The Relationship Between Society and Politics in India

The relationship between society and politics in India has always been subjected to intensive studies, debates and discussions. Sociologists and anthropologists have brought the various aspects of this debate to light. In these studies and debates, one such aspect that never fails to be identified as an element of influencing the politics in India is caste. In this paper I would like to highlight the relation between the politics and society in India, how the society is affected by the politics and vice-versa.

Kothari writes that society and politics is most commonly perceived in terms of the former being traditional and the latter being modern. However, he dismisses this dichotomy between the traditional society and the modern polity and says that it is false and misleading to assume this. No political or developmental institution anywhere can function in vacuum. They are always based upon the society either through existing organisations or by invoking new structures that cut across these form [Kothari 1997; 57].

It was mentioned in the introductory paragraph that caste is an aspect, which has always been in debate with its relation to politics. As M.N Srinivas pointed it out, the role played by caste in politics is in close approximation to that of the pressure group. He further added that the modernizing forces would however reduce the influence of caste over the politics. But contrary to this, Andre Beteille holds that while westernization is taking individual away from caste identity, the role of caste in politics is taking the people towards the caste identity and thereby strengthening it [Beteille 1970].

Going back in time, caste was embedded in a political context of kingship. This argument given by Dirks meant that the prevalent ideology regarding caste was not primarily related to the notion of purity and pollution but rather it was to do with royal authority, honour and associated notions of power and dominance. Dirks focuses on a small region of southern India called Pudukkottai, which was one of many similar political regions that constituted the lowest level of the late pre-colonial state. Dirks claims that Pudukkottai in the old regime historically was a dynamic system based on relations of service and protection, kinship and caste, lordship and gift, military might and discursive dominations. He also presents ethnographic evidences about the structure and ideology of social organization, both among Kallars and between them and other castes, and says that society and state; caste and kinship were profoundly political in their operation and their conceptualization. The concerns of comparative sociology are not the products of 19th century orientalism but also the colonial intervention that removed politics from the colonial societies. The British detached the caste and politics in India not just for convenience but also in order to rule an immensely complex society by a variety of indirect means [Dirks 1993]. During the period of British rule, the ranking on the bases of Varna and Jati became more and more rigid. Greater emphasis was given to the ritual criteria for rank and greater power apparently accrued to Jatis whose men were already high and dominant. Hence, the leading and the most pervasive natural association of old regime, caste, responded to changes in its political and economic environment by transforming itself from below and within. Hierarchy, privilege and moral parochialism no longer exhausted its secular significance and caste had become a means to level the order's inequalities by helping destroy its moral basis and social structure. In doing so, caste helped various groups to represent and rule themselves by attaching them to ideas, processes and the institution of political democracy [Kumar 1989; Rudolph & Rudolph 1987]. Kumar points out how the British used the elements of the Indian society in order to gain political control over the nation. He says that instilling a belief of inferiority and superiority over their subjects constituted the British system of domination over India [Kumar 1989]. The alleged casteism in politics, hence, is nothing but politicization of caste. There is a lot of exchange between the caste and politics. Both of them at some level are complementary. "By drawing the caste system into its web of organization, politics finds material for its articulation and moulds it into its own design. In making politics their sphere of activity, caste and kin groups get a chance to assert their identity and to strive for positions"[Kothari 1997]. Politicians mobilize caste groupings and identities in order to organize their power. For them, caste is an extremely articulated and flexible basis for organization, something that may have been structured in terms of a status hierarchy, but something that is also available for political manipulation and one that has a basis in