India: Democracy or Feudocracy?

The political system of the Modern Age is democracy. The political system of the medieval period was feudalism.

	Democracy	Feudalism
1. Objective of the system	Good of the people	Good of the rulers
2. Basis of the system	Professional organisations	Feudal lords with their own private wealth and private armies
3. Selection of system workers	Merit	Personal connection with a feudal lord

India's political system looks more like column 2 than like column 1. So India is not a democracy, but a feudocracy.

Revolution/Reform in India

Revolution = rapid change (Latin volvere = 'roll')
Reform = gradual change (Latin forma = 'mould')

In every country gradual change is the norm, and rapid change is the exception. That is – reform is the norm, and revolution is the exception.

India is the world's oldest civilisation (5000 years old). Inertia is proportional to age. So India's inertia is very high. Here no change is the norm, gradual change is the exception, and rapid change is impossible. That is – reform is the exception, and revolution is impossible. The only revolution possible in India is reform. In India, reform itself is a revolution.

* Every revolution begins with one man.

* A revolution is not an event. It is a process.

* The most successful revolution is an invisible revolution.

* The best place and time for a revolution is always here and now.

* Every revolutionary is a wannabe dictator. Every dictator is a former revolutionary.

"A Perfect Life"

Perfection is a static state.
Life is a dynamic process.

So "perfect life" is a contradiction in terms. Such a thing cannot exist. It is logically impossible.

India/Hindus and Israel/Jews: Similarities

Similarities between India/Hindus and Israel/Jews:

Year	INVASIONS
(approx)	India	Israel
700 BC		Assyrians
600 BC		Babylonians
500 BC	Persians	Persians
300 BC	Greeks	Greeks
100 BC	Scythians	Romans
1 AD	Parthians
100 AD	Kushans
500 AD	Huns
600 AD		Arabs
700 AD	Arabs
1000 AD	Turks-1	Seljuk Turks
1200 AD	Turks-2	Mamelukes
1400 AD	Afghans
1500 AD	Mughals	Ottoman Turks
1750 AD	British

Year	WARS
	India	Israel
1948	Pakistan	Arabs
1956		Arabs
1962	China
1965	Pakistan
1967		Arabs
1971	Pakistan
1973		Arabs
1999	Pakistan

"Lincoln" Vs Bollywood: Movies and Idealism

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln has a misleading title. A more accurate title would have been Amendment 13. For that is what the movie is really about – the 13th amendment to America's constitution, that abolished slavery (in 1865). But the central figure is still President Abraham Lincoln, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis' Lincoln is an idealist, a man of lofty ideals. But he is also a realist, a practical man. He realises that to achieve those lofty ideals, it is sometimes necessary to use not-so-lofty means. He is a simple and humble man. But he is also a powerful man – a man who is aware of his power, and is willing to use that power to achieve what he thinks is right. Tommy Lee Jones is superb as the liberal Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, who pushes the amendment through the House. The debates in the House are the best scenes of the movie, with some powerful dialogues (written by Tony Kushner). Lincoln is about idealism. It is about freedom, justice and doing what is right. A movie about the President who freed America's blacks – when the country has its first black President. Can it get more poetic?

In a TV program, Bollywood producer/director Karan Johar said that Lincoln was "boring", and he had "fallen asleep" while watching it. Lincoln got 12 Oscar nominations, and won 2 Oscar awards. Spielberg's previous films include Schindler's List, Amistad and Munich. I am sure Johar found them also boring, and slept through them too. He, on the other hand, has given us all-time cinematic masterpieces like Kuch kuch hota hai, Kabhi khushi kabhi gham, Kabhi alvida na kehna, My name is Khan and Student of the year.

The difference in quality between Spielberg and Johar apart, there is a larger point here. For Bollywood, love means only romantic love. Is there no other kind of love? What about love of one's country? For Bollywood, the only thing in the world worth falling in love with is a good-looking woman/man. Is there nothing else? What about ideals like freedom, justice and equality? Are they not worth loving? Are they not worth living for, fighting for and dying for? Every guy tells his girlfriend that he will die for her, but how many have actually done that? On the other hand, history is drenched with the blood of the crores of men and women who gave their lives for their country and their ideals. Yet Bollywood prides itself on churning out boy-meets-girl flicks (with the boy and girl singing and dancing around trees). The pinnacle of this industry's achievement is Salman Khan starrers that gross Rs 100 crore at the box office. As for the smug and pompous Karan Johar, he will earn my respect the day he makes a picture that moves me and inspires me – like Lincoln.

India's Politics = Money + Muscle + Caste

Indian politics is nothing but the politics of money, muscle and caste. How did this come about?

* 30% of India lives in poverty.

* 25% of India is illiterate.

* 70% of India lives in villages.

* 50% of India works in agriculture.

* India had 1000 years of feudalism (under the Turks, Mughals and British).

Having a democracy based on universal adult franchise in such a society automatically leads to the politics of money, muscle and caste. Money, muscle and caste politics is nothing but the logical consequence of opting for adult franchise in 1947.

Liberals staunchly defend universal franchise, and staunchly criticise money, muscle and caste politics. But the latter is a direct result of the former.

See India's Democracy = Corruption + Violence + Casteism

India's Politics: Corruption

Rajni Kothari ("Politics in India", 1970) on corruption:

"An elaborate network of patronage has developed, extending deep into the countryside. Much of this is controlled and directed from levels lower than the state. Availability of new kinds of jobs, distribution of loans and benefits, control of institutions dealing with credit and scarce materials, establishment of new positions of prestige and authority, the penetration of educational institutions and voluntary organisations with new resources, and above all a known and intelligible pattern of influence and corruption – all these have brought life and significance to the governmental machine, endowed it with political meaning, and led to an increasing communication between traditional society and the new structure of institutions."

India's Politics: The Urban Middle Class

Rajni Kothari ("Politics in India", 1970) on how the urban middle class lost power to the rural zamindars:

"Different stages in the social organisation of politics call for somewhat different leadership and organisational skills, and the movement from one stage to another may displace one kind of leadership by another. Consequently, one social group endowed with one type of social skills may be displaced by another endowed with another type of skills.

Thus in the early stage of intellectual awakening and urban-style political organisation, the need was for people able to deal with Western and Westernised administrators, well-versed in fine points of debate and ideological disputation, possessing legal acumen, and capable of founding and sustaining small associations of public-minded persons that would agitate for specific causes. Such men were mainly provided by the Brahminic and traditional administrative classes who not only took to the new education but had also been endowed by a long tradition of scholastic knowledge and formal brilliance.

With the movement into a more diversified and mass-oriented politics, however, not only was there a need for a wider base of support articulation but also for new types of managerial and organisational skills. With this shift in orientation, the Brahminic and administrative castes began to be outnumbered by men from commercial and peasant proprietor occupations, occupations that had always called for a high level of interpersonal skills, a pragmatic and bargaining approach to problems, and an ability to marshal a new type of solidarity among their own castes, often based on a reinterpretation of their traditional status and a populist and anti-elitist ideology. These were the new entrepreneurs, the new innovators, of politics. They were less modern than the elites they replaced, less educated and more rural-based, operated through an idiom that was decidedly more traditional.

There has taken place a growing politicisation of the traditional sub-centres of Indian society. The rural elites have seized the organisation of these sub-centres and have on the basis of a new consolidation – caste federations, cooperative societies, panchayati raj – pushed themselves upward to state and national levels. Utilising the opportunities of cooptation offered by the metropolitan elite, they have occupied crucial positions at higher levels and have generally succeeded in outnumbering and outwitting the modernists."

India's Politicians: The Rural Zamindars

Rajni Kothari ("Politics in India", 1970) on politicians – the rural zamindars:

"In order to make itself secure in office, the ruling groups in the states have increasingly relied on the rural vote, spreading its patronage far and wide controlling local authorities, educational institutions and other developmental agencies, including important voluntary organisations. Concomitantly, institutional power shifted downward and a different set of men emerged who took charge of these networks, captured positions in the party organisation, and slowly acquired considerable strength and power.

The new organisation men that emerged are to be found away from the urban centres of state power in small towns and district capitals, closer to the traditional order, and exhibiting a new style in Indian politics. They are pragmatic men, less oriented to the modernist idiom but modernisers in their own way, men who understand the subtleties and nuances of local society, powerful persons who have taken time in coming up, and who are therefore confident of their own strength. When elections come, the state leaders have to rely increasingly upon these men who happen both to occupy positions of influence in the institutions of planned change and to be in close communication with socially entrenched and economically powerful local elites. Some of them are popular leaders, others ruthless managers, but they control the vote.

Generally coming from the well-to-do class of peasant proprietors, they are men of some means, skilled in the art of managing men and running institutions, and very knowledgeable concerning local conditions.

They have to establish a rapport with the local bullies (muscle) who can intimidate and cajole the people, who normally keep faith, and who in their crude way maintain peace in the locality."

India's Politics: Caste

Rajni Kothari ("Politics in India", 1970) on caste:

"Everyone recognises that the social system in India is organised around caste structures and caste identities. In dealing with the relationship between caste and politics, however, the tendency is to start at the wrong end of the question: Is caste disappearing? In part such an approach comes from a widely held dichotomy between traditional and modern forms of organisation. In reality, however, no social system disappears. A more useful point of departure would be: What form is caste taking under the impact of politics, and what form is politics taking in a caste-oriented society?

Those who complain of 'casteism in politics' in India are really looking for a sort of politics that has no basis in society. They also probably lack any clear conception of either the nature of politics or the nature of the caste system. (Some of them would want to throw out both politics and the caste system) The process of politics is one of identifying and manipulating existing structures in order to mobilise support and consolidate positions. Where the caste structure provides one of the most important organisational clusters in which the population is found to live, politics must strive to organise through such a structure."

"Politics in India": Rajni Kothari

Rajni Kothari's "Politics in India" (1970) is a systematic study of Indian politics.

Contents:

A. Introduction
1. Theoretical background
2. Historical background
3. Political background

B. The Political System
4. Development of the system
5. Political parties

C. The System's Environment
6. Indian/Hindu society
7. Indian/Hindu culture

D. The System's Performance
8. Political performance
9. Economic performance
10. Foreign affairs
11. Future trends