence of the
his interviews that he has included in some book
strong feelings and it came out in hisalso contains the statement: "The
of his work, but from personal observation questions and his responses to answers
science of politics states conditions". And,
of his conversations over the years with that he knew to be false. on p 207, there is the following statement:
others, which themselves could sometimes From the beginning, Weiner believed
turn into interviews. Weiner's questions that, in work in developing countries,Thq scientific mode of thinking proceeds
by formulating a theoretical model of how
were precise, searching, probing, so pen- anthropological methods were appropriate
[italics mine] selected factors condition
etrating that his respondent or the person for political science research. However,
one another, and confronts the theory with
with whom he was in dialogue might break Weiner adapted the depth interview tech-
observable 'reality'. [Lasswell'squotation
out into a sweat. He intruded frequently nique to his own purposes. He was not
marks.]81
into his respondents' responses, peppering engaged in 'thick description', for he was
them with questions. My own methods always on the move from person to person What is the difference? I am going to pay
less attention to the 'Who', 'What', and
were quite different from Weiner's in this and place to place asking - epistemologi-
regard, but I and most of us India special- cally speaking - one question, over and'When' for purposes of this article, though
those words also have epistemological
ists - and now my former students as well over again: 'Why?' He sought causes by
- have followed in his path of using in- asking clear, usually precise questions significance insofar as they provide the

49.36.210.214 on Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:02:35 UTC
'reality' that we describe to answer the become more and more interested in the implications to it. The first is that expla-
'why' or the 'how' questions. 'how' as well as in another question that nation implicates the social scientists as
But does not the statement that "the I will discuss in a moment. well as the politicians, the journalists, and
ordinary citizens on one side or another
But first, I must note that there is another
science of politics states conditions" elimi-
nate the difference between the 'why' kind and of 'what' question that comes into of the great issues of the times, involves
the 'how?' Do we not know 'why' once the picture here, a different 'what' from them either in maintaining the or a status
we know 'how' things happen'? To some Lasswell's. By 'what', Lasswell meant quo or in taking a stance against it. Perhaps
extent the statement does blur the differ- material and ideal benefits that accrued this is what Sartre meant when he said
ence, but the processes of discovery are to the influential through politics. There that you are either for the revolution or
entirely different. The 'why' question seeks is another kind of 'what' question that against it. But, there is one further impli-
universal answers to precise questions for turns into a 'how' question that I ask cation that I think is a new argument,
which answers are provided in either frequently in my interviews. In preference namely, that the very act of explanation
straightforward, 'if, then' propositions or to saying why did such and such an event contributes to the persistence of the social
in probabilistic statements. The questions, happen here - though I repeat, I also problems analysed.
the methods, and the answers are abstracted continue to do that - I say, simply, 'what Examples? The authorities, politicians,
from the richness of 'reality', refined to happened' here? the media, the intellectual public, ordinary
encompass only a small part of it, that part That now takes me to a further kind of citizens, and last in the picture, social
that is amenable to answer through exist- methodological issue that Weiner did not scientists and historians, have all been
ing scientific methods. The how question understand or appreciate when I first raised
implicated one way or another for the past
focuses on processes, engagements of it; in fact, he was nonplused by what I was150 years or more in the creation and
forces, manipulation of symbols, and seeks doing. Instead of taking the answers I got
persistence of the communal discourse that
full comprehension of a reality that in- to the questions I raised and eliminating divides the vast Indian population into two
cludes observable behaviour as well as the non-factual, the ignorant, the irrel-large, more or less united or potentially
practices that are partly observable, evant,
partly and the idiotic to find the right unitable, hostile, and conflict-prone 'com-
hidden from the view even of the actors answer, the 'real' explanation, I decidedmunities', Hindus and Muslims. The latter
whose behaviour we observe, who often to listen to and analyse for their own sakepart of the statement itself is one expla-
know not what they do, that is, who are nation of the violence that has been en-
all the statements, inclduing the apparent
rubbish, that were made to me in thesedemic between Hindus and Muslims off
not conscious of the 'conditions and con-
straints'82 upon their own practices. interviews. I then moved a step further and
and on, with greater or lesser intensity, in
Though the two methods are different sought to relate the answers that were different parts of the subcontinent for nearly
given to me to the 'realities' of power
in most respects, they do have an episte- two centuries. What I am saying is cer-
mological meeting point, at which relations in urban, small,town, and rural
tainly not that. I argued against that po-
Lasswell's definition of the science of areas of Uttar Pradesh that I have been sition years ago. What I am saying now
politics as the stating of conditions be- for the past 38 years to arrive
visiting at this communal discourse itself plays
is that
comes apposite. That point is where a set
theof statements about riotous violence,
a major role in the persistence of Hindu-
'how' analyst has to answer the question:
including Hindu-Muslim violence.83 IMuslimalso violence, that it has been creating
is the process you describe universally extended the analysis to reflect uponwhat the it analyses. Moreover, it is a perni-
applicable'? If not, why should I listenuses of
to such incidents of violence for cious system of talk that has been created
you? The answer may then be: the processbroader purposes in the Indian politicalthat has parallels elsewhere in the world,
I describe is a necessary, but not sufficient whose consequences, if one takes the
system. That led me finally to the question
of whether or not there was a kind of
condition or it is necessary and sufficient argument far enough, can be horrendous.
hegemonic
or it is neither. The 'how' answer then may Here my answer begins to turn into a
discourse that pervaded Indian
or may not become a 'why' answer.politics
Such that emerged from the contested response to a 'why' question that can now
and such an outcome will, may, or may meanings of the violent events that be Iphrased as: Why does Hindu-Muslim
not happen when such and such conditions analysed that in turn contributed to the
violence persist in India'? But it is a dif-
are/are not present. persistence of such violence. There were
ferent kind of answer to a question that
But the process of discovery, as I said, several other steps along the way that I Ashutosh
will Varshney, using Weiner's
is different: more holistic than partial, not go into here that brought me finally methods, has come up with. Like Weiner,
oriented to process more than comparison to the epistemological question that I he amasks: Why here and not there, why in
(which is not disregarded, but reserved for raising, namely, the meaning of explana-
this city and not that city, both of which
afterwards), and more attentive to the tion itself, the uses that social scientistsshare characteristics that are as close as can be,
responses people give to questions rather and politicians and the media and the public
with the main exception that communal
than to how satisfactorily they respond to make of the answers to the 'why' questions.
violence is present in one and not the other?
a search for specific answers to the My own answer to this last question
Although Varshney makes a persuasive
interviewer's questions. Though I fully surprised me and I came to it slowly,
case for his answers to the 'why' ques-
acknowledge my debt to Weiner and his cautiously, and with a certain amounttion,
of his explanations fit into a different
interview methods, I am in effect saying doubt. The answer that I have with more kind of programme from mine. Further-
that, over the years, I have adapted it more certainty now come to accept is that ex-more, his answers ultimately are naive.
and more to the 'how' question rather than planation in the social sciences cannot be Varshney concludes, in his latest book,84
to the 'why' question. I still ask why did neutral, objective, value-free. That in itselfwith an argument that appears to be a
such and such an event happen, but I have is not a new argument, but there are furthermirror image of my own. I say that the

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communal discourse pervades large parts overmuch from the point of view of the discourses are in theirown ways pernicious
of India, particularly the north, and that country as a whole, the system, national and that the task of the social scientist
there are certain sites in the country where integration, democracy and whatnot be- is not to convert their consequences into
Hindu-Muslim communal violence is cause of isolated pockets of violence here causal statements or merely to dissect them
endemic. In those sites, I have asked and not
there. I say that the discourse provides and certainly not to justify them. It is to
only why this is the case, but how a cover that justifies the failures of the expose them to view and reveal the extent
riots
happen. I have discovered that, in such to act. To say that intercommu- to which they implicate all miembers of a
authorities
sites, what I call 'institutionalised riot nal linkages exist somewhere else does not society/state in part and some in full degree.
systems' exist that operate under the coverhelp to explain why governments do not It is to remove ourselves from inside them,
of the communal discourse. Varshney,act when they know very well how to with all our 'why' questions, ask instead
using Weiner's comparative method, dis- prevent riots - in those places where riots how they came into being and how we can
covers that, in those cities where Hindu- are endemic - before they happen and to make a start in defanging them by moving
Muslim riots do not occur, there are contain them once they get started. outside them ourselves. We need to insert
'institutionalised peace systems'. It would Now, to raise another broad issue, my some explosive materials into the bottoms
seem, therefore, that Varshney has con-rational choice and game theory colleagues of these talking edifices in the hope that
firmed my own findings and phrased themhave looked on much of my work kindly. others will begin to see that they need to
in causal terms, in if-then propositions, inDavid Laitin has shown me how he can con- be blown apart or shut up.
general statements, to wit: where riots are-vert my argument into rational choice state- I want to finish this discussion of
endemic, institutionalised riot systemsments. I can also convert my arguments methods by returning to the question o
exist, which cause them; where riots'do into if-then causal statements: riots follow comparison in the social sciences. I ha
upon the institutionalisation of riot sys- shown how I have worked from the sp
not occur, institutionalised peace systems
exist, which prevent them. There are fur- tems; where a communal discourse exists, cific to the general, not through controll
ther elaborations of Varshney' s argumentsthere will be violence, etceteras. But such comparisons attempting to answer 'wh
that I will not go into here, but their sim-statements are not much use because they questions, but through processual analys
plistic character arises from the unsophis-may or may not prove out in practice. of the dynamics of violent conflict filter
ticated belief that the development of in- Moreover, they are beside the point. through or hidden behind the smokescree
tercommunal linkages between communal This does not mean that I eschew com- of a 'commnunal question'. I have show
groups can really prevent riots. I will notparison. On the contrary, once I arrived then
at how such a study of a specific typ
speculate here on the policy implicationsmy main conclusions - in fact, as I was of violence and the discourse associated
of his arguments except to say that they with it led me to comparison with other
arriving at them - I began to consider their
apparently similar types of violence and
present India in a much better light thangeneralisability. I thought of the Jewish
does my work, make the problems ofQuestion in 19th and 20th century Europe the discourses associated with them. I
violence seem much less serious than does and the Holocaust that answered the ques-am reasonably confident that there are
my work, and fail to identify clearly andtion once and for all. But I do not say with
structural similarities among the three dis-
precisely the principal actors, agents, and the assurance of a Goldhagen - who has courses of communalism, anti-semitism,
institutions that are responsible for thea different answer to a different question and racism. I present as a challenge also
perpetration of communal violence and about the Holocaust86 - that the existence to specialists on the latter two phenomena
the uses to which such violence is put.85 of the Jewish Question 'caused' the ho- to re-examine the generalisations made by
This is where the 'how' answer differs locaust. I say rather that the existencehistorians
of and social scientists concerning
from the 'why' answer. I describe how such a discourse as communalism and its the causes of riots and pogroms in Russia,
riots happen and how the communal dis- association with the idea of the nation- other parts of Europe, the US, and else-
course provides cover for them, the uses state in south Asia, with its affinities to
where in the world to look over the his-
to which they are put, and especially the the discourse that was the Jewish Ques- torical record again and search for
'institutionalised riots systems' in sites
tion, should cause us to look more closely
uses of the explanations for them that are
given after the fact as well as the contri- froml Odessa to Los Angeles, from 19th
at the former and consider the horrifying
bution of such explanations to the persis- century Russia to 20th century America,
consequences that have already flown from
tence of communal violence. I say that it, but which pale in significance to what
in other words, to test my hypothesis.
where such systems of violence and such has occurred in similar circumstances in But then, finally, I want to come back
the past and could occur in future.87to the value of the case study, using the
discourses exist side by side, there is grave
danger of corrosion of the entire social But there are other possibilities as well. 'how' question, at specific sites, that is,
order, which cannot be headed off by saying The communal question in south Asia may to the question of area studies against its
that the problem only manifests itself here alternatives in political science and the
be relatively less dangerous than the Jew-
and not there and, further, that the dangersish Question in Europe. It may be only social
as sciences, particularly the imperial
include - but do not necessarily or inevi- 'bad' as the racist discourse in the US, crusade launched by rational choicers
tably produce - holocaust, civil war, in-which contributes to the persistence of against area studies. What is the ultimate
racism in our country, which has contri- result of this moving back and forth from
terstate war, fascism, and political disin-
tegration. Further, I pinpoint specific res- buted in the past no doubt to riots, but has the specific to the comparative to the general
ponsibilities for violence. I do not say thatnot threatened our system, our develop- in my method? It is not the search for
the communal discourse exists and noth- ment, our democracy. 'uniformity' so much valued by the quan-
ing can be done about, that things are better But I do not take comfort from the latter titatively oriented social scientists, which
somewhere else, so we need not worry possibility. I say, rather, that all three rarely amounts to much more than a 20 per

49.36.210.214 on Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:02:35 UTC
cent explanation. The ultimate result that was simply that we had to discard the
nearly total disinterest of policy-makers,
I seek is not this 20 per cent explanation, framework when we arrived in the field party leaders, educationists, and others in
but a fuller understanding of the singular doing anything about it. Weiner launched
and find other ways to relate our empirical
- certainly not 100 per cent, which is work and our discoveries about Indian this critique using his same methods of
beyond human reach for so many reasons political behavior to generalisations atasking
the the 'why' question and answering
that cannot be gone into here - but certainly middle and lower ranges of theory initthe through careful comparative analyses of
more than 20 per cent, though it is not a discipline. how and when illiteracy and child labour
number that I am after, but a clearer dif- But that framework, the developmentalist were eliminated in other countries, includ-
ferentiation of the apparently similar from framework - whether in its Almond and ing many countries more poorly situated
each other. Ultimately, I want to know how Coleman guise or in the guise of Shils thanor India. His ultimate answer to the
dangerous south Asian communalism and the Social Science Research Council Stud- 'why' question in this case was outside the
institutionalised violence are. I-do not ies in Political Development or Samueldevelopmentalist framework. It was, in
Huntington - has shadowed us for half aeffect - and to put it in my words - that
believe it is as dangerous as anti-semitism,
though it does sometimes scare me in the
century. Weiner was one of the central the persistence of illiteracy and child labour
contributed to the reproduction of the
participants in influencing and formulat-
same way. I do think it is closer to racism
ing this framework. Moreover, he some-hierarchical social order of Indian society.
in the US, but I believe it is more dangerous
for many reasons which, again, I will times
not sought carefully to make his own So, we learn something thereby about the
confrontations with the mass politicalrelationship between the social order and
go into here because my point is a methodo-
logical one. I want to know and to strive the Indian state, how the state controllers
culture mesh with the prevailing theories.
have maintained a myth, a political for-
For example, in his important and massive
to find a place to put the Indian communal
discourse and its violent manifestations -
study of the Congress organisation in the
mula of democracy, while the great mass
not in a botanical classification systemdistricts, published in 1967, he related of the people lack the elemental basis for
designed as another great construction each of his case studies to one or the other political and social equality.
containing pigeonholes into which variousof the 'crises of development'. What re- I have referred to my own work on
discourses and types of violence can bemains valuable till today from Weiner's communal violence as a form of critique
placed, but in its present, immediate, his-work in those districts, however, is not his of Indian political behaviour. I have used
torically created (not determined), speci-contribution to the theory of crises, but his different methods and a different analyti-
ficity. I want to consider the consequences ethnographic description of confrontations cal perspective from Weiner, but there is
for India and for us of a communal systemamong new and old social forces in politics a kind of family resemblance in the con-
of talk, embedded in an ideology of thein the second decade of Indian indepen- clusions that we have reached by different
nation-state, which is tending on a patho-dence, a benchmark study that will be methods. I say that violence is endemic in
logical course with the full technical appa- consulted for as long as people are inter- north Indian society, that it takes many
ratus of self- and other-destruction in its ested in Indian political history and the forms and has many political uses. I say
hands in the form of nuclear weaponry, organisational history of the Indian that it persists, though it may appear to ebb
which is using - or finding useful - the per-National Congress. and flow, because - if you will - there is
sistence of internal violence directed against What has been greatly missing in most a communal discourse that sustains it and
Muslims and other ethnic, religious, and of our work throughout the past 50 years institutionalised riot systems in particular
tribal groupings for its grand designs. has been an intellectual foothold - I will sites that promote it. Further, I argue that the
not call it a theory - from which to launch
persistence of communal riots is not a func-
VI a critique of Indian politics and the func-
tion of a developmental problem, but of a
Conclusion tioning of the Indian polity. We have beenlack of will or interest (in both senses of the
weak at critique because we ourselves have word, interest) in stopping them. In fact,
I began by arguing that Weiner and all been implicated in the propagation of the on the contrary, most political parties have
of us who have been writing about Indian developmentalist framework that is at the many times benefited from the persistence
politics since the 1950s were aware of the
root of the developing crises in India and of riots and many local political leaders
existence of something like what Shils in many other developing countries. It is have thrived on them. I say finally that this
called 'the gap' between political cultures,
not that many of us have not done good is another fundamental blot on what we
political idioms, political discourses. We call Indian democracy, not only because of
ethnograplic work that is relevant to theory.
were all also aware that this gap did notWeiner did so throughout his career and the violence itself, which is, of course, a great
constitute an impenetrable barrier to com- evil, but because of the power relations
others of us who have followed in his path
munication between levels in Indian so- have also done so. But, for the most part,
that are sustained by the maintenance of
ciety, that there was a certain amount we
of have ended by fitting our empirical systems of communal violence and com-
interpenetration between/among themwork as and our theories into a framework munal talk. I refer especially to the conse-
well as discontinuity. What we were notthat continues to implicate us in the great
quence of the fact that communal riots are
so aware of or did not know quite how celebration
to of the wonder that is what we mostly in fact pogroms against Muslims.
call Indian democracy.
articulate was that this very gap was re- The consequence is that Muslims consti-
flected in the distance between the prevail-In his last book on India, however, Weinertute in many parts of the country, in effect,
ing theoretical framework and our con- a huge body of second class citizens.
did in fact launch a biting critique of one
frontation with the mass political culture, among the many blots on this Indian I mentioned above several other subjects
democracy: the persistence of illiteracythat need more attention outside the
the traditional and saintly idioms, the 'lower
discourse'. What some of us did and said and child labour in that country and thedevelopmentalist framework: poverty, the

49.36.210.214 on Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:02:35 UTC
myriad inequalities of caste and gender September 24-26, 1999. Myron Weiner passed p97.
away on June 4, 1999.] 18 The phrase comes, of course, from Ashis Nandy,
that persist and sustain relations of defer-
'The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery
ence and obedience in Indian society, 1 Myron Weiner, 'India'sTwo Political Cultures', of Religious Tolerance' in Veena Das (ed),
corruption. To that list should be added in Myron Weiner, Political Change in South Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots, and
state terrorism, the intensification of a Asia, Firma K L Mukhopadhyay, Calcutta, Survivors in Southl Asia, Oxford University
militarised form of nationalism, and the 1963, p 114. Press, Delhi, 1990, pp 69-93.
2 Weiner, 'India's Two Political Cultures', 19 Kaviraj, 'On State, Society and Discourse',
virtual absence of any dissen't in Indian p 138. p96.
society over 55 years concerning India's 3 Weiner, 'India's Two Political Cultures', 20 On this matter of the effective (mis)use of
basic policies on the maintenance of p 149. 'central cultural icons' from India's religio-
4 Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne H Rudolph, The mythological repertory, notably the Rainayana,
Kashmir as part of the Indian Union no
Modernity of Tradition: Political Developmlent see especially, Richard Davis, 'The Icono-
matter the cost. The political aspects and in India, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, graphy of Ram's Chariot', in David Ludden
implications of the wretched university 1967. (ed), Contesting the Nation: Religion,
system in India and its consequences for 5 Weiner, 'India's Two Political Cultures', Comniunity and the Politics of Democracy in
p 114. India, University of Pennsylvania Press,
the lives of students aspiring to improve- 6 Weiner, 'India's Two Political Cultures',
Philadelphia, 1996 and Sheldon Pollock,
ment of their life chances. The continuing p 114. 'Ramayana and Political Imagination in India',
victimisation and displacement of tribal 7 Weiner, 'India's Two Political Cultures', Journal of Asian Studies, LII,- No 2, May,
pp 150-51. 1993, 261-97, citation from p 262.
peoples and the expropriation of their lands
8 Edward Shils, Political Development in the 21 Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist
and livelihoods by corrupt state officials New States, Mouton, The Hague, 1965, Movement and Indian Politics, 1925 to the
in cahoots with local businessmen, police, originally published in Comparative Studies1990s: Strategies of Identity-Building,
and politicians in the name of construction in Society and History, II (1959-60). Implantation and Mobilisation (with special
9 W H Morris-Jones, The Governmient and reference to Central India), Hurst, London,
of great dams or the creation of 'forest
Politics of India, Hutchinson University 1966, p 9.
reserves'. The ongoing criminalisation of Library, London, 1964, ch ii. Many 22 A rather extreme and lengthy statement of this
politics, business relations, and police commentators on Indian politics have since accusation against Nandy, in particular, has
practices and the consequences thereof for made effective use of Morris-Jones' formulation been published recently by Radhika Desai,
present and future political, social, and of the saintly idiom and its role in Indian 'Culturalisrp and Contemporary Right: Indian
politics. For example, Wariavwalla, Bourgeoisie and Political Hindutva', Economic
economic life in India.88 The existing and commenting on the political crusade launched and Political Weekly [hereafter referred to as
possible forms of resistance - not 'partici- by V P Singh against corruption in the Rajiv EPW], Vol XXXIV, No 12, March 20, 1999,
pation' or turnout in elections - to the Gandhi government - the famous Bofors pp 695-712.
forms of power expressed in all the rela- 23 Ronald Inden, 'Embodying God: From Imperial
incident - that ultimately brought him to power
as prime minister, remarked: "The Singh Progresses to National Progress in India',
tions between persons and social forces episode illustrates one persistent reality of Economy and Society, Vol XXIV, No 2, May
involved in all the above. The appearance Indian politics: effective opposition to the ruling 1995, p 263.
in India from time to time of a very curious, party and the government at large comes not 24 This essay was written in 1999, before the
ugly, and disconcerting form of resistance, from established political parties but from publication of the comprehensive and invalu-
individuals who employ a saintly language of able review of the vast literature on
namely, suicide deaths, for example, of political discourse. JP did that in 1973-75, as developmentalism by Jan Nederveen Piet
upper caste students in 1998 in response did Gandhi during the independence struggle. Development Theory: Deconstructions/Re
to the decision of the V P Singh govern- Jan Jagran, or the moral awakening of people, structions, Sage, New Delhi, 2001). This es
was what Singh embarked upon in July-August, is not meant to offer an alternative theoretical
ment to reserve 27 percent ofjobs in public
and on Gandhi's birth anniversary October 2 construction nor any new deconstruction,
sectorenterprises controlled by the govern- [1987] he launched the Jan Morcha (people's but simply to emphasise the extent to which
ment of India for backward castes and, platform) movement and agitation. Cleaner the work of most political scientists of India
just recently, the suicide deaths of more politics and more participatory democracy are has been framed within what Nederveen-
than 300 cotton farmers in the state of its stated aims". Bharat Wariavwalla, 'India Pieterse would call an overwhelmingly
in 1987: Democracy on Trial', Asian Survey, 'non-reflexive', uncritical,, developmentalis
Andhra Pradesh.89 In each of these cases
XXVIII, No. 2 (February, 1988), 121. perspective.
and many others that might be conjured 10 M N Srinivas, 'A Note on Sanskritisation and 25 Myron Weiner, The Politics ofScarcity: Publ
up as worth investigation and that appear Westernisation', Far Eastern Quarterly, XV Pressure and Political Response in India,
(1956), 481-96 and numerous other Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1962, p 11
in one form or another in the pages of this
publications by the same author. 26 Myron Weiner and Joseph LaPalombara, 'Th
great Indian journal, the Ecoinomic 11 andD A Washbrook, 'Ethnicity and Racialism in
Impact of Parties on Political Development
Political Weekly, such as, for example, Colonial Indian Society' in R Ross (ed), Racismiin Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner
"the stinking criminal justice system".9( and Colonialism, Martijnus Nijhoff, The (eds), Political Parties land Political
in such cases the method of choice is Hague, 1982, pp 164-65. Development, Princeton University Pres
12 B D Dua, Presidential Rule in India, 1950-
Princeton, NJ, 1966, pp 399-400.
that pioneered by Myron Weiner: detailed,
1984: A Study il Crisis Politics, rev ed,27 Weiner and LaPalombara, pp 430-31.
first-hand, empirical research through
S Chand, New Delhi, 1985, p 407. 28 Myron Weiner, 'Congress Restored: Contin
in-depth interviewing, asking - as Harold A Gould, 'A Sociological Perspective ities and Discontinuities in Indian Polities',
13 you
on the Eighth General Election in India', Asian Asian Survey, Vol XXII, No 4, April, 1982,
choose - either 'why' or 'how', but.from
Survey, XXVI, No 6, June, 1986, 637. pp 351-52.
a standpoint of critique rather than of 'A Sociological Perspective', p 651. 29 Rudolph and Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmli,
14 Gould,
development. 3J 15 Lloyd I and Susanne H Rudolph, In Pursuit p 25.
oJ Lakshmi: The Political Economyv of the30 Rudolph and Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakslhi,
Notes Indian State, University of Chicago Press, p 273.
Chicago, 1987, pp 252-53. 31 Paul R Brass, 'Political Scientists' Images
[The original version of this article was prepared, 16 Sudipta Kaviraj, 'On State, Society and of India', South Asia, XXI, No 1, 1998, pp 26,
Discourse in India' in James Manor (ed),
for the Festschrift conference, 'India and the Politics 29-30.
of Developing Countries: Essays in Honor of Rethinking Third World Politics, Longman, 32 Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India'
Myron Weiner', held at the Kellogg Institute for London, 1991, p 94. Growving Crisis of Governability, Cambridge
International Studies, University of Notre Dame, 17 Kaviraj, 'On State, Society and Discourse', University Press, Cambridge, 1990, p 16.

49.36.210.214 on Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:02:35 UTC
33 Kohli. Democracy and Discontent, p 30. of India is not carried to such lengths as to respects, they are not so much better anywhere
34 Myron Weiner, 'The Politics of South Asia' jeopardise the maintenance of law and order. as to set them so far apart from UP as to place
in Weiner. Political Change in South Asia, It is not necessary to go any further". [Pandit them in some other world. Further, I have done
p 39. Hirday Nath Kunzru in India - Constituent research and travelled in other parts of India
35 Jyotirindra Das Gupta. 'India: Democratic Assembly Debates-Official Report, vol IX, as well, especially Bihar where I did research
Becoming and Combined Development' in July 30, 1949 to September 18, 1949, off and on for about ten years, Punjab, Gujarat,
Larry Diamond et al (eds), Democracy in Government of India Press, New Delhi, 1967, and Madras.
Developing Countries, Vol III: Asia, Lynne p 156. 78 Which, however, like most photographs of
Rienner, Boulder. Col, 1989, p 59. 57 Dua, p 5. India- especially those in Kodachrome - belie
36 Edward Shils, 'On the Comparative Study of 58 Dua, p 11. what we wish to convey. In Myron's black-
the New States' in Clifford Geertz (ed), Old 59 E g, see V M Dandekar, 'Unitary Elements and-white photographs, smiling, happy-looking
Societies and Nelew States.: The Quest for in a Federal Constitution', EPW, Vol XXII, children, apparently enjoying their work, in
Modernity in A.sia and Afiica, The Free Press, No 44, October 31, 1987, 1870. stark contrast to Myron's accounts of the
New York, 1963,e g p8, where Shilsenvisaged 60 Selig S Harrison, India: The Most Dangerous conditions under which so many of them
this process of enlightenment as involving Decades, Princeton University Press, Princeton, worked, and oblivious to the deprivations -
direct transmission from scholars engaged in NJ, 1960. particularly of education - from which they
the comparative study of the new states to the 61 Kohli, p 3. suffered or would suffer in future because of
students from the new states studying in 62 Kohli, p 5. their work.
American universities "to the enlightenment 63 Kohli, p 14. 79 Myron Weiner, Sons of thie Soil: Migration
of opinion and policy there as well", pp 7-8.
64 James Manor, 'Ethnicity and Politics in India', and Etlhnic Conflict il India, Princeton
37 Weiner, 'India's Two Political Cultures', hIte7rnational Affairs, LXXII, No 3, 1996, University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1978, p 14.
pp 150-51. pp 471-72. 80 Myron Weiner, The Clhild land the State in
38 Instead, they took the position that the two sets 65 Samuel P Huntington, Political Order in lndia: Child Latbour and Education Policy in
of goals were not incompatible; Granville Changing Societies, Yale University Press, Conlptarattive Perspectivce, Princeton University
Austin, The ljidian Constitution: Cornerstone New Haven, 1969. Press, Princeton, NJ. p 5.
oJ a Nation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966, 66 Rajni Kothari, State against Democracy: In 81 Harold D Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets Wliat,
pp 48-49. Searchl of Hulmane Governance, Ajanta. Delhi, When, How (With Postscript (1958), Meridian
39 Ralph Retzlaff, Village Government in India: 1989, p 1. Books, New York, 1958.
A Case Study, Asia, New York, 1962. 67 Kothari, p 2. 82 Gordon, p 7.
40 See especially in this regard James Manor's68 Kothari, pp 13-14. 83 These remarks about my own recent work refer
strongly favourable and hopeful assessment of69 Citation is from the characterisation of Dahl's to Theft of 1a Idol: Text (llnd Context in the
the new panchayat system recently introduced concept of power in Stewart R Clegg, Frame- Representation of Collective Violence,
in Madhya Pradesh in his 'Madhya Pradesh works of Power, Sage, London, 1989, p 53. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,
Experiments with Direct Democracy', EPW,70 Robert A Dahl, A Preface to Democratic 1997; Riots and Poglroms, Macmillan and
March 3, 2001 (online edition). Theory, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, NYU Press, London and New York, 1996; and
41 Weiner and LaPalombara. p 425. 1956. my book. The Pi-odutction' of Hiindl-Muslimt
42 Weiner and LaPalombara, p 434. 71 Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, Violence in Contemnporary IIndia, University
43 Paul R Brass, The Politics of India Since and Democracy, 3rd ed, Harper, New York, of Washington Press, Seattle, forthcoming
Independence. 2nd ed, Cambridge University 1950. 2002.
Press, Cambridge, 1994. 72 Colin Gordon, 'Government Rationality: An 84 Ashutosh Varshney, Etlhnic Confllict and Civic
44 Leonard Binder et al, Crises and Sequences Introduction', in Graham Burchell et al. The Life: Hiindus andl Muslimis in India, Yale
in Political Development, Princeton University Foucault Effect: Studies in Govermnentalitv University Press, New Haven, forthcoming.
Press, Princeton. NJ, 1971. - With Two Lectures by anld an lIterviet wwith 85 On the contrary, Varshney and Wilkinson
45 Das Gupta, p 66. Michel Foucault, Harvester, London, 1991, hardly mention the principal agents responsible
46 Das Gupta, p 73. p3. for instigating violence against Muslims in
47 An early exception on this matter was Baldev73 As many observers have noted, it is 'state Indian cities and towns, namely, the BJP and
Raj Nayar, The Moderni.sation Imperative and power' that these movements wish, access to the RSS, in some of their already published
Indian Planning, Vikas, Delhi, 1972. the same resources and privileges that the research; I counted only three inconsequential
48 Das Gupta, p 93. upper castes have monopolised for so long, but references to the BJP/RSS in Ashutosh
49 Das Gupta, p 95. they have no alternative conception of Varshney and Steven I Wilkinson, Hilndu-
50 Stuart Corbridgc, 'Federalism, Hindu Nation- governance. See, for example, Sudha Pai. 'The Muslim Riots 1960-93: Newt Findings, Possible
alisnm and Mythologies of Governance in State, Social Justice, and the Dalit Movement: Renmedies, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for
Modern India' in Graham Smith (ed), Feder- The BSP in Uttar Pradesh' in Niraja Gopal Contemporary Studies, New Delhi, 1996.
alisml: 77Te Multiethnic Challenge, Longman, Jayal and Sudha Pai (eds), Democratic 86 Daniel J Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing
London. 1995, pp 102, 111-12, 116. Governance in lIdia: Challenges of Poverty, Executioners: Ordinary Germans iand the
51 Kohli, p ix. Holocaust, Vintage, New York, 1996.
Development, and Identity, Sage, New Delhi,
52 Brass, 'Political Scientists' Images of India', 2001, pp 201-20. 87 These lines were written nearly three years
p 30. 74 Gordon, p 7. before the Gujarat riots of 2002, which have
53 This term is common usage in India to refer 75 Michel Foucault, 'What is Critique?' in The not yet been contained as of this date of revision
to the central government in New Delhi. Politics of Truthl, ed by Sylvere Lotringer and (May 15, 2002). These riots appear, in fict,
54 J D Sethi, India in Crisis, Vikas, Delhi, 1975, Lysa Hochroth, Semiotext(e), New York, 1997, to be pogroms against Muslims that, in their
p 55. p 28. scale, extent, duration, and ferocity surpass the
55 Gould, p 634. 76 A notable move in this direction has been made Krvstallnaclt pogrom of November 9-10,1938
56 Paul R Brass, 'The Strong State and the Fear by Akhil Gupta, Postcolonial Developments: against the Jews in Nazi Germany.
of Disorder' in Francine Frankel (ed), Agriculture in the Making of Modern In(dia, 88 Many of these practices that are part of everyday
Democllrac.y andtiSocl ial Ttral.sfirmal ion, Oxford Duke University Press, Durham, 1998. life in India, and their consequences for the
University Press, New Delhi. 2000. For77 This last one needs to be answered here once poor, are very effectively brought out in an
example. in the debate on these issues, one of and for all. My answer is as follows. First, UP exemplary work by James Manor, Power,
the very few opponents in the assembly of the does, in fact, stand for India in several respects: Poverty, and Poisoni: Disaster and Resplonse
adoption of extreme emergency powers in the (1) it is in India and could not be anywhere in aln Ildian City, Sage, New Delhi, 1993.
Constitution remarked: "Articles 275 and 276 else; (2) it is the largest political unit in India; 89 C Shambhu Prasad, ;Suicide Deaths and
give the central executive and parliament all (3) the living conditions of most of its people Quality of Indian Cotton: perspectives from
the power that can reasonably be conferred on are at approximately the same level as the rest History of Technology and Khadi Movement',
them in order to enable them to see that law of north India and parts of eastern India as well; EPW, Vol XXXIV, No 5, January 30, 1999.
and order do not break down in the country, (4) although living conditions in some other 90 EPW, Vol XXXIV, No 12, March 20, 1999,
or that nmisgoverntment [Imy italics] in any part parts of India are somewhat better in some p 647.

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