The Idea of Nation and its Future in India

Shibani Kinkar Chaube

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315414317
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria politica

This volume is a theoretico-empirical study of nations and nationalism on a global scale. It enquires if the idea of the nation, by its own logic, is feasible and whether India fulfils the requirement of nationhood with a reasonable prospect of survival. The monograph engages with the theories of nation and nationalism and examines if they are relevant and tenable in contemporary times. It looks at the way these ideas have acted out in the Indian nation while attempting to map its future trajectory. It also asks: how do the two fundamental challenges to the idea of nation – ethnicity and class – fare in the era of globalisation; and further, how does India, a new state in an ancient society, reconceptualise the paradigm of this debate?

The book will be of great interest to scholars and students of political science, political theory, history, political philosophy, and South Asian studies, as well as informed general readers.

1

Introduction

Patterns of Social Organization

Social sciences are concerned with society conceived as a structure that springs from association. Its minimum size is two. There is no maximum limit as it depends upon the number of persons available, communication, contact and control. Human aggregates can be organized either according to similarity or according to dissimilarity. Similar people form classes, dissimilar people groups.

Categories of Classification

‘Group’ is a ubiquitous term in social sciences used, broadly, in two senses. Statistically we speak of the ‘age group’ or ‘professional group’ only for aggregation, to denote a section of a population either similar or together. It becomes sociologically significant when some kind of interactive relationship – jus necessitudinis (bond of relationship) grows out of (though is not necessarily confined to) jus amicitiae (bond of friendship), as the ancient Romans would call them (Barker, 1952: 94 n) – among its members and unity of attitude/purpose is established. It may contain members of the same or different classes and statuses (Maciver and Page, 1953: 213f.).

The word ‘class’ has been used in a statistical sense to denote a set of similar units. It has also meant difference in rank, status and wealth between such units. Class and status (estate, state, standing, ranking) are historical as well as analytical categories. The concept of ‘class’ acquired the special dimension of production relation after the growth of industrial capitalism, which was extended to pre-industrial, pre-capitalist modes of production like feudalism and slavery. Liberal social sciences often blur the distinction between class and strata. Thus, ‘the principal type of social stratification, especially in the more developed civilizations, is seen in the phenomenon of class’ (Maciver and Page, 1953: 348).

Beyond such abstract ranking, however, economic and political powers involve the material processes of marginalization, deprivation and exploitation in a society where private property has emerged. The strong kinship structure, characteristic of tribal societies, may occasionally blunt the sharpness of such processes. More frequently, kinship may add grist to the mill of such phenomena. Among the peasants, kinship structure may strengthen the exploitative power of private property and produce caste tensions. Kinship structure is weak in urban centres but not altogether absent.

There is a tendency among some social scientists to include all members of family in the span of kinship though the strict anthropological use of the term is confined to relations of blood (consanguine family), as between siblings and between parents and children, and not between spouses, the parent–child relation being further streamlined by the culture of matriliny or patriliny. This is different from conjugal family comprising the husband and the wife (Maciver and Page, 1953: 248). Relationship in consanguine family is of birth and prohibits conjugal relationship by the law against incest.

‘Clan’ is another term used by anthropologists to describe a group of closely knit interrelated families (Concise, 1999) within a larger community pattern. Its members claim common inheritance from one parent to the exclusion of the other parent (either patriliny or matriliny) and practise clan exogamy (Jacobs and Stern, 1960: 304).

A tribe is a ‘social division in a traditional society consisting of linked families or communities with a common culture and dialect’ (Concise, 1999). The term is ‘employed with no general agreement or precise definition, but often applied to a community or cluster of communities characterized by a common territory, language and cultural heritage, on a technological level inferior to groups such as the Aztecs, Incas, ancient Egyptians, or Greeks’ (Jacobs and Sterrn, 1960: 326). Usually they practise endogamy.

Dimensions of the Class and the Group

Class is comparative category; social group is relational. Class exists; social group is formed. Both dictate different kinds of behaviour pattern. Class, being based on similarity, invokes (1) sympathy that grows out of shared experience with other members, (2) antipathy that grows out of conflict with those above or below it or (3) indifference that is mainly due to fatalism or morbidity. Social groups are formed on utilitarian basis or on the basis of given linkages and may invoke sympathy or antipathy within. No group can be formed on indifference. A social group is more effective than class for the purpose of collective action. A class may contain different social groups as a social group may contain classes.

Comparisons are made on common measures, in terms of more or less. When such classes are put in correspondence/contact with each other, they are called strata. ‘A system or structure of social classes involves, first, a hierarchy of status groups, second, the recognition of the superior-inferior stratification and, finally, some degree of permanency of the structure’ (Maciver and Page, 1953: 348f.). ‘Hierarchy’, however, is a problematic term. It was first used by the clerisy to denote a chain of command in the church establishment (hierarch from Greek hierarkhés. Hieros= sacred, arches= ruler) and does not include the followers/subjects/citizens. Talcott Parsons has used the phrase ‘status hierarchy’ in the sense of ranks (Parsons, 1951: 101). Louis Dumont has called caste a ‘hierarchy’, giving a functionalist definition of the term ‘as the principle by which the elements of a whole are ranked in relation to the whole’ (Dumont, 1972: 104f.).

In sociology, Kingsley Davis first used the term ‘stratification’ (Davis, 1942). In 1945, Davis and Moore declared that this term acquired the same meaning as that of social class. Liberal social sciences often ignore the distinction between class and stratum. According to Parsons, social stratification is the name of a ranking system in terms of esteem. Parsons regards esteem to be diffuse like political power. It is different from approval, which, like economic power, is given without the implication of a generalized rank ordering (Parsons, 1951: 132f.).

The problem with the use of the term ‘strata’ to denote ranking or gradation of social classes is that, in liberal social sciences, class is regarded as permissive of vertical mobility as all the strata belong to the same species. Strata, in geology, on the other hand, are discrete. They form by the horizontal movement of different elements. Perhaps the term may be used appropriately in case of the US race relation and, less accurately, to the Indian caste system (without an insinuation of races), where there is outcasting, but not downcasting (Barth, 1969: 27).

The concept of elite was introduced by Vilfred Pareto. It has two dimensions: it sees all decisions in the polity as taken by a few. Second, it wishes away class contradiction. But conflict and collaboration among elite groups is a favourite subject of non-Marxist social scientists. Karl Mannheim regarded ‘elite’ an anti-democratic concept, but later found it consistent with democracy, ‘For it is sufficient for democracy that the individuals, though prevented from taking a direct part in government all the time, have at least the possibility of making their aspirations felt at certain intervals’. A recent coinage of the theory of political development is ‘consociational democracy’, based on the coalition of elites as a force of stability in a poly-ethnic democratic state (Apter, 1961: 24f.).

Basis of Association

All associations are based on consent, voluntary or involuntary. All agreements result in some contract, explicit or implicit, for supplying the requirement of individuals or groups. When a class, or a section of a class, of individuals contract to work as a team either to unite their strength or to supplement each other’s capacity, that is cooperation. Such cooperation may result in combination, that is cartelization of employers or unionization of workers as Adam Smith, without using the word ‘cooperation’, admits (Smith, 1993: 65f.).

The biological need for pleasure and procreation as well as security in old age gives urgency to the need for founding family. With the increasing complexity of time, such mutual exchanges may go beyond the biological nuclear family – into joint families, extended families, clans, phratries, tribes and nations. Awareness of scarcity of resources, on the other hand, may lead to the elimination of the claimants to the resources. Within the primitive societies where private ownership of property was not institutionalized to the extent of rules of succession, parricide was a common practice. Infanticide and foeticide are more common practices among families with rules of private property and succession. Simultaneously, the need for exchange with its concomitant, bargain, emerges.

A bargain is ‘fair’ when both sides are satisfied with the exchange with awareness of real value. Primitive tribes of Africa and America exchanged their valuables for cheap articles of the Western traders. The Third World often complains about unequal terms of exchange in the past and, even, today. Competition frequently produces conflict but, on occasions, may be satisfying to both when it brings out the best from the competitors. Where there is persistent satisfaction with cooperation and exchange, the association tends to be stabilized, patterned and institutionalized/structured. In case of persistent dissatisfaction, there are two possibilities. In an open situation, there is withdrawal. In a closed one, there is conflict.

Schematically, a society may be divided by several vertical and horizontal lines. The vertical lines split the society into horizontal segments/groups/factions/tribes/castes/communities/sects/nationalities. The horizontal lines split them into status ranks/strata/classes. The horizontal groupings are broadly of two types: those formed according to genetic principles and those formed by utilitarian/functional considerations. No division, however, shows complete uniformity/harmony, for the constituents choose to spread their linkage beyond their kinds/groups for some advantage. When they move horizontally, they form brotherhood/class based on the consideration of work/position/power/wealth. When they move vertically, they form lineage/sect/tribe/com munity/nation based on the consideration of origin. Logically, an individual, being a point, cannot simultaneously move both ways. When one chooses to join the members of one’s own kin/lineage/caste/com munity, one ignores one’s own class/rank. When one joins one’s own class/rank, one ignores one’s own kin/lineage/tribe/community and so on. In practice, however, people seek to combine their group and class affiliations according to the benefits and costs involved in a situation.

Cooperation and Exchange

Contrary to Hobbes’s picture of the state of nature, cooperation must have been the first collective action of human beings – in common defence, joint hunting and clearing of forests for settlement. Almost simultaneously, in such activities arises competition ‘to do better’ in order to earn appreciation or admiration or reward, making room for inequality. Dissimilar capacities of persons must have led to the idea of division of labour, the political economists’ central doctrine since the days of Adam Smith, even though the idea was as old as Plato. It also led to the idea of exchange suggested by Xenophon (Roll, 1966: 28). Cooperation is not exchange. Cooperation supplements each other’s capacity/resources, exchange complements them. Cooperation occurs within a party, exchange takes place between them. Cooperation works in the sphere of production, exchange of consumption.

Cooperation and exchange are, however, not mutually exclusive. Both work simultaneously within families and kinship groups as well as larger societies. Workers in a factory exchange their labour for wages paid by their employer, even bearing an amount of exploitation as Marx showed it; they also cooperate in running the factory for production and profit.

People have among themselves similar or different objectives to achieve. If the objectives are dissimilar, there is no need for them to come into any agreement/understanding. If they are looking for the same objective, they are likely to cooperate, and compete at the same time. Unalloyed cooperation among individuals/groups is possible only if the rewards/gains obtainable through it are unlimited. In real life, this is rare if not altogether impossible. A system of cooperation/sharing may break down if the erstwhile collaborators feel the benefits of collaboration being unequally shared. This could be a reason of the breakdown of primitive communistic societies and rise of private property.

Competition is fair when there is a level playing field. When fairness is missing, competition leads first to deprivation and marginalization and then to exploitation. Fair competition in a stratified society is possible only in two cases: (1) when stratification is irrespective of the object of competition and (2) when stratification is open ended – functional – allowing equality of opportunity. Such equality of opportunity mitigates the unevenness of status, which, in liberal social sciences, is distinguished from class by the fact of hereditary privilege. Private property confers hereditary advantage even if the related privileges are reduced by law.

Although exchange is noted along with private property and money even in the pastoral population of the Old Testament (Roll, 1966: 21) and, notwithstanding Adam Smith’s assertion that ‘the power of exchanging … gives the occasion to the division of labour’ (Smith, 1993: 26), division of labour is older than exchange as cooperation is older than division of labour. Primitive hunting and fishing communities had division of labour but no system of exchange because they enjoyed their collections and games in common. Exchange occurs after private ownership of property in a broad sense is established. In both the cases (of sharing and exchange), comparison plays a crucial role.

When parties in an exchange are happy, they establish terms of reciprocity and form families, groups, communities, associations, institutions and nations. Unequal exchange, on the other hand, gives rise to conflict, alienation, subordination/subjection and exploitation leading to revolt, war and repression. The earliest form of exchange was the gift. It was followed by barter. The economists deal with only the exchange by the medium of money. At the beginning of it, exchange is private. Then it is institutionalized in a market. The market too has undergone a sea change beginning with fairs at long intervals and passing through weekly markets into regular, daily urban market¹ and finally online. In the heightened stage of finance, capital market has crossed the boundary of location. It has become global.

People try to build linkages along class or ethnic lines. The first linkage may lead to class struggle, the second to identity politics. Class and ethnic alignments are cross-cutting. Class conflict weakens ethnic consciousness and, vice versa, ethnic consciousness weakens class solidarity. Rarely, however, class or ethnic consciousness is altogether removed. Both of them play in society, simultaneously or alternately, to different extents.

Competition is a bar to horizontal cohesion as class is to vertical cohesion. Maximum stability of a society is likely to attach to one which provides the maximum opportunity to all for self-realization. A lesser, but still considerable, possibility of stability attaches to a society which ensures equality of opportunity – or, at least, the absence of the opportunity to draw one’s own benefit at the cost of another, that is exploitation. Conversely, an unequal relation is likely to be unstable, a relation of exploitation more so. Only the state’s power can ensure their stability.

Social Sciences in the Third World

Modern social sciences are offsprings of political economy that ruled Western thought in the nineteenth century (Chaube, 2012b). Traditionally, political scientists were engaged in the study of conflict, power and order, while sociologists were looking for the forces of stability. The functionalist premise which political science now adopted took it that a political system has a tendency to persist. For the Third World countries, however, a development angle was felt necessary to allow for periodic incremental changes. A centre–periphery model was readily supplied by Edward Shils.² Sociology in the developing countries took the opposite route partly because their social problems had largely remained unsolved. There was a certain kind of role reversal between the political scientists and the sociologists. Explaining the reason of sociologists from developing countries taking interest in conflict and change, M. N. Srinivas wrote, ‘Developing countries are today arenas for conflict between the old and the new. The old order is not only no longer able to meet the new forces, it itself was not conflict-free’. Further, ‘A theoretical approach that regards conflict as abnormal, or that invests equilibrium with a special value in the name of science, can be a handicap in studying developing societies. But that is precisely what has happened under functionalism’ (Srinivas, 1962: 159, emphasis in the original).

Political leaders of the colonial countries of Asia and Africa were determined to bring about radical changes in traditional life and culture by way of nation building. Power was transferred to an elite mostly belonging to one party and a liberal democratic ideology. This leadership faced two equally important issues: (1) consolidation of independence and integrity of the nation and (2) economic development of the country. The point of departure of the new theory was the autonomy of politics in the process of modernization that involved ‘the spread of roles which, functionally linked and organized in industrial settings, make their appearances in systems lacking an industrial infrastructure’ (Apter, 1967: v). Apter later elaborated this thesis: in the initial stage of development, a strong political leadership may, even with a coercive force, undertake modernization and industrialization. Once the primary task is fulfilled, the need for coercion will be over, and a process of mobilization through information will set in (Apter, 1961: 368f.). The exception...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Indian Paradox: A Confession in Lieu of Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 State, People and Nation
• 3 The World of Ethnicity
• 4 Class and Internationalism
• 5 India: Resources and Burdens
• 6 India: The Course of Nation Building
• Bibliography
• Index