BSOC-104

SOCIOLOGY OF INDIA-II

School of Social Sciences

Indira Gandhi National Open University
EXPERT COMMITTEE
Prof. Abhijit Dasgupta, Prof. Debal K. SinghaRoy Dr. Archana Singh
Department of Sociology, Discipline of Sociology, Discipline of Sociology,
Delhi School of Economics, School of Social Sciences School of Social Sciences
University of Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi
Prof. Nilika Mehrotra Prof. T. Kapoor Dr. B. Kiranmayi
CSSS, Jawaharlal Nehru University Discipline of Sociology, Discipline of Sociology,
New Delhi School of Social Sciences School of Social Sciences
IGNOU, New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi
Dr. Pushpesh Kumar
Hyderabad University, Hyderabad Prof. N Mathur Dr. R Vashum
Prof. Maitrayee Chaudhary Discipline of Sociology, Discipline of Sociology,
CSSS, Jawaharlal Nehru University School of Social Sciences School of Social Sciences
New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi

Prof. D. Gopal Prof. Rabindra Kumar

Director Discipline of Sociology,
School of Social Sciences School of Social Sciences
IGNOU, New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi

COURSE PREPARATION TEAM

Block & Unit Name Unit Writer
BLOCK 1 IDEAS OF INDIA
Unit 1 Multiple Images Debal K SinghaRoy
Unit 2 Gandhi and Ambedkar Mudasir Yusuf
Unit 3 Ideological Images of India Rabindra Kumar Mohanty
Unit 4 Ethnographic Images of India Rabindra Kumar Mohanty
Unit 5 Constitutional Foundations Uzma Azhar
BLOCK 2 RESISTANCE, MOBILISATION AND CHANGE
Unit 6 Mobility and Change Adapted from ESO-04, Unit 29
Unit 7 Ethnic Movements in India Manas Nanda
Unit 8 Peasant Movements in India Soma Roy
Unit 9 Dalit Movements in India Manas Nanda
Unit 10 Women’s Movements in India Adapted from ESO-12, Unit 30
Unit 11 Working Class Movements in India Debal K. SinghaRoy
BLOCK 3 STATE AND SOCIETY: CONTESTING IDEOLOGIES
Unit 12 Communalism Adapted from ESO-015, Unit 32
Unit 13 Secularism Shankar Narayan Bagh
Unit 14 Nationalism Debal K. SinghaRoy

COURSE COORDINATOR
Prof. Debal K. SinghaRoy
Discipline of Sociology,
School of Social Sciences
IGNOU, New Delhi

GENERAL EDITOR
Prof. (Retd.). Mohini Anjum,
Jamia Millia Islamia
New Delhi

LANGUAGE EDITOR
Dr. Malathy
Assistant Professor
SOH, IGNOU, New Delhi
ACADEMIC CONSULTANT
Dr. Vinod Kumar Yadav
Descipline of Sociology
School of Social Sciences
IGNOU, New Delhi

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Mr. Tilak Raj Mr. Yashpal Kukreja
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MPDD, IGNOU, New Delhi MPDD, IGNOU, New Delhi

September, 2020
© Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2020
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 Course Contents
Page Nos.
BLOCK 1 IDEAS OF INDIA 9
Unit 1 Multiple Images 11
Unit 2 Gandhi and Ambedkar 26
Unit 3 Ideological Images of India 40
Unit 4 Ethnographic Images of India 54
Unit 5 Constitutional Foundations 67

BLOCK 2 RESISTANCE, MOBILISATION AND CHANGE 81

Unit 6 Mobility and Change 83
Unit 7 Ethnic Movements in India 98
Unit 8 Peasant Movements in India 112
Unit 9 Dalit Movements in India 128
Unit 10 Women’s Movements in India 144
Unit 11 Working Class Movements in India 162

BLOCK 3 STATE AND SOCIETY: CONTESTING IDEOLOGIES 181

Unit 12 Communalism 183
Unit 13 Secularism 195
Unit 14 Nationalism 206
COURSE INTRODUCTION

This course has been designed to introduce the student to the history and vastness
of our country and the plurality of culture, diversities of caste, tribe, region,
religion and ethnicity of the people of India. It is meant to be a journey which
covers a wide canvas and unveils the rich heritage of the great civilization of the
people of India.

Starting from Unit I which introduces the images of India in a historical

perspective, the course acquaints the student with the multiple images that have
been portrayed by travelers, historians, scholars and administrators over a period
of time, especially during the British period. Some of these images were quite
distorted and damaging as some even portrayed the people of India as barbaric.
However, with increased access to education by Indians during the British period
in India, and a better understanding of the cultural and social diversities in Indian
society, the British also acquired a more realistic approach to the understanding
of “The Wonder that was India” (A. L. Basham).
No one can understand Indian society, past and present, without a sound
understanding of the impact of the British rule in India and the freedom struggle
that followed. Thus, there are large sections in almost all units which uncover
the multitude of responses of the people of India to the British rule. These
responses include the Freedom struggle and highlight the role of Mahatma Gandhi,
Pandit Nehru, Maulana Azad and many other political leaders who spearheaded
the freedom movement.
The freedom struggle was committed to overthrowing the British from India and
attaining sovereignty (Swaraj); but alongside this Freedom struggle, there also
emerged a struggle within Indian society to rid of it deep rooted social evils like
sati, child marriages, caste discrimination and untouchability. The social reform
movement had also consolidated its position by now and social reformers like
Raja Rammohan Roy and Ishwar Chander Vidyasagar in Bengal to Dayanand
Saraswati in Punjab, Gokhale and Ranade in the West to Annie Beasant in the
South were all equally committed to the upliftment of the down-trodden sections
of Indian society, especially women and untouchables.
We won Independence in 1947 but the struggle for social justice within Indian
society continues even today, in the form of Dalit movements. All these sections
of Indian society are still struggling to get their rightful position. Despite the
constitutional safeguards, discrimination continues to surface in everyday life.
There are entire units in this course, devoted to a detailed discussion on all the
above mentioned movements. The roles of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B.R.
Ambedkar has been highlighted in these units.
The post Independence period has witnessed a wide range of revolutionary
changes and challenges in Indian society. The partition of India and the creation
of Pakistan have been and continue to be a serious threat to the majority-minority
relations within the framework of secularism in India. This theme runs through
many of the units, especially units on Communalism, Secularism and Nationalism.
Urban growth, industrialization, education, development, liberalization,
globalization have all brought about drastic transformation in Indian society,
both rural and urban and impacted the basic institutions of caste, family and
village. The status of women and Dalits has also witnessed major transformation.
The Units on women’s movements, peasant movements and Dalit movements
cover a wide range of issues being debated and the plans implemented to achieve
their goals. Here again, the historical perspective gives a panoramic view of all
that these movements have gone through, their stories of success and failure
stories.

Units devoted to Secularism and Nationalism bring out the complexities of

achieving these goals in a society with such a huge population with such vast
diversities, rapidly developing and transforming into one of the world’s biggest
economies, apart from being the largest democracy in the world. India has many
unique features like casteism, regionalism, secularism, multi-culturalism and
every other “ism” that you can think of and all of these “isms” are also acquiring
new meanings and covering new arenas. Factors and forces which come in the
way of achieving secularism and nationalism have been discussed in great detail.
The inability to separate religion from politics poses a major challenge in
achieving and ‘nationalism’. In the Indian democracy, caste, religion, region and
all other secularism divisions play a very significant role as vote banks. Political
parties always use caste, religion and regional sentiments just before elections to
win votes especially on the basis of the communal divide, which is precisely
why communal riots erupt just before elections.

Some of the major forces, internal and external which come in the way of
achieving goals and ideals of equality, liberty, secularism, nationhood etc.
enshrined in our Constitution have been discussed at length in units on
Communalism, Secularism and Nationalism.

After going through this course, the student is expected to have learnt about the
different images of India, its people, its diversities and the unifying forces and
factors underlying these diversities in a historical perspective and challenges
faced in the present day society.

This course is presented in three interelated Blocks. Blocks 1 deals with the
ideas of India as reflected in the traditional plural foundation of India. Besides
covering the historical, philosphical, cultural and political imagination of India
it also covers the fundamental secular, democratic, socialistic and republican
imagination of India as reflected through Indian constitution. This Block also
analyses the imagination of India by Gandhi and Ambedkar and also the ideoloical
and ethnographic imagination of India. Block 2 is on Resistance, Mobilisation
and Change. It covers the dynamics of mobility and change, ethnic, peasant,
Dalit, women’s and working class movements in India. In Block 3 the contesting
ideologies of communalism, secularism and nationalism in the changing context
of state and society in India are discussed.
 BLOCK 1
IDEAS OF INDIA
Ideas of India

10
 Multiple Images
UNIT 1 INDIA: MULTIPLE IMAGES*

Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Tradition of Plurality and Culture of Accommodation in Indian Society
1.2.1 Facets of Pluralism and Unity in India
1.2.2 The Eternal Syncretic Tradition in Hindu Spiritualism
1.2.3 The Historical Trajectories of India
1.3 Colonial and Western Imagination of India
1.3.1 Macaulay’s Minute
1.3.2 James Mill’s Description of Indian Civilisation
1.3.3 India as Imagined by Hegel, Marx and Engels
1.3.4 Max Weber on India
1.3.5 Mark Twain on India
1.4 Cultural Encounter: East and West
1.5 The Assimilative, Liberal and Cultural Nationalist Imagination of India
1.5.1 Rabindranath Tagore
1.5.2 Gandhi
1.5.3 Nehru
1.5.4 Ambedkar
1.5.5 Cultural Nationalist Imagination
1.6 Nationhood and Uniqueness of India
1.7 Let Us Sum Up
1.8 References

1.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you should be able to:
Explain the traditional facets of plurality of Indian society and the legacies
of unity and diversity therein.
Elucidate the eternal syncretic tradition in Hindu spiritualism
Develop a critique of the colonial description of Indian society
Underline Hegel’s, Marx’s Weber's and Twain’s visions of India
Elaborate Tagore’s, Gandhi’s, Nehru’s and others’ perspectives of India, and
Examine the plural foundation of Indian society as enshrined in the Indian
Constitution

1.1 INTRODUCTION
India as a society is founded on pluralism and traditions of accommodation and
cultural liberalism. It has a long historical legacy of such a tradition. However

*Contributed by Prof. Debal K SinghaRoy, IGNOU, New Delhi 11

Ideas of India the cultural ethos of Indian society has not been interpreted and imagined
uniformly. While Indian leaders, philosophers, poets and writers have highlighted
the essential plural and accommodative foundations of Indian society based on
historical facts, the colonial rulers and many Westerners have portrayed Indian
society in negative terms. This unit will provide glimpses of such images and
will create the backdrop for the further discussion on Indian society. It begins
with the essential facets of the culture of accommodation and pluralism, unity
and diversity of Indian society. It also provides a historical glimpse of Indian
society and presents a brief outline of colonial imagination of Indian society
through Macaulay’s Minutes, and James Mill’s description of Indian civilisation.
Furthermore the understandings of Indian society by Hegel, Marx, Engels, Max
Weber and Mark Twain are also briefly given in this unit. This would be followed
by the images and description of India by Edward Said, Rabindranath Tagore,
Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ambedkar and the cultural nationalist
ideologues. The plural foundation of nationhood, the uniqueness of India and
the constitutional foundation of Indian society are also discussed in this unit. Let
us begin with a discussion of the plural foundation of Indian society.

1.2 TRADITION OF PLURALITY AND CULTURE

OF ACCOMMODATION IN INDIAN SOCIETY
As we try to develop an image of India, we very often encounter varieties of
ideals, images and realities of India. We have a huge landscape with long
civilizational heritage, rich religious and philosophical traditions, profound
cultural frameworks and economic foundations to describe the socio- political
and geographical dynamics of India. Significantly all these ideals, images and
realities have always remained plural in Indian society.

1.2.1 Facets of Pluralism and Unity in India

Society consists of people. In India we find people of distinctive physical features.
Herbert Risley had classified the people of India into seven racial types. These
are (i) Turko-Iranian, (ii) Indo-Aryan, (iii) Scytho-Dravidian, (iv) Aryo-Dravidian,
(v) Mongolo-Dravidian, (vi) Mongoloid, and (vii) Dravidian.
According to the 1971 census there are 1652 languages in India which are spoken
as mother tongue. The famous linguist Grierson noted 179 languages and 544
dialects. India is a land of 22 official languages, 13 different scripts and over 720
dialects. India is a land of multiple religions. Though India is the birth place of
Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and varieties of tribal religions, every
major religion like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Bahaism
have their strong followers in India. According to census 2011, followers of
Hinduism form 72.8% of the total population, Islam 14.2%, Christianity 2.3%,
Sikhism 1.7%, Buddhism 0.7%, Jainism 0.4% and other religious groups forms
0.7% followers.There are also caste or caste like diversities within most of these
religious groups.
However despite these diversities there are strong bonds of unity in India which
are reflected in the geopolitical unity marked by the Himalayas in the north end
and the oceans on the other sides. Politically India is a sovereign, secular and
democratic state. The same Constitution and same Parliament cover every part
of it. We share the same political culture marked by the norms of democracy,
12 secularism and social justice. The ideal of geo-political unity of India is culturally
and historically inherited as reflected in the concepts of Bharatvarsha (the ancient Multiple Images
classic name for India). The other important source of unity of India is marked
by the institution of pilgrimage which is reflected in the network of shrines and
sacred places in different parts of India.

1.2.2 The Eternal Syncretic Tradition in Hindu Spiritualism

The syncretic tradition of Indian culture provides the space for accommodation
and tolerance and the bondage which creates the mosatic of unity in diversity.
Though Hinduism is the majority religion of India, The tradition of
accommodation is eternal to Hinduism as it is practised as the way of life in
India. Philosophically it has upheld the tradition that has conceived the whole
world to be part of a single family: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (“vasudha”, the
earth; “iva”, is ; and “kutumbakam”, family). The concept originates in the Vedic
scripture Maha Upanishad (Chapter 6, Verse 72): It goes further to say that ayam/
nijah Paroveti ganana laghuchetasam udaracharitanam tu vasudhaiva
kutumbakam which means: "Only small minded man discriminate saying: One
is a relative; the other is a stranger. For those who live magnanimously the entire
world constitutes but a family. It is considered an integral part of the Hindu
philosophy.
Hinduism is founded on the spirit of universality. As Vivekananda has aptly
pointed out in his famous Chicago speech in 1893, Hinduism as a religion has
taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance that believes not only
in universal toleration, but accepts all religions as true. He further pointed out
that India as a nation has sheltered the persecuted and refugees of all religions
and all nations of the earth. On that occasion he quoted a few lines from a Vedic
hymn that depicts the essence of Indian society and Hinduism:
“As the different streams having their sources in different places all
mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which people
take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked
or straight, all lead to Thee”.

1.2.3 The Historical Trajectories of India

Hinduism has traditionally been defined as a way of life rather than a monolithic
religion. As way of life it has remained linked to varieties of societal practices
and its civilizational trajectories. India possesses the 5,000 years old heritage of
the Indus Valley Civilization, known as the Harappan Civilization (c. 3300-
c.1500BCE). While tracing the trajectory of Indian history, we trace it roots to
the Vedic society ( c.1500-c. 200BCE), and also note its encounters and the
emergence of Jainism and Buddhism, medieval dynastic rules, Persian, and Greek
attacks (c. 200 BCE-c.1200 CE); repeated Muslim attacks and formation of
Muslim Sultanate, spread of Bhakti movements, emergence of Sikhism,
strengthening of Vijayanagar Empire in the south India (c.1200-1526 CE),
formation and expansion of Mughal, Maratha, Sikh and other empires; the arrival
of British colonial power and end of Mughal power (c.1526-1857CE),
consolidation of British colonial power and India’s struggle for freedom (1857-
1947). All through these phases of historical changes, challenges and encounters
with outside forces, India has retained the culture of pluralism and accommodation.
However the response of Indian society to the changing historical trajectory in
general and to the outside forces in particular has been portrayed differently by
13
Ideas of India various scholars. In the following section of this unit we will provide a glimpse
of such portrayal and imagination of India by Macaulay, Hegel, Marx and Engels,
Weber, Mark Twain and others

Check Your Progress 1

1) Identify the main features of unity and diversity in India
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1.3 COLONIAL AND WESTERN IMAGINATION

OF INDIA
The colonial power had made a negative portial of Indian society, its people and
culture, language and education. This perspective was widely depicted in the
infamous Macaulay’s Minute on Education, February 2, 1835, James Mill's
account of India etc.

1.3.1 Macaulay’s Minute

The document reads:

“…that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India
contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are moreover so poor and
rude …. ....... I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit
works.
I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good
European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The
intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed fully admitted and I
certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic
and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. …
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which
has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less
valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at
preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy,
the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.……”
Hence Macaulay suggested that “we ought to employ them in teaching what is
best worth knowing, that English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic,
We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between
us and the millions whom we govern, -a class of persons Indian in blood and
colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class
we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those
dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to
render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass
of the population”(http://home.iitk.ac.in/~hcverma/Article/Macaulay-
14 Minutes.pdf).
1.3.2 James Mill’s Description of Indian Civilisation Multiple Images

Many colonial historians have described Indian civilization with various negative
attributes. For instance, an English historian James Mill, compared the Hindus
with the “savages of America”; the Indian architectural and sculptural creations
were termed “arts of the barbarian”; and India was, in these writings, a “half-
civilised nation”. The colonial scholars also considered the Indian way of life
abominable and believed that it needed to be metamorphosed and given a western
orientation. This perception was behind the “civilising mission” that the British
had embarked upon. It is to be mentioned here that their description of India was
not only impressionistic, but also biased. They were unable to take cognizance
of several noble ethos of Indian society. both in their imagination and writings.

Mill's low estimate of the state of civilisation attained by the Hindus provided a
justification for continued British rule, and supported the view that India should
be governed according to civilised European standards, rather than those of the
native population. Mill believed that ‘the English government in India with all
its vices is a blessing of unspeakable magnitude to the population of Hindustan’
(https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/james-mill-and-india).

1.3.3 India as Imagined by Hegal, Marx and Engels

In the imagination of Hegel, Marx and Engels, India appeared to be a static
identity. They figured India as distinctive specimen. For Hegel, the dawn of history
was in the East. But China and India remained unchanged for millennia. In Hegel’s
own words: “India like China is a phenomenon antique as well as modern; one
which has remained unchanged and fixed”.

Marx used Indian material to elaborate his materialistic theories of the social
history of Europe. He described very early stages of human society in which all
men were both owners and workers. Marx believed that a society of this nature
had actually existed in India from the most ancient times until the British conquest.
In the Communist Manifesto central concern was the societies which were his
based on class differentiation. Here no reference was made to the nature of society
in India, China, or other countries of Asia. In his “Principles of Communism”,
Engels in 1847 referred to India and China as countries which for thousands of
years have made no progress. In the same place he refers to semi-barbarian
countries which previously had more or less remained outside of the line of
historical development. These are now doomed to be taken over by civilization,
personified above all by English industry and trade (cf. Thorner 1980).

The most distinctive character of India according to Marx is its age-old village
system. The great mass of the population are dispersed over the surface of the
country in tiny agglomerations. Situated on its own tract of arable and waste
lands, each village forms a little world unto itself with an independent organization
and a distinct life. The dominant feature of the village is the “domestic union of
agricultural and manufacturing pursuits”. The “peculiar combination of hand-
weaving, hand-spinning and hand-tilling agriculture” gives the villages self-
sufficiency (Marx 1853)

Since the Indian villages had preserved their ancient structure, Marx described
Indian villages to have “stereotyped primitive forms”. Another label he applied
to them was “family communities, implying that they were held together by ties
15
Ideas of India of consanguinity”. Caste and slavery are mentioned as village features, but only
in passing and not much is made of them. There is an isolated reference to
differences in rank (Thorner 1980). For Marx self- sufficing communities i,e.
Village communities had some specific characters:

“These idyllic village communities had always been the solid foundation of
oriental despotism… they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible
compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath
traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies. …..that these
little communities were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery,
that they subjected man to external circumstances instead of elevating man to
sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-developing social state
into never-changing natural destiny”

1.3.4 Max Weber

Max Weber viewed the evolution and transformation of the world in terms of
rationalization of thoughts, ethics and actions. For him the society in India that is
founded on the traditional spirit of Hinduism, is devoid of the rational spirit to
develop rational capitalism in society. The predominance of “otherworldly”
mysticism – in which salvation can only be achieved through a process of
detachment from material wellbeing, has made the people remain grounded on
traditional thoughts and actions.

However Max Weber's thesis has been contested by many scholars on the ground
that many traditional business communities have contributed to the growth of
capitalism; that many have compartmentalised their religion from economic
activities and have contributed to the growth of capitalism. It has also been
mention that the, process of capital accumulation in India in to be understand in
terms of specific nature of Indian culture and economy; and not by aping the
west.

Moreover there is no dearth of scholars who have effectively shown India, its
people and culture with a positive connotation and spirit. Here we may cite the
example of Mark Twain:

1.3.5 Mark Twain

America’s beloved humorist and one of its best known writers, Samuel Langhorne
Clemens, better known to the world as Mark Twain came to India in January,
1896. Based on his extensive visit to India, Mark Twain wrote that “India is the
cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history,
the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition.” Twain records
in his autobiography, “an imaginary land - a fairy land, dreamland, a land made
out of poetry and moonlight for the Arabian Nights to their gorgeous Miracles
in. . .” . He found the people “pleasant and accommodating.” He added “They
are kindly people. . . . The face and the bearing that indicate a surly spirit and a
bad heart seemed . . . rare among Indians.

Commenting on the Indian heritage, Twain said: “India had the start of the whole
world in the beginning of things. She had the first civilization; she had the first
accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle
intellects; she had mines and woods and a fruitful soil. ...”. He was intrigued by
16 the diversities in the Indian way of life. “Their character and their history, their
customs and their religion confront you with riddles at every turn - riddles which Multiple Images
are a trifle more perplexing after they are explained than they were before,” he
wrote.

Twain said repeatedly that India was his favorite land on the whole 'Equator
journey'. He loved the color and variety of Indian life. Take the famous passage
in "Following the Equator" : This is indeed India - the land of dreams and romance,
of fabulous wealth and fabulous poetry, of splendour and rags, of palaces and
hovels, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the . . . cradle of the
human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of
legend, great-grandmother of tradition . . . the one land that all men desire to see,
and having once seen, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the
shows of all the rest of the globe combined (cf.Sharma 1968)

Check Your Progress 2

1) What was the objective of British education in India according to Macaulay?
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2) What were the features of Indian villages according to Marx?
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1.4 CULTURAL ENCOUNTER: EAST AND WEST

It is important to note that for centuries the British kept on describing India in
terms of their own understanding and imagination of Indian society and its history.
These descriptions tried precisely to justify the continuity and expansion of the
colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent. However from the later part of the 19th
and early 20th century with the gradual spread of English education and emergence
of a thin section of middle class the public awareness among Indians about the
colonial perception of India and its culture, society and civilization started
growing. They started to react and object to the colonial assumptions of Indians,
which were biased and derogatory in many ways. The arrival of the printing
press, both vernacular and English, and increased connectivity widely contributed
to such articulations.

Indian scholars and leaders developed a critical view not only western culture,
but also of their own culture. The cultural contacts made the scholars see the
17
Ideas of India strengths and weaknesses of both the cultures. Consequently, there have been
descriptions of both the Oriental and of the West by scholars.

It is to mention here that India has got unique spiritual tradition and has
experienced several movements to regenirate this tradition. Bhakti movement in
15th century was a popular movement which treated all sections of society equally
and it developed two traditions of Saguna and Nirguna. The first one believes in
the form of God Vishnu or Shiv relating to the Vaishnavite or Shaivaite traditions.
It advocated equality among all the castes. The followers of Nirguna believed in
formless universal God. Ravidas and Kabir were the major figures of this tradition.
It became more popular among the dalits in urban areas in the early 20th century
as it provided the possibility of salvation for all. It promised social equality.

1.5 THE ASSIMILATIVE, LIBERAL AND

CULTURAL NATIONLIST IMAGINATION OF
INDIA
Although there were substantial differences among the social thinkers, and
nationalist scholars on the necessity and outcome of these cultural contacts, they
were agreed that the pre-colonial era was neither “dark” nor “bereft of glory”.
The Indian freedom fighters, scholars, poets and philosophers widely highlighted
the underlying facets of unity in Indian society that was a precursor in attaining
‘nationhood’.

The writings of of R.G. Bhandarkar, Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath

Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru Ambedkar and many others, widely
contributed to lay the foundation of nationalist discourse of Indian unity. Some
scholars highlighted the aspects of civilizational unity of Indian society to
strengthen the foundation of Indian nationhood

1.5.1 Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore has imagined India as assimilative, cosmopolitan, compassionate, liberal
and quintessentially secular philosophically. This is most comprehensively
expounded in his classic poem 'Bharat Tirtha' (Indian Pilgrimage), where Tagore
writes:

“Oh! Mother, let my mind awake slowly on this sacred shore of the sea,
where great souls of the world have come together to pay reverence.
Here with outstretched hands we bow down to the Divine in human form.
……..Adore here your reverential Mother Earth where great souls have
come together on the seashore to pay reverence”.
With regard to the arrival of outsiders in India he writes: “Nobody knows
whose invitation invoked so many souls who have gathered here like a
turbulent current of river that has come and dissolved itself in the Divine
Ocean. In this sacred place the Aryans, non-Aryans, Dravidians, Afghans
and Moghals have come and detached their individuality in One Supreme
Body. ….. Nobody will go empty handed from this seashore where great
souls come together to pay reverence. Those crossed the great mountains
and deserts singing the song of your glory from their hearts like martial
music and got their seats in your Own Self. …… By throwing away
18 Prophecies the bonds of difference, they have emerged into universal
 brotherhood”. Multiple Images

He also invites everyone to come to this country with a purpose and he

writes:
“Come, Oh! Aryans, come non-Aryans, come Hindus and Muslims. Come,
come, Oh! Englishmen, come Christians, come Brahmins, purify your
heart; hold the hands of downtrodden and out-castes. Remove all ills
and disrespect. Come quickly for the coronation of Mother, where the
“Mangal Ghat” has to be filled with sacred water which become
consecrated by the touch of the great souls who have come together on
the seashore to pay reverence”. (http://www.scotlandyoga.com/sahaja-
yoga-news/2007/07/06/bharat-tirtha/)

Tagore was a universalist and a humanist. He was against all orthodoxy as

practised in Indian society. He was looking for an ideal image of India, while
critiquing the social ills and orthodoxy in society. In many poem and through
many characters in his novels he raised this concern. Perhaps the most complex
novel to explore this theme was 'Gora', the story of an adopted child of a Brahmin
family who turns ultra-orthodox only to realise the reality of his birth and the
futility of orthodoxy.

Tagore was for a free India, and strong by condemned voice against the merciless
killing of freedom fighters by the British forces. He returned his Knighthood in
the wake of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre He wrote “My voice is choked, my
flute has lost its strains, it’s like the inside of a prison on a moonless night. You
have submerged my world under the burden of nightmares. That’s why I tearfully
ask — have you forgiven, have you loved those that poisoned the environ you
created, those that stamped out the light of your lamp” (Mitra, 2017).

In Tagore’s view, Indian civilisation was ‘syncretic’ in nature. It is founded in

unity in diversity, without diminishing the significance of the uniqueness of all
social and religious groups that has provided the plural and composite foundation
of Indian society. In direct opposition to this was the aggressiveness of western
civilisation, which tried to forcibly homogenise different cultures — a feature
Tagore vehemently opposed.

1.5.2 Gandhi
Gandhi has furthered the idea of the assimilative nature of Indian civilization.
He even suggested that the objective of the freedom movement need not be to
expel the British from India. For him the English would get assimilated in Indian
society as the thousands of other migrants have got assimilated in it. Gandhiji
recognised that India was a land of diversity and so he never substituted ‘Indian
civilisation’ with ‘Hindu culture’ or ‘Hindu civilisation’.
Gandhi had a wide and inclusive understanding of India as a nation: To him "By
the Indian nation Gandhi means ordinary Indians, irrespective of their religious,
linguistic, regional or caste differences, as well as the new emerging middle
class"..(Gandhi: xiv). He further writes: India cannot cease to be one nation
because people belonging to different religions live in it. In reality, there are as
many religions as there are individuals, but those who are conscious of the spirit
of nationality do not interfere with one another’s religion. If they do, they are not
fit to be considered a nation’
19
Ideas of India He always said: “If the Hindus believe that India should be peopled only by
Hindus, they are living in dreamland. The Hindus, the Mahomedans, the Parsees
and the Christians who have made India their country are fellow countrymen,
and they will have to live in unity if only for their own interest” (Gandhi 52-53).

Gandhi’s view on the village is unique. Gandhi believed in the autonomy of the
villages founded on agriculture, supplemented by village and cottage industries.
He was not in favour of industrialization. He wrote: "India does not need to be
industrialized in the modern sense of the term... Agriculture does not need
revolutionary changes. The Indian peasant requires a supplementary industry.
The most natural is the introduction of the spinning-wheel, not the handloom.
The latter cannot be introduced in every home, whereas the former can, and it
used to be so even a century ago" (Gandhi115). Gandhi was for self sufficiency,
dignity and autonomy of each individual.

Gandhiji has written about political power and the state. He writes “To me political
power is not an end but one of the means of enabling people to better their
condition in every department of life. Political power means the capacity to
regulate national life through national representatives. If national life becomes
so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary.
There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a State everyone is his own
ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his
neighbour. In the ideal State, therefore, there is no political power because there
is no State.But the ideal is never fully realized in life. Hence the classical statement
of Thoreau that, 'government is best which governs the least. (Young India, 2-7-
‘31)

1.5.3 Nehru
India appears in Pandit Nehru’s imagination as a plural country of various sorts.
He writes that the ‘heart of Hindustan as it has so long been considered, the seat
and centre of both ancient and medieval civilization, the melting pot of so many
races and cultures’.. He further writes: When I think of India, I think of many
things: of broad fields dotted with innumerable small villages; of towns and
cities I have visited; of the magic of the rainy season which pours life into the
dry parched-up land and converts it suddenly into a glistening expanse of beauty
and greenery, of great rivers and flowing water; of the Khyber Pass in all its
bleak surroundings; of the southern tip of India; of people, individually and in
the mass; and, above all, of the Himalayas, snow-capped, or some mountain
valley in Kashmir in the spring, covered with new flowers, and with a brook of
our choice, and so I have chosen this mountain background rather than the more
normal picture of a hot, subtropical country. Both pictures would be correct, for
India stretches from the tropics right up to the temperate regions, from near the
equator to the cold heart of Asia (1946:49-50, 54).

Regarding diversity and unity among the people of India he says that the diversity
of India is tremendous; it is obvious;, it lies on the surface and anybody can see
it. It concerns itself with physical appearances as well as with certain mental
habits and traits. Their racial stocks are not the same, though there may be common
strands running through them; they differ in face and figure, food and clothing,
and, of course, language. He however finds that though outwardly there was
diversity and infinite variety among our people, everywhere there was that
tremendous impress of oneness, which had held all of us together for ages past,
20
whatever political fate or misfortune had befallen us. … That essential unity had Multiple Images
been so powerful that no political division, no disaster or catastrophe, had been
able to overcome it…. I was also fully aware of the diversities and divisions of
Indian life, of classes, castes, religions, races, different degrees of cultural
development. Yet I think that a country with a long cultural background and a
common outlook on life develops a spirit that is peculiar to it and that is impressed
on all its children, however much they may differ among themselves……But if
we were going to build the house of India’s future, strong and secure and beautiful,
we would have to dig deep for the foundations (Ibid. 52—53).

What is Bharat Mata and who is Bharat Mata? On this question he clarifies:
Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory
to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this Bharat Mata, I told
them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata, and as this idea slowly soaked
into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery
(Ibid 54)

Some kind of a dream of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of
civilization. That unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside, a
standardization of externals or even of beliefs. It was something deeper and,
within its fold, the widest tolerance of belief and custom was practised and every
variety acknowledged and even encouraged.

He also writes regarding the differences. “Differences, big or small, can always
be noticed even within a national group, however closely bound together it may
be. The essential unity of that group becomes apparent when it is compared to
another national group, though often the differences between two adjoining groups
fade out or intermingle near the frontiers, and modern developments are tending
to produce certain uniformity everywhere. In ancient and medieval times, the
idea of the modern nation was non-existent, and feudal, religious, racial, or cultural
bonds had more importance. Yet I think that at almost any time in recorded history
an Indian would have felt more or less at home in any part of India”(Nehru. 55).

1.5.4 Ambedkar
Ambedkar was deeply concerned about establishing a social order in India founded
on equality and justice for all. However he was deeply disturbed with social
division in Indian society. As nationalism became a concern, Ambedkar pointed
out that ‘‘philosophically, it may be possible to consider a nation as a unit, but
sociologically, it cannot be regarded as consisting of many classes and freedom
of the nation, if it is to be a reality, must vouchsafe the freedom of the different
classes comprised in it, particularly of those who are treated as the servile classes”.
He further writes that nationality is ‘ a feeling of consciousness of kind which on
the one hand binds together those who have it , so strongly that it overrides all
differences arising out of economic conflicts or social gradations and on the
other hand , severs them from those who are not their kind . It is a feeling not to
belong to any other group. This is the essence of what is called a nationality and
national feeling’
For him a serious and ideological commitment for ensuring equality for all sections
is a prerequisite to actualize nationhood. Nationalism in India emerged not only
as a protest against the domination of the colonial forces but also as a protest
against the internal domination of the lower castes by the upper caste. Within the
persisting system of inequality and caste based social segregation according to 21
Ideas of India him, the untouchables would be underprivileged; rather they would remain in a
situation of slavery. He writes: “Turn in any direction you like, caste is the
monster that crosses your path.”Ambedkar was for a casteless society to be
founded on the constitutional principle of equality, fraternity and justice for all
citizens. (We will discuss more about Ambedkar’s ideas of India in the following
unit of this course).

1.5.5 Cultural Nationalist Imagination

The cultural nationalists have seen India in terms of a traditional cultural unit
founded on the spiritual ethos of Hinduism. This view perceives India as a unique
manifestation of a historic, geographic, cultural, linguistic unity. The writings of
Savarkar(1923) locate the roots of Indian nationalism on the claim of inherited
common race, land, history, language, culture and common ‘others’. Savarkar
elaborates that Sindusthan/Hindusthan is founded on ‘one nation and one race—
of a common fatherland and therefore of a common blood’… Hindus are the
decedents of the ‘Aryans who made their home ‘on the banks of the Sindhu …
developed a sense of nationality … and actually brought the whole land from the
Himalayas to the Seas under one sovereign sway; that Hindusthan is a land of
Hindus who had to face the attack of Arabs, Persians, Pathans, Baluchis, Tartars,
Turks, Moguls invaders for centuries. It was through this prolonged furious
conflict that people of India became intensely conscious of themselves as Hindus
and were welded into a nation. To him the Hindus are one because they own a
common Sanskriti (civilization) of Hindu culture and Sanskrit has been the chosen
means of expression and preservation of that culture and the history of this race’.:
(Savarkar 1923: 4-12, 43, 92, 115). ….

Check Your Progress 3

1) Write a note in about 50 words on Gandhi’s idea of the village in India
.......................................................................................................................
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.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
2) Who is Bharat Mata according to Pandit Nehru?
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1.6 NATIONHOOD AND UNIQUENESS OF INDIA

India has acquired independent nation statehood through a prolonged struggle.
The society in India is founded on the idea of cultural syncretism. It is founded
on the sustained culture of dialogue, accommodation, synthesis, reciprocity,
tolerance and mutual respect for each other. The liberal ethos of all religious
groups has been part of the national symbol of independent. Brenad S. Cohn
wrote: India established as a secular state at independence, carefully chose several
22
non-Hindu symbols for its flag. It has the Buddhist Wheel of Law on it. The new Multiple Images
government selected the Ashok Chakra and Lions for the national seal, Ashoka
was a Buddhist ruler. For the national anthem, they accepted the poem by Tagore,
Jana Gana Mana, which has a listing of the regions and peoples of India as the
national anthem. (Cohn 54). It depicts the legacy of tolerance and accommodation
of Indian society and polity.

Constitutionally India is founded on one state and one citizenship. It has imagined
each citizen to be equal in the eyes of law. Equality, fraternity and justice for the
citizen has been the cornerstone of the Indian Constitution. However to pave the
foundation of a plural society, along with individual rights, the Constitution of
India has also given every religious group the freedom to promote and protect its
cultural activities as per law. It has provided the space of individual rights through
Article 19-22 of the Constitution. Article 19 ensures the individual right to freedom
(freedom of speech and expression; to assemble peaceably and without arms; to
form associations or unions; to move freely throughout the territory of India; to
practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business). Article
20 provides protection to the individual in respect of conviction for offences.
Article 21 provides protection to individual of life and personal liberty. Article
22 provides protection to individual against arrest and detention in certain cases.

The Constitution of India also provides the space for collective rights through
Article 15 and 26. Article 15(4) permits the State to make special provision for
the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizen
or for the Scheduled Castes the Scheduled Tribes. Article 26 gives ‘every religious
group a right to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable
purposes, manage its affairs, properties as per the law’

Check Your Progress 4

1) Write a note on religious pluralism in India’s national symbol.
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2) What is the place of group rights in the Indian Constitution?
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23
Ideas of India
1.7 LET US SUM UP
India is essentially a plural society founded on multiculturalism. It has a long
historical past that encountered a host of outside forces including those of Islam,
Christianity, and colonialism etc. These have in many ways contributed to the
fabric of the composite culture of Indian society. However the foundation of
Indian society has been diversely depicted by scholars. This unit has provided
you a glimpse of the views of the colonial administrators, of Hegel, Marx, Engels,
Weber etc on Indian society. It has also the highlighted the imagination of Swami
Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and others.
The ideal image of India is enshrined in the Constitution of India; we have also
touched upon some aspects of this image. This unit is a precursor of the units to
be discussed at length in the following units of this course.

1.8 REFERENCES
Sharma, M. L. 1968. Mark Twain’s Passage to India, Mark Twain Journal,
Gandhi, M.K. 1933. Hind Swaraj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.
Gandhi, M.K. 1947. India of My Dreams. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Mudranalaya.
Nehru, J. 1946. Discovery of India. Calcutta: The Signet Press.
Brunt, P.A. Arrian, with an English Translation, Vol. II, (Indica, 11,1-12,7),
Cambridge, Mass. 1983, pp. 337-41)
Sachau, E. C.1993. Alberuni’s India. New Delhi: Low Price Publications.
Elliot and Dowson. 1996. The History of India as told by its own historians.
New Delhi: Low Price Publications, vol. II.
Sarvarkar, V.D. 1923. Hindutra: Who is a Hindu, Rpt 1989. Bharatiya, Sahitya
Sadan: New Delhi,
E Resources
https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/james-mill-and-india
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~hcverma/Article/Macaulay-Minutes.pdf
http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415485432/3.asp on Megasthenes‘
Depiction of India’s Society
http://www.gktoday.in/articles

GLOSSARY
Cultural Ethos: The cultural world-view of a specific people.
Civilization: An advanced stage of social and cultural development
Orientalists: refers to scholars who study Asian societies, their culture, languages,
history, literature and their politics.

24
 Multiple Images
FURTHER READING
Elliot and Dowson. 1996. The History of India as told by its own historians.
New Delhi: Low Price Publications, vol. II.
Gandhi, M.K. 1933. Hind Swaraj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.
Nehru, J. 1946. Discovery of India. Calcutta: The Signet Press.

25
Ideas of India
UNIT 2 GANDHI AND AMBEDKAR
Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Life and Education of Gandhi and Ambedkar
2.3 Gandhi’s Political Career
2.4 Gandhi’s Advocacy For Satyagraha and Non-Violence
2.5 Gandhi’s Legacy of Nationalism and Secularism
2.6 Role of Gandhi in National Movements
2.7 Gandhi’s Vision on Marginalisation, Inclusion and Exclusion in India
2.8 Political Career of B.R Ambedkar
2.9 B.R Ambedkar’s Socio-political Philosophy
2.10 B.R Ambedkar’s Ideas on Marginalisation and Social Inclusion
2.11 Let Us Sum Up
2.12 References

2.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you should be able to discuss
The political careers of Gandhi and Ambedkar
Gandhi’s Satyagraha and non-violence
Role of Gandhi in national movements
Visions of Ambedkar and Gandhi on marginalization and social inclusion
Socio-political philosophy of Ambedkar

2.1 INTRODUCTION
In this Unit, an attempt has been made to shed light on two great personalities,
Mahatma Gandhi and B.R Ambedkar. The first one is Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi is popularly known as ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ and the second Babasaheb
Ambedkar ‘the Chief Architect of Indian Constitution’. Both are well known
social activists, nation builders and social reformers. Their roles for making a
framework for inclusive and egalitarian social structure have been globally
appreciated. They fought against historically rooted structural discrimination,
exploitation, marginalisation and humiliation based on caste, colour, religion,
region, gender, class etc. Establishig non-violent society founded on social
equality, justice and empowerment for marginalised communities and groups
has remained an unfinished project of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar. They
strongly believed in democratic spirit, secular character, cultural and religious
harmony of Indian society. This unit is not a straightforward biography which
talks about everyday life of Gandhi and Ambedkar, nor does it deal exclusively
with Ambedkar and Gandhi’s socio-political ideas. An effort has been made here

*Contributed by Mudasir Yousuf

26
to highlight and discuss those areas in their writings which depicts the image of Gandhi and Ambedkar
Indian society, that they ideally conceived. This unit first discusses how Mahatma
Gandhi imagined India as a nation based on the ideas of equality, secularism,
pluralism, empowerment of marginalised sections and non-violence. Similarly,
the next part of the unit discusses and debates Dr. Ambedkar’s intellectual
imagination and contribution for the welfare of the society especially against
structural marginalisation of oppressed classes in general and Dalits in particular.

2.2 LIFE AND EDUCATION OF GANDHI AND

AMBEDKAR
Mahatma Gandhi was born in Gujarat on 2 October 1869, as the youngest child
of the Gandhi family. Due to his father’s position as a local politician, the family
was subject to transfers within the province, and his father moved to Rajkot
when he was seven years old. He completed his primary and secondary education
there. After completing his college education, he went to England to study law.
He spent three years in England, and was “called to the Bar,” or made an official
barrister, in 1891. He then returned to India to begin a legal practice. Initially he
hesitated to speak out he ended his first trial badly and refunded his client’s
money. Later on Gandhi was offered a job with a Rajkot merchant who did
business in South Africa and he decided to go to South Africa for one year.
Gandhi stayed twenty years in South Africa. During these twenty years in South
Africa he made a deep study of the socio economic conditions of the Indians
there. Gandhi himself encountered racial discrimination when he was not allowed
to travel in a first class compartment though he had purchased the ticket for the
same. This incident at Maritzburg gave birth to a new Gandhi. He raised his
voice and revolted against such humiliation, discrimination and injustice inflicted
on Indians in South Africa (Pandey, 2012: 355).

Gandhi challenged different forms of domination whether ancient or modern, in

the subcontinent. He developed a comprehensive theory that goes beyond national
boundaries about the basic contours of ‘good society’ and the importance of
‘non-violence’. Drawing upon ‘ethnicity’, ‘religion’ and other India-specific
socio-economic characteristics, Gandhi tried to articulate a distinctive cultural
vision of nationhood – a vision that immediately gained currency during the
freedom struggle (Chakrabarty, 2007: 2).

B.R Ambedkar was born on 14th April, 1891, at Ambedgaon village in Ratnagiri
district of Maharashtra. His father Ranji Sakpal and grandfather Maloji Sakpal,
both served in the British Army. His mother’s name was Bheema Bai, and she
died when Ambedkar was six years old (Trivedi, 2012:1). He was born in a poor
family which belonged to one of the Hindu untouchable communities in India.
The untouchables comprised a number of distinct groups which formed the lowest
strata of Hindu society (Keer, 1954:1). Dr. Ambedkar was educated in Mumbai
at Elphinstone College, then in New York at Columbia University, and at London
School of Economics and the Inns of Court before returning to India to eventually
become the greatest leader of the Dalits. Among the professors who influenced
him, a notable individuality was John Dewey. B R Ambedkar, popularly known
as ‘Babasaheb’ nationally and internationally is counted as one of the great
intellectuals of India. B.R Ambedkar’s search for knowledge, struggle for
inclusion and emancipation of suppressed people in the country is remarkable
and unprecedented. 27
Ideas of India Historically Indian society is fractured in terms of caste, gender, religion, and
region but Ambedkar gave us a legal framework which would help to establish
an egalitarian system socio-culturally, economically and politically. Jaiswal (2008)
holds that Ambedkar’s starting point was specifically his enormous contribution
to the compilation of the Constitution of Independent India, which rejected the
label of the most excluded section i.e. Untouchables. It is unfortunate that in the
present political juncture the holistic vision of Ambedkar is completely forgotten
(Zene, 2013:22).

2.3 GANDHI’S POLITICAL CARRIER

Gandhi’s idea of non-violence, which had been originally given shape in Hind
Swaraj, the text to which Gandhi can be said to have adhered to till the last day
of his life (Mukherji, 2016:69). In 1915 Gandhi came back to India as a liberating
force to emancipate millions of Indians from British rule. When he entered Indian
politics, the Indian National Congress was in a state of anarchy. It was ridden
with the crisis of conflict between moderates and the extremists. As we mentioned
above, Gandhi stayed two decades in South Africa but these years did not make
him a great lawyer but made him a social activist, political leader, strategist and
a great thinker. India was waiting for him to lead Indian politics and organize the
freedom movement (Rao, 2014:80). Gandhi was not a preacher, but a doer. He
engaged in political activity with the objective of achieving specific goals. He
strongly believed every age has its Yugadharma, and the dharma of his age was
politics. His particular goal in life was to attain moksha, and he believed that his
moksha lay in the practice of politics (Ray, 2008:XV).

2.4 GANDHI’S ADVOCACY FOR SATYAGRAHA

AND NON-VIOLENCE
Let us discuss Gandhi's ideas of Satyagraha and Non-violence
i) Satyagraha: Satyagraha is an important part of Gandhi’s socio-political
philosophy. The literary meaning of Satyagraha is “Holding on to the truth”,
“adherence to truth”. Satyagraha was evolved in South Africa more than
100 years ago as a resistance movement against racial discrimination. On
11 September 1906, he addressed the Indians who had assembled in the
Empire theatre, Johannesburg. Gandhi used Satyagraha in its ordinary
Gujarati meaning and not the classical Sanskrit sense, which means
insisting on something without becoming obstinate or uncompromising.
When the two terms Satya and Grah are combined there is a beautiful
duality of meaning, implying both insistence on and for truth. Gandhi’s
theory of satyagraha is an integral part of his theory of truth and non-
violence. Gandhi had an intense sensitivity to racism, an acute sense of
racial self-respect and a strong sense of Indian identity (Parekh, 1989:
143).
For Gandhi, Satyagraha was a well-calculated step towards and a necessary
movement in the direction of national regeneration. It educated the people
and de-mystified the system. It also organized them, built up their political
power and threatened the British system. The foundation of Satyagraha is
based on reason, morality and politics; it relied on the powers of argument,
suffering, love and organized pressure, and appealed to the opponent’s
28
 head, heart and interests. It played an important role not only in political Gandhi and Ambedkar
praxis but also in political theory. It provides a mode of action which not
only recognizes the importance of rational persuasion but also takes full
account of and finds ways of overcoming the processes that block and
distort it. Gandhi’s Satyagraha proposes one possible mode of action. It
patiently probes and exposes society’s moral defenses, asks disturbing
questions and unsettles settled convictions without frightening those
involved. It also cuts across ideological and party lines, builds up
communities of concerned citizens, cultivates and mobilizes new
constituencies, gives hope to those paralyzed into inaction by an externally
engineered feeling of powerlessness and releases a new moral energy
(Parekh,1989:166). Many scholars admitted that Satyagraha, was a
successful substitute to structural violence, perpetrated by the ruling
authority at that time.
Chakrabarty (2006) holds that Satyagraha was not only theoretical in nature
but shows a specific type of action that revolved around local issues in
the general context of colonial exploitation. In this method, local grievances
figured prominently in all the movements Gandhi organized or launched
to strengthen national movements, which will be discussed in the next
section of this chapter. Satyagraha is a form of persuasion, which aims
not only at the conquest of the opponent but at the removal of conflict
through genuine agreement. Based on truth, non-violence and self suffering,
it is a force for structural change Gandhi’s Satyagraha is a solution for all
evils and form of mass mobilization. Lelyveld (2011) points out that
Satyagraha is a means of active struggle to achieve a national goal involving
the powerless or poorest of the poor, in the social participation (pp.46).
On moral grounds, Gandhi rejected violence. According to him non-
violence is a constructive initiative for any socio-political transformation,
international relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power. The
use of violence did not change the opponent’s perception of truth; it
enforced him to behave in a manner contrary to his sincerely held beliefs,
and violated his moral integrity. He further argued that violence rarely
achieved lasting results. An act of violence was deemed to be successful
when it achieved its immediate objectives. He thought we needed a new
method. It should activate the soul, mobilize the individual’s latent moral
energies, appeal to both the head and the heart, and create a climate
conducive to peaceful resolution of conflict conducted in a spirit of mutual
goodwill. Gandhi thought that his method of satyagraha met this
requirement (Parekh, 2001: 68).
ii) Non Violence: For Gandhi, non-violence is the highest moral principle,
and an alternative to the dominant forms of violence in modern society.
Non-Violence was not a new phenomenon but historically it was widely
practiced in ancient India and formed the basis of its social structure. The
principle of non-violence was central in his nationalist mobilization against
the British. Ray (2008) holds that the concept is also situated in an
essentially religious temperament as well as critique of ideas and ideologies
of the Enlightenment. Gandhi refers to non-violence as a “law of life” and
as a means of socio-political action (pp.91). Non-violence and Satyagraha
have a great significance in the life and teachings of Gandhi. They were
two socio-political weapons he used in achieving his various goals. Non-
violence and Satyagraha were not new ideals but they are the eternal
29
Ideas of India principles of life preached for thousands of years. But Gandhi’s great
intellectual imagination reinterpreted and restated these fundamental
principles of human behaviour in new ways and showed their importance,
relevance, applicability and universality. The initiative of Satyagraha
constitutes the heart and soul of Gandhi’s belief in non-violence.

2.5 GANDHI’S : LEGACY OF NATIONALISM AND

SECULARISM
Let us discuss Gandhi's idea on Nationalism and Secularism
i) Nationalism: There is no universal definition of nationalism and it has been
debated by many scholars differently. Brack (2012) holds that nationalism
has two meanings; one is ‘devotion to one’s own nation’ patriotic feeling,
principles or efforts and second is a movement favoring political
independence in a country that is controlled by another or is part of another
country (2012:3). Indian concept of nationalism includes many underlying
forces that moulded the Indian Independence movement, and strongly
continued to influence many ideologies and the politics of India. Indian
concept of nationalism is a modern phenomena and it is not merely based on
religion but inclusiveness and non-violence (Sharma, 2011:7). Gandhi’s
struggle against colonialism and other socio-cultural marginalisation was
an important milestone in the history of Indian nationalism. His approach
for non-violence, Satyagraha and notion of Swaraj were inclusive for all
sections of society. Bose (1953) points out that “Gandhi was opposed to the
division of India into a predominantly Hindu and Muslim territory on the
ground that this was going to be no solution to the communal problem. In
his own way, he plodded on, trying to create, in his little corner of work in
Noakhali and Bihar, a condition of social justice and religious toleration to
form the basis of socio-political unity” (1953:3).
ii) Secularism: The understanding of secularism in India is different from the
west. Gandhi understood secularism in a modern way and he was strongly
against religious based politics. Gandhi wanted India to be the homeland for
every religion. He imagined that kind of nation which guarantees and respects
all religious beliefs, and all socio-cultural aspects of life. According to him,
religion should be separate from politics, economy, education and other areas
of socio-cultural life. He believed that in a multi-religious society and a
secular state all sections of people need to be cherished and respected publicly
as well as privately. The most important idea was that no single religion
should be permitted to dominate the others. Secularism has emerged as a
uniting force of Indian people against colonialism and also meant an
opposition to communalism (Bain, 2009:2). Varma (1959) holds that Gandhi
wanted India to be a truly spiritual nation which valued truth, peace, non-
violence, and fearlessness more than force and power, and charity more
than love of self. Gandhi advocates the spiritual concept of nationalism.
According to Gandhi nationalism grows in the process of historical evolution
and cannot be created by political pronouncements or maxims of expediency.
He was opposed to the ‘Two Nation’ theory. The basic concept in Gandhi’s
ideal of nationhood focussed on abolition of invidious, discrimination
between rich and the poor, and untouchability, while emphasizing gender
equality, peace, mutual co-operation and human unity and respect for every
30 religion (1953.122).
Check Your Progress 1 Gandhi and Ambedkar

1) Describe briefly Gandhian concept of satyergraha.

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2) Explain briefly concept of Non-violence.
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2.6 ROLE OF GANDHI IN NATIONAL

MOVEMENTS
Gandhi became a powerful national leader within four years of his return to
India. His intellectual imagination, management, broad vision, moralistic
language, clarity of ideas, use of culturally suffused symbols, manners, huge
self-confidence, and courage to establish healthy and inclusive leadership for
each and every section of society, added to his charisma (Parekh, 2001:15). Gandhi
launched strong national movements which on the one hand bring structural
change in the socio-political ideology and on the other hand these national
movements become productive against the colonial regime. The important
nationalist movements were Non-Cooperation Movement (1919-21), Civil
Disobedience Movement (1930–2) and Quit India Movement (1942). The Non-
Cooperation Movement (1919-21) was the first one that gained poipularity, with
the blend of the Khilafat agitation of the Muslims against the dismantling of the
Khalif in Turkey (Chakrabarty, 2006: 9).

Gandhi was of the view that a government can perpetuate injustice only when
the people of a country co-operate with it. In the words of Gandhi, “Even the
most despotic government cannot survive except by the consent of the governed
which is often forcibly procured by the despot. But as soon as the subject ceases
to fear the despotic force, the despot’s power is gone”. Non-Cooperation may be
resorted to in the form of hartal, social ostracism or picketing. Though it seems a
mild technique, it can prove to be a strong method when undertaken on a mass
scale. Non-Cooperation was not designed against anyone but was meant
strengthen courage, tenacity and steadfast fearlessness in the Indian People
(Pandey, 2012:336). Parekh (2001) highlights that Gandhi’s non-cooperation
movement made political independence a collective national goal. It also led to
a large body of voluntary institutions, greatly expanded civic space, and reduced
the moral hold of the colonial state. However, it failed in its basic objective of
paralyzing the colonial state by establishing an alternative one behind its back.

Gandhi made significant contributions to making Civil Disobedience a legitimate

method in the socio-political domain. Civil Disobedience means capacity for
31
Ideas of India unlimited suffering used to challenge the opponent. It is not a state of lawlessness
and licence but presupposes a law-abiding spirit combined with self-restraint.
Complete Civil Disobedience is revolt without the element of violence in it.
Civil Disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless
(Fischer, 1951: 140). Gandhi defined Civil Disobedience as the breach of immoral
statutory performance. He regarded it as a complete effective and bloodless
substitute for armed revolt. Gandhi required Civil Disobedience to be civil and
non-violent. According to him “Disobedience” must be based on some desirable
principle. It should be practiced with a great caution (Pandey, 2012:367). Similarly
on August 8, 1942 the Quit India Movement got began when people were
becoming increasingly restive and impatient against British policy and
administrative attitude. Gandhi feared that if this resistance was not given an
organized nonviolent expression, it would break out in sporadic disorder and
violence. Since the British did not seem able at that time to ensure India’s defence
and were not willing to let India defend herself, Gandhi called upon them to
“Quit India”. Gandhi said “our quarrel is not with the British people; we fight
their imperialism. The proposal for the withdrawal of British power did not come
out of anger. It came to enable India to play its due part at the present critical
juncture.” Singh (2008:20).

2.7 GANDHI’S VISION ON MARGINALISATION,

INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION IN INDIA
Indian society and Indian social structural framework have remained historically
non egalitarian because atrocities based on of caste, gender, ethnicity, disability
etc. Marginalisation is a process which emerges and operates in different
dimensions of society. It is founded on the dynamics of social denials and
deprivations, inequality and uncertainty, hierarchy and domination (SinghaRoy,
2014:302). Marginalisation has historical roots in Indian society and the war
against marginalisation has remained an unfinished project of Gandhism. Gandhi
played a constructive role for the inclusion of socio-culturally and socio-politically
deprived people. His major socio-political initiatives became fruitful for structural
change in the lives of the marginalised sections of society. He strongly believed
that real development is possible only when all marginalised sections of society
participate in it, socio-culturally, politically and economically. Gandhi throughout
his entire life struggled very hard for this structural inclusion in terms of Education
for all, women empowerment, health, youth employment, minority participation
and end of caste discrimination.

Gandhi disliked the inherent elitism and the irrelevance of English education
within the Indian context. He formulated a new inclusive education policy in
Independent India, called ‘Nai Talim’ or 'basic education'. According to him,
“By education I mean all-round drawing out of the best in child and man-body,
mind and spirit”. The focus here was on particular ways of acquiring knowledge.
For each village community, as well as the country as a whole, basic education
was needed. Gandhi, believed that the best possibility of education is ‘earn and
learn’ which encourages self-sufficiency and self-reliance among people.
According to Gandhi, this type of vocational education provides fertile space
and productive skills such as spinning, weaving, carpentry, pottery, and animal
husbandry to the students. He emphasized education through the vernaculars
and the cultural aspects of education rather than literacy, and pointed out that if
32
we did not do this, we would have to pay dearly (Dayal, 2006: 259, Andrews, Gandhi and Ambedkar
2006:68). However, his agenda did not succeed, and his attempt to operationalise
this model of education remained a dream.

For Women’s empowerment Gandhi pointed out; “My own opinion is that, just
as fundamentally men and women are one, their problem must be one in essence.
The soul in both is the same. The two live the same life, have the same feelings.
Each is a complement of the other. The one cannot live without the other’s active
help. But somehow or the other man has dominated woman from ages past, and
so woman has developed an inferiority complex. She has believed in the truth of
man’s teaching that she is inferior to him. But the seers among men have
recognised her equal status” (cited in Kripalani, 2007: 155). Gandhi’s voice against
the discrimination of women was consistent and by doing so his idea was to
make the women realize that they were not meant only for household chores, but
also for better and higher causes of society (Bakshi, 1987:6). According to Gandhi
man has used her as his plaything and as the object of his lust. He further highlights
that “To call women the weaker sex is a libel; it’s man’s injustice to women. If by
strength is meant brute strength then, indeed, woman is less brute than man. If
by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior”
(Dayal, 2006:260). Gandhi emphasised that education for women would ensure
their moral development and make them capable of occupying the same public
space.

Caste and untouchability were not major concerns of Gandhi during his stay in
South Africa. When Gandhi came back to India, he was often overwhelmed by
the oppressive and offensive presence of caste and untouchability. Caste system
had been the protector and preserver of Hindu society, but he acknowledged that
in contemporary times the system had become full of evils like ostentation and
hypocrisy, pleasure-seeking and disputes (Jordens, 2012:105). Gandhi involved
himself in a long and often harsh debate with orthodox Hindus on the one hand
and, from the early 1930 onwards, with self-assertive leaders of the Dalits
themselves on the other (Hardiman, 2005:126). Gandhi believed that caste
organisation was basic to the structure of Indian society but he strongly condemned
discrimination, domination, and humiliation on the basis of caste and
untouchability. Gandhi was aware about the social psychology of Hindu caste
system which consists of an exclusionary attitude and brutal physical and
psychological violence (Bilgrami, 2014:110). Gandhi was a very stimulating
thinker, his thoughts and actions were of full of passion for inclusiveness for
every section of society. He emphasized justice, equality, fairness, human dignity
for all human beings nationally and internationally.

Check Your Progress 2

1) Check briefly Gandhi's concept of Naya Talim.

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33
Ideas of India
2.8 POLITICAL CAREER OF B.R AMBEDKAR
B.R Ambedkar was one of those who played a prominent role in the emancipation
of the marginalised people in India. His political activities and his fight for
structural inclusion benefits all in general and marginalised sections in particular
(Rajasekhariah, 1989:4). During his entire life, Ambedkar’s political career went
through various stages. Mishra (2004) highlights that the first stage starts from
1918 to 1928; in this period he established himself as a lawyer, and received the
highest degree in economics. At Mahad he led the satyagraha struggle for securing
for Dalits, human rights of drinking water from public ponds. The second period
started from 1929 to 1936, in this period he started the constitutional fight to
acquire separate electorates for Dalits. He believed that those who were socially
segregated must also have a separate political platform. In the third phase from
1937 to 1946 he organized the Independent Labour Party. He was an opposition
leader in Bombay Legislature and later he becams the labour member in the
Viceroy’s Executive Council in 1942. In the fourth period he worked effectively
as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly of India
and became known as the “Modern Manu”. Later on he became the Law and
Justice Minister in of the first cabinet of Independent India and after that he
worked as Opposition Leader in Parliament (2004:21). In his political career and
involvement in the independence movement, B.R Ambedkar and Mahamta
Gandhi disagreed over the best approach to gaining rights for lower castes. Gandhi
preferred to keep the depressed classes within the Hindu fold, to reform Hinduism
from within, and to avoid special rights for depressed classes. In contrast, B.R
Ambedkar wanted to ensure rights and representation for lower castes (Fenkins,
2006:39).

2.9 B.R AMBEDKAR’S SOCIO-POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY
B.R Ambedkar is one of those figures in the history of modern India about whom
many people know little bit and very few understand much, while Ambedkar,
the scholar remains unexplored (Mukherjee, 2009: 346). He played an important
role in the making of India’s liberal constitution of 1950 as a member of the
Constituent Assembly and the Chairman of the drafting Committee. He founded
a sect of Protestant Buddhism called the ‘Navina’ which means the 'new way' or
'new vehicle'. He was highly educated and studied at Colombia and London
School of Economics. He was a scholar as much as a politician. B.R Ambedkar
wrote several books which address the core issue of society. He provided a
scholarly interpretation of the caste system, wrote on the currency and finance in
British India, Pakistan and the partition of India, Buddhism, Untouchability,
Comparative Constitutionism, minority and Federalism and other subjects like
culture and Politics, Anthropology and History, Law, Jurisprudence, Religion
and Society. His vast interest and the depth of his knowledge were truly strong.
Many times he disagrees with Gandhi on how to address social inequalities and
how to ensure social justice in India throughout the 20th century into the present
movement.

B.R Ambedkar’s main concern in life was to meet the challenge of wrongly
idealized social relations which threatened the whole of human existence and
shook the foundations of a moral and just social order. The unfinished project of
34
his life was to arouse in people the passion for equality and justice. Instead of Gandhi and Ambedkar
speculation he firmly believed in practical wisdom and his socio-political life
was essentially committed to development and evolution under conditions and
events that prevailed in Indian society (Mishra, 2004:7). His knowledge
successfully breaks the chains of traditionalism, religious orthodoxy, historically
rooted dominations and socially constructed superstitions. He never thought of
any socio-cultural realities in a confined or isolated manner but structurally and
collectively. Ambedkar’s intellectual and socio-political struggle has created
productive grounds which uplifts marginalised groups and develops a socially
inclusive platform in the contemporary context. He believed that historical form
of structural discrimination like casteism involved in itself social, economic,
cultural and political framework of governance of Hindu society (Thorat and
Kumar, 2008:3). B.R Ambedkar’s perspective on Federalism was critical as
compared to other thinkers. He considered the comparative method appropriate
for understanding similarities and differences of the federal system in India with
the federal systems elsewhere in the world (Kumar, 2010:310).

B.R Ambedkar’s political philosophy is not entirely based on speculative and

ethical ideas but it is related to real human problems and issues. He believed that
the human being is always changing, always growing. He further says that man
is what his mind makes him. In other words, every man has a mind of his own
and that should be allowed to act and react. It should have opportunities to develop
fully so that each develops his own individuality without any humiliation and
subjection (Rajasekhariah and Jayaraj,199: 361). Timothy (2006) points out that
B.R Ambedkar’s most famous writings, for example Annihilation of Caste (1936),
The Buddha and the Future of His Religion (1950) and The Buddha and His
Dhamma (1957) change the discourse of social realities. Ambedkar tried to
develop a coherent account of the nature of religion and its relation to politics
and power. In Annihilation of Caste, he argues that Hinduism is a religion of
rules, a compendium of ritual regulations which are based on the caste ideology
of hierarchy and untouchability. B.R Ambedkar holds that caste is the central
fact of Hinduism and untouchability is a defining characteristic of caste. According
to him one cannot reform caste because untouchability is an inherent feature
(1957:134). Ambedkar holds that caste as a system of social and economic
governance or organisation (of production and distribution) is essentially based
on certain customary rules and norms, which are unique and distinct (Thorat,
2006:287). His lifetime concern was to fight against socially constructed injustice
by all possible and necessary means and establish an egalitarian society.

2.10 B.R AMBEDKAR’S IDEAS ON

MARGINALISATION AND SOCIAL
INCLUSION
Marginalisation is a man-made and socio-culturally constructed process. It is
legitimated and continuously reproduced through unequal structure of hierarchy
and domination through the organised and institutionalised structure of class,
gender caste and race. Marginality gets legitimized and reproduced through the
strong institutional and normative arrangements of society to sustain the
hegemony of the dominant group, to provide legitimacy to exploitation and
inequality, social segregation, inequality and disempowerment. (SinghaRoy,
2014:59). B.R Ambedkar had a brilliant and insightful mind and diagnostic ability
35
Ideas of India that always gave him great strength to search for inclusiveness for common people.
His prominent political and social ideas addressed socio-cultural problems such
as caste system, the pernicious practice of untouchability, gender discrimination
and the emancipation of the marginalised people and open up new possibilities
(Rajasekhariah and Jayaraj,199:358). He was a dynamic political theorist who
devoted his whole life to the de-construction of different forms of marginalization.
His inclusiveness reinforces public and private upliftment, human dignity, honesty,
equality, and liberty, rights and civic facilities for the marginalised groups in
India.

B.R Ambedkar’s understanding is that marginalisation is a condition that exists

when a person or community is being denied or is cutoff from social relations
and social interactions because of any socio-culturally constructed inferior identity
like caste, creed, colour and gender. Marginalisation is a state of a person or
community’s disappearance in public and private life. In Indian society caste is
the fundamental root of marginalisation and discrimination. In Ambedkar’s
interpretation any form of marginalisation is embedded in institutional structure.
He tried to rebuild Indian society by eliminating discriminative social structures.
He highlights the structural and institutional actions that delimit the lives of the
Dalits. He also gives prominence to their cultural oppression which means how
the dominant meanings of our society stereotype marginal groups (Verma,
1999:2809). Thorat (2006) highlights Ambedkar’s inclusive agenda against
historically and structurally rooted inequalities, and deprivations suffered Indian
society by the Untouchables due to the denial of economic, civil and cultural
rights. He further mentions three safeguards to ensure that the practice of
untouchability and caste discrimination do not continue. These were (i) the
safeguards against present discrimination were to include provisions of equal
rights, (ii) legal safeguards in the form of preventive laws against the violation
of the legal rights, and (iii) proactive measures to ensure that the discriminated
groups had a fair share in and participated in the legislature, executive, public
services, education and other public spheres (in the form of a reservation policy).
These safeguards provide protection against violation of laws against
discrimination in public and private spheres and provide space for participation.
In Ambedkar’s view, equal rights would provide the legal framework, overturning
the unequal customary legal framework of the institution of the caste system and
untouchability. (2006:300).

Ambedkar’s concept of ‘Social Justice’ is a good example for his idea of ‘total
inclusion’ for the marginalised people. According to him social justice stands for
the liberty, equality and fraternity of all human beings. His idea of ‘Social Justice’
was progressive because it encourages rationalist and humanist feelings. He did
not support any type of hypocrisy, injustice and exploitation. He wanted to
establish a system based on right relations between man and man in all dimensions
of his life. He believed in a social system in which man’s status is based on his
merit and achievements and where no one is noble or untouchable because of
his/her birth. Dr B.R. Ambedkar did not believe in violence and he considered
the mass media to be a powerful tool for social changes for justice and freedom.
Ambedkar was strongly concerned about the inclusive development of the
marginalised sections of Indian society (Raghavendra, 2016: 28).

B.R Ambedkar strongly believed that education plays an important role in the
liberation of the individual. He assumed that education is not merely a means for
36 the development of a child’s personality or a source of earning ones livelihood.
Rather, he believed that education is the most dominant agent for structural Gandhi and Ambedkar
changes in society. Ambedkar’s views on women empowerment are a great source
of insights regarding inclusion in every dimension of their life. He saw women
as the victims of oppression, discrimination and mariginalisation in society.
Keeping his contribution in view Amartya Sen said that “Ambedkar is my Father
in Economics. He is a true celebrated champion of the underprivileged. He
deserves more than what he has achieved today. However he was a highly
controversial figure in his home country, though it was not the reality. His
contribution in the field of economics is marvelous and will be remembered
forever”.

Check Your Progress 3

1) Discuss Ambedkar’s socio-political philosophy.
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2) Elaborate the ideas of Ambedkar on marginalisation and social inclusion.
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2.11 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we have discussed the life sketches of Gandhi and Ambedkar and
their ideas and vision on non-violent struggle, social equality, justice and
empowerment for deprived communities. Both Gandhi and Ambedkar strongly
believed in creating an egalitarian society through democratic principles, secular
character, cultural and religious harmony in Indian society. We have also examined
how Mahatma Gandhi imagined India as a nation based on the ideas of equality,
secularism, pluralism, and empowerment of the marginalised sections. Apart from
Ambedkar’s contribution in the making of the Indian Constitution, we have also
elaborated Ambedkar’s intellectual imagination and contribution for the welfare
of society, especially against structural marginalisation of oppressed classes in
general and Dalits in particular.

2.12 REFERENCES
Ambedkar, B.R. (1916) (1936) ‘Caste in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and
Development’, in B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste. Jullandher: Bheema
Patrika Publications.
Baisantry K.D (1991). Ambedkar the total Revolution, Segment, New Delhi.

37
Ideas of India Bain, Matthew (2009). Gandhi and Secularism Gandhi and Status of Women,
Criterion, New Delhi.
Bakshi R. S (1987). https://gandhifoundation.org/2009/05/27/gandhi and-
secularism.
Bose K. N (1953). My days with Gandhi. Calcutta, Nishana
Bilgrami, Akeel (2014). Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment.Permanent Black,
New Delhi.
Chakrabarty Bidyut (2007). Mahatma Gandhi: A Historical Biography, Roli, New
Delhi.
Chakrabarty, Bidyut (2006). Social and Political Thought of M Gandhi. Routledge,
New York.
Dayal, Parmeshwari (2006). Gandhian Theory of Social Reconstruction, New
Delhi, Atlantic.
Fischer, Louis (1951). Mahatma Gandhi-His Life & Times. Vidya Bhavan,http:/
/www.bhavans.info.
Fenkins, D. Laura (2006). B R Ambedkar and the Buddhist Dalits. In Encyclopedia
of India, edited by Stanley Wolpert, New York, Thomson.
Fitzgerald, Timothy (2006). Ambedkar, Buddhism and the Concept of Religion.
In Dalits in modern India: vision and values. Edited by S.M. Michael. (2nd ed.).
New Delhi, Sage. New Delhi, Pan Macmillan.
Gandhi, M. K. (1927). The Story of my Experiment with Truth. Ahmedabad,
Navayivan.
Hardiman, David (2003). Gandhi in his Time and Ours. New Delhi, Permanent.
Jordens F.T. J (2012). Gandhi’s Religion a homespun shawl, Oxford, University
Press.
Kumar Vijay (2007). Gandhi: The man, his life & vision, Regal, New Delhi.
Kumar, Ray (2010). Encyclopedia of B.R Ambedkar, Vol.1, New Delhi,
Commonwealth.
Keer Dhananjay (1981). Dr. Ambedkar Life & Mission. Popular, Bombay.
Kumar, Ravindra (2008). Gandhian Thought New World, New Dimensions. New
Delhi, Kalpaz.
Lelyveld, Joseph (2011). Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with
India. Alfred, New York
Mukherjee, P. Arun (2009). B R Ambedkar, J Dewey & the Meaning of Democracy
New Literary History, 40, (2), pp. (345-370).
Mishra N. S (2004). Facets of Dr. Ambedkar, IIPA, New Delhi.
Mukherji, Gangeya (2016). Gandhi and Tagore Politics, Truth and Conscience.
New York, Routledge.
Misra P.R and K.D. Gangrade (2005). Gandhian Alternative. Vol.1, New Delhi,
38 Concept.
Parekh, Bhikhu (2001). Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, University Gandhi and Ambedkar
Press.
Pandey, Rekha (2012). Encyclopedia of Great Indian Political Thinkers. New
Delhi, Alfa.
Parekh, Bhikhu (1989). Gandhi’s political philosophy: a critical examination.
Macmillan, London.
Ray N.B (2008). Gandhigiri Satyagrahi after Hundred years, Kaveri, New Delhi.
Rajasekharian M.A (1989). B.R. Ambedkar: The Quest for Social Justice, Uppal,
New Delhi.
Rajasekhariah and Hemalata Jayaraj (1991). Political Philosophy of Dr. B. R.
Ambedkar. The Indian Journal of Political Science. Vol. 52, No. 3. pp. 357-375.
Raghavendra, H. R (2016). Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s Ideas on Social Justice in Indian
Society. Sage, 8(1) 24–29.
Rao, Ramakrishna (2014). Satyagraha: Gandhi’s Yoga of Nonviolence. Journal
of Gandhian Studies. Vol.3, No.1, (pp.79-118).
Rao, Narayan, A. Somassekhar and K. Audiseshaiah (2013). B. R. Ambedkar his
Relevance Today. New Delhi, Gyan.
Sharma K.K (2011). Nationalism and Gandhian Mass Movement. Jaipur, Aadi.
Singharoy Debal K (2014). Towards Knowledge Society: New identities in
Emerging India. Cambridge, New Delhi.
Thorat, Sukhadeo (2006). Ambedkar’s Interpretation of the Caste System, its
Economic Consequences and Suggested Remedies. In Dalits in modern India:
vision and values. Edited by S.M. Michael. (2nd ed.). New Delhi, Sage.
Trivedi, Tanuja (2012). B.R Ambedkar More than a Dalit Voice. New Delhi,
Jnanada.
Varma, P. Vishwanath (1959). The political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and
Sarvodaya. Agra, Lakshmi Narain Agarwal.
Verma, Vidhu (1999). Colonialism and Liberation: Ambedkar’s Quest for
Distributive Justice. EPW, 34 (39), pp. 2804-2810.
Zene, Cosimo (2013). The political philosophies of Antonio Gramsci and
Ambedkar: subalterns and Dalits. (eds), New York, Rutledge.

FURTHER READING
Keer Dhananjay. (1981). Dr. Ambedkar Life & Mission. Bombay: Popular
Prakashan,
Mishra N. S (2004). Facets of Dr. Ambedkar. New Delhi: IIPA,.
Parekh, Bhikhu. (2001). Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Thorat, S and N. Kumar (2008). B. R. Ambedkar Perspective on Social Exclusion
and Inclusive Policies. New Delhi, Oxford University Press.
39
Ideas of India
UNIT 3 IDEOLOGICAL IMAGES OF INDIA*

Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Ideological Image
3.3 Ideological Images of India
3.3.1 Pluralism
3.3.2 Nationalism
3.4 Indian Civilization
3.5 Social Change and Modernization in India
3.5.1 Modernization and Continuity of Tradition
3.6 Let Us Sum Up
3.7 References
3.8 Specimen Answers to Check Your Progress

3.0 OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you should be able to:
define the concept of ideology
give a description of ideological image of society
discuss the nature of ideological images of Indian society
outline the concepts of nationalism, pluralism and Indian civilization
discuss the change and modernization in India
identify the major forces responsible for continuity of tradition along with
modernization.

3.1 INTRODUCTION
“Saare jahaan se achha Hindustan hamaraa” (Better than all the world, is our
India) is the very poetic and descriptive image of Indian society, as described by
the great poet Allama Iqbal. Indian society has withstood social heterogeneity
and cultural diversity, social, ethnic, caste, communal and religious pluralism,
multiple streams of the national movement, contrasting styles of party leadership
and clashing ideological perspectives. Giving a descriptive image of India’s
changing social, political, and cultural climate in the post colonial period, and
recounting the state of Muslims in India from the ancient days requires volumes
of historical literature. Hence a holistic portrayal of India's structural and cultural
domain is indeed difficult. This unit attempts to provide a description of
ideological imaging of Indian society. The ideas, thoughts and descriptions relating
to the culture of pluralism and nationalism of its own and a great civilization
having complex structure of great and little traditions are dealt with at length
here. It is also argued that the models of modernization in India co-vary with the

*Contributed by Rabindra Kumar Mohanty

40
choice of ideologies. It is also felt necessary to see how the modern values in Ideological Images of India
India are being assimilated into the traditional norms and develops a composite
norm, which provides the continuity to the process of social change.

3.2 IDEOLOGICAL IMAGE

Within Sociology, ideology is broadly understood as referring to the worldview
a person or a society has regarding the sum total of their culture, values, beliefs,
assumptions, common sense, and expectations. Ideology is a system of concepts
and views which serves to make sense of the world while obscuring the social
interests that are expressed therein, and by its completeness and relative internal
consistency. It tends to form a closed system and maintain itself in the face of
contradictory or inconsistent experience. In fact, ideology gives an identity within
society, within groups, and in relation to other people. Ideological image refers
to a clear depiction or portrayal of society which is unique, and shows how
thoughts, actions, and interactions of people are shaped across cultural space
and time, and what happens to society at large in the holistic journey of transitions
and transformations.

3.3 IDEOLOGICAL IMAGES OF INDIA

A national and, to a great extent, global consensus on India that has been
constructed over the years is that it builds itself in a culture of pluralism and
nationalism of its own and is a great civilization having a complex structure of
great and little traditions. The Post- colonial India leads the story of the success
of the largest democracy in the world with a written constitution. This story of
success is garnished with references to a secular constitution in a country of
many religions, a free press, an independent judiciary and a thriving intellectual
community. Many of these claims are grounded in varying degrees of truthful
capturing of some aspects of India’s economic and political reality. When the
captured images are magnified to a scale that a glorified picture of India emerges
and leads to theorisation and celebration of the idea called Indian Ideology. This
Indian Ideology of celebration of the ‘Idea of India’ is shared, in different hues,
by a vast majority of Indian intellectuals within India and those settled abroad.
Ideology refers to a system of ideas that aspires both to explain the world and to
change it. Indian intellectuals are unsparing in their scrutiny of India’s social
ills: ‘Hunger, misery, illiteracy; inequality of every kind, sexual discrimination,
economic exploitation; corruption, commercialization, fanaticism; the spreading
of slums, the looting of the environment-a detailed scholarship of anger or disgust
covers virtually all. Perry Anderson’s book (2013) “The Indian Ideology” connects
three phases of modern Indian history- the struggle for independence led by
Gandhi, the 1947 partition and the making of the Indian republic under Nehru’s
leadership and Indian nationalism.

India is often referred to as the land of cultural plurality and diversity where two
contrasting worldviews - that of the traditional and continuous and the formal
and official (inherited from the British) thrive. These two views today coexist
uncomfortably, often at cross purposes and clashing with the contemporary official
worldview. Amidst such controversy Indian intellectuals examine the real ground
situations through field experience to explore the more recent new category of
cultural landscape within the context of India’s multiple faiths /beliefs, plural
41
Ideas of India communities and cultural diversities vis a vis international principle of sacred
values and categories.

3.3.1 Pluralism
Pluralism is acknowledging the fact that multiple power groups should exist and
compete in a free and open place of ideas, from which policies and law are
generated to govern the society. It is a form of society in which various social
groups including the minorities maintain their independent cultural traditions
without any restrictions. In simple terms it can also be a situation where people
with disagreeing beliefs live in the same society peacefully without disbanding
their beliefs.

Since time immemorial, India is a home to numerous languages, religions, tribes,

races, castes and sub-castes depicting cultural pluralism. Of them religious
pluralism has a different existential predicament in India. Religious pluralism is
a belief that one can overcome religious differences between different religions
and conflicts within the same religion. For most religious traditions religious
pluralism is based on non-literal view of one’s religious traditions allowing for
respect to be followed between different traditions on core principles rather than
on marginal issues. It is an attitude which rejects focus on immaterial differences
and instead gives respect to those beliefs that are held in common, well within
limits and limitations.

The existence of religious pluralism depends on the existence of freedom of

religion which is when different religions of a particular region possess the same
rights of worship and public expression. Freedom of religion is weakened when
one religion is given rights or privileges which are denied to others. Religious
freedom did not exist in those countries where the state restricted or prevented
the public expression of religious belief and even persecuted the individual
religions. In some Middle Eastern countries, where they adhere to one particular
religion, pluralism is rather restricted if not overtly curbed.

Secularism in western notion is a practise of separating state from religion,

restricting in it from interfering in the religious matters of people. India has its
own version of secularism. Keeping in view the pluralistic society and beliefs of
the people, Gandhi, during independence struggle had come out with his Indian
version of secularism which means equality of all religions. Thus, secularism in
India is a result of its pluralistic diversities and this is driving India since many
years and continues to do so.

Activity 1
Make a list of Tribal, Caste and Religious groups in your neighbourhood
in order to explain the concept of pluralism. Write also a paragraph on
interaction and intercommunication among them.

3.3.2 Nationalism
Nationalism is generally seen as a political principle for establishing sovereign
nation-states. Nanda (2006) argued that nationalism in a multi-national context
is viewed differently at different levels. By analysing several cases of linguistic
and provincial movements in India, he tried to demonstrate that in multi-ethnic
42
countries, such as India, nationalism assumes a political connotation at the macro Ideological Images of India
level and a cultural connotation at the regional level. While the political
connotation symbolises the establishment of a sovereign nation-state at the macro
level, the cultural connotation, by and large, underlines the protection of distinct
cultural nation/nationality in a given provincial political space within the common
sovereign state.

India faces the uphill task of reconciling national integration efforts with
accommodation of multiple ethnic identities within the framework of a single
sovereign polity. The task becomes all the more difficult as free India has adopted
a secular democratic political system. It is well known that India is a veritable
labyrinth of cultural pluralism/diversity. Of numerous languages, religions, tribes,
races, castes and sub-castes of cultural pluralism in India, language, tribe and, to
some extent, religion, happen to be crucial, as they not only serve as important
markers of group identity, but also provide viable bases for nationality formation.
The fact that linguistic and tribal identities in India are linked to a definite territory,
that is, a concept of ‘homeland’ or ‘desh’, reinforces their salience.

Moreover, the term ‘desh’ implies not merely a territory, but also a people,
language, style of life, and pattern of culture; in fact, a nation in the European
sense of the term. Deshpande (1983) observes that the concept of ‘homeland’ is
variously expressed in Indian vocabulary as ‘desh’, ‘nadu’, ‘rastra’, to name
some of these. In addition, several linguistic and tribal groups in India possess
distinct history, culture, myths, symbols and values. All these elements go into
the making of territorially rooted cultural nationalities in India and render her a
multi-national character. Given such a complex socio-cultural reality, any attempt
to disturb the natural linkage between language, culture and homeland would
cause disaffection among the affected people. As a matter of fact, this natural
linkage between territory, language and culture was disturbed for the first time
in India during the colonial period.

The colonial policy of keeping ‘Indian India’ separate from ‘British India’ was
perhaps designed to thwart the development of nationalism at the all-India level.
It did not, however, take long for nationalism to grow at the all-India level. Indian
nationalism assumed a liberal-political content and it evolved from a sense of
pan-Indian geo-political unity and an anticolonial perception shared by people
belonging to diverse cultural nationality backgrounds. In fact, the all-India national
consciousness was mainly articulated by the nationalist elite comprising various
cross sections of the Indian middle class.

Apart from the all-India level, nationalism in India was also seen at the regional-
national level. Unlike the pan-Indian national consciousness, however, the
regional national consciousness emerged as a form of cultural nationalism seeking
to preserve identity and protect ‘homeland’ vis-à-vis other nationalities in the
country. It is in this sense that the regional cultural nationalism differed from the
pan-Indian political nationalism which aimed at India’s independence and the
establishment of the Indian nation-state. Moreover, the regional national
consciousness emanated from a cultural sense of ‘pre-existent nation’ defined in
terms of a distinct culture, shared history, specific language and common territory.
Thus, the origins of cultural nationalism in India date back to the colonial times.
The rise of such cultural nationalism was mainly attributed to the existence of
artificial provincial units in colonial India.
43
Ideas of India Like colonial experience elsewhere, in India too, British colonialism carved out
administrative provinces which did not match the physical distribution of
nationalities and their socio-cultural affiliation. In some cases, several nationalities
were juxtaposed in one provincial unit. For example, the Bengal presidency
contained different nationalities like the Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Maithili,
Bhojpuri and a host of tribal communities. The Madras Presidency included the
Tamils, Telugus, Malayalees and Kannadigas; while the Bombay Presidency
comprised the Marathis, Gujaratis, Kannadigas and Konkanis. In some other
instances, people of a particular nationality (for example, Oriyas, Kannadigas,
etc.) were apportioned to two or more provincial units. Juxtaposition reduced
the smaller nationalities into a minority position; apportionment led to cultural
fragmentation and territorial dismemberment of some nationalities. The
fragmentation of culture and territory created disjuncture among language, culture
and territory. Thus, tension and conflict resulted in both the cases: in the case of
juxtaposition, conflict resulted from domination of one nationality over another;
in the case of apportionment, tension resulted from a fear of loss of ‘homeland’
and, hence, identity.

The mainstream nationalities, whose culture and territory were not fragmented
and who happened to be in majority, emerged as dominant nationality under
favourable colonial conditions. While their culture and language flourished under
colonial patronage, the language and culture of the dominated and peripheral
nationalities faced serious threats. Furthermore, the deprived nationalities
perceived the subordination of their cultural identity to the mainstream as the
root-cause of their socioeconomic and political deprivation.

The very consciousness of protecting and preserving one’s cultural identity within
a culture-congruent provincial unit gave rise to several cultural nationalisms in
colonial India. The rise of national consciousness among the Oriyas, Sindhis,
Assamese, Telugus, and Malayalees, and the assertion of tribal identity by the
Jharkhand tribes are some cases in point. As mentioned earlier, these cultural
nationalisms at the regional level were pursued simultaneously along with the
anti-colonial national movement for liberation of India. Several studies have
discussed this dual character of nationalism in the Indian context. A.R. Desai
(1966: 368), for example, noted that from the standpoint of the united national
movement for India’s independence, the movement of the nationalities for self-
determination assumed decisive significance. Some recent articulations on
national identity in India reiterated this thesis quite unequivocally. For example,
M.N. Karna (2000: 94) observes that both language and region have shaped
regional national identity in India and that pan-Indianness objectively co-exists
with the regional national consciousness.

Check Your Progress 1

1) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark T for true or
F for false against each statement.
a) Freedom of religion is strengthened when one religion is given rights
or privileges and denied to others.
b) India is the largest democracy in the world with a written Constitution.
c) Ideology refers to a system of ideas that aspires both to explain the
world and to change it.
44
 d) Nationalism is generally seen as a blind loyalty towards one's own Ideological Images of India
country’s culture against other nation-states.
2) What are the three phases of Indian History described in the Book entitled
“The Indian Ideology”?
Three phases are
a) ................................................................................................................
b) ................................................................................................................
c) ................................................................................................................

3.4 INDIAN CIVILIZATION

Indian civilization is distinguished from other civilizations of the world in respect
of its continuity and heterogeneity, its accommodating ethos and its composite
character. Hence, Sunil Khilnani (1997) writes:

“The founding idea of India was never simply a commitment to abstract values
or ideas – of pluralism and democracy – but was rooted in a practical
understanding of the compulsions and constraints of Indian politics. Indians, no
more than their counterparts anywhere else, are moderate, principled or even
especially tolerant people: they are deeply self-interested. (1997:xiii).

He further writes that the idea of India is not homogenous and univocal. In fact,
no single idea can possibly hope to capture the many energies, angers, and hopes
of one billion Indians; nor can any narrower ideas – based on a single trait –
fulfil their desires. What has given the modern India, as distinctive identity over
the past half-century, is that it has kept India a democratic, tolerant, and open-
minded state. It allows them to learn to live alongside one another” (ibid:xiv).

Indian civilization is more than 5,000 years old. We have assimilated many
cultures, races, warriors and marauders during this short time span. The Vedas,
the Puranas and the Upanishads were written here. Spiritual knowledge was
imparted by India to the world. India civilization is believed to begin from river
banks, the banks of the Indus river and the Ganges river. India derives its name
from the Indus river.

In order to understand civilization, one has to undertake a study based on

cataloguing (listing of cultural traits); cultural essence (to identify the essential
underlying process); and cultural communication (enduring elements that are
transmitted among the parts of the society).N.K. Bose (1967) and Surajit Sinha (
1972), Bernard S. Cohn (1971) and others use a civilizational perspective in the
understanding of Indian society. They have tried to explore the historicity,
continuity and inter linkage of various structures in India. They analyse the
structural under­pinning of any civilization to get a sharp and historically framed
portrait of religion, caste, village, state formation, land relations and the like.
They believe that a social system, a nation, or a civilization has to be understood
in a historical-civilizational frame.

For Majumdar (1951) “So far as the available evidence goes, there cannot be the
slightest doubt that Indian civilization manifests itself in a way and a form very
different from that with which we are familiar within the rest of the world. We
45
Ideas of India have consequently to approach the history of India in a different spirit, and adopt
a different scale of values in order to appraise her culture and civilization. The
wars and conquests, the rise and fall of empires and nations, and the development
of political ideas and institutions should not be regarded as the principal object
of our study, and must be relegated to a position of secondary importance. On
the other hand, more stress should be laid upon philosophy, religion, art, and
letters, the development of social and moral ideas, and the general progress of
those humanitarian ideals and institutions which form the distinctive feature of
the spiritual life of India and her greatest contribution to the civilization of the
world”.
Rabindra Nath Tagore (1930) writes “Our real ties are with the Bharatavarsha
that lies outside our textbooks. If the history of this tie for a substantially long
period gets lost, our soul loses its anchorage. After all, we are no weeds or
parasitical plants in India. Over many hundreds of years, it is our roots, hundreds
and thousands of them, that have occupied the very heart of Bharatavarsha. But,
unfortunately, we are obliged to learn a brand of history that makes our children
forget this very fact. It appears as if we are nobody in India...”

Check Your Progress 2

i) List out any three prominent criteria that distinguish Indian civilization from
other civilizations of the world.
a) ................................................................................................................
b) ................................................................................................................
c) ................................................................................................................
ii) Name any three aspects that are to be included in a study in order to best
understand the concept of Civilization.
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................

3.5 SOCIAL CHANGE AND MODERNIZATION IN

INDIA
Yogendra Singh (1973) labels social change as ‘ideology’. In his book "Social
Change in India": Crisis and Resilience, Yogendra Singh (1993: 12) discusses
two types of tendencies of social change in modern India: “First, there has taken
place a substantial change in the social structure without simultaneously bringing
about a structural change in the society. It results into tensions and often builds
up social crisis. Secondly, there has taken place a sea-change in the subjective
domain or the consciousness of the people in respect of social change.”
To him Indian civilisation has always been based on the principle of holism,
hierarchy, continuity, and transcendence and its character has been influenced
by orthogenetic changes and changes in its Great Tradition and Little Traditions
46
but the forms of the institutions remained unchanged as the endogenous changes Ideological Images of India
were confined only to ‘Sanskritisation’. The real change came from the contact
of western civilisation in the 17th century, which began with the process of
colonization. The earlier encounter with Islam only reinforced the tradition as
Islam was a traditional religion and a synthesis of Islamic tradition and Hindu
tradition took place. The Islam of the Indian subcontinent also adopted the features
of hierarchy as most of the Muslims were Hindu converts. In political structure
also, the feudal system was common to both the religions. Despite having
differences in ideologies, a syncretic relationship between both the religions was
apparent in the Indian subcontinent. Social change and modernism are two
different things especially while evaluating traditional societies. Social change
can be continuous without having the modern or pre- modern type of evolution.
Hence to study change in Indian social system applying western evolutionary
perspective will be an injustice to the very pattern of Indian society. Indian social
system was undergoing changes without inculcating any modern notion of change
which can be studied from qualitatively distinctive evolutionary differentiation.

Taking elements from different theoretical understandings and practical

experiences, the change in Indian society is sui generis and these changes cannot
be studied from any one perspective due to presence of heterogeneity of culture
and differential effects of modernity on different societies.

According to Yogendra Singh (1973), social change in India can be approached

in terms of the following theoretical perspectives:
1) The causation of social change is to be sought both from within and without
the social system or the tradition. For this we find the concepts employed
by Redfield and Singer as being particularly useful and make a distinction
between the heterogenetic or exogenous and orthogenetic or endogenous
sources of change.
2) A distinction between cultural structure and social structure is also made to
focus upon the need to observe changes at the level of these two relatively
independent substantive domains. Again, following Redfield, cultural
structure has further been sub-divided into the categories of the little tradition
and the great tradition. Similarly, the social structure is divided to form
categories of micro-structure and macro-structure.

3) These distinctions follow from the need to focus upon the contexts, through
which processes of change could be evaluated in matters of spread and depth.

4) Finally, the direction of change is represented in a linear evolutionary form

from ‘traditionalization’ towards ‘modernization’. Traditionalization
comprises the total range of changes governed by orthogenetic patterns in
the cultural and social structures. Modernization similarly represents the
net balance of changes following from heterogenetic contacts.

The causal forces, substantive domain, contexts and direction of change provide
us the logical boundaries within which the more specific processes of social
change in India could be observed and described. These specific processes and
the relevant concepts describing them have been noted in the form of a paradigm
by Y Singh. Singh examines the significance of the specific concepts in the course
of the analysis of change pertaining to the relevant substantive domain.
47
Ideas of India Yogendra Singh sees the process of social change through two perspectives- i)
structural, and ii) evolutionary. Structural changes are seen through the variables
of social mobility, technological modernity and secular institutions, changes in
norms and value systems etc and modernisation is seen through the flow of these
values and their impact decides the nature and extent of the transformation.
However, an evolutionary perspective is based on theoretical assumptions and
these theoretical perspectives can be either structural-functional or dialectical.
Dialectical approach sees the ‘breakdown’ of old institutions as the prerequisite
criteria for the change and change in psycho-neurological factors are not
appreciated in this method. Structural-functional approach treats evolution as a
continuous process from the sub-human to human and beyond this. As Talcott
Parsons writes “Modernisation follows an ‘evolutionary universal”model. He
believes in the homeostasis of social agencies and revolution as the breakdown
of this balance.

Check Your Progress 3

i) What is meant by ‘traditionalization’ and ‘modernization’ in the words of Y
Singh? Give your answer in one sentence for your answer.
a) ................................................................................................................
b) ................................................................................................................
ii) Name the four types of theoretical developments in Indian Sociology as
discussed by Y. Singh?
a) ................................................................................................................
b) ................................................................................................................
c) ................................................................................................................
d) ................................................................................................................
iii) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark a T for true or
F for false against each statement.
a) The concept of modernity cannot be understood in isolation to tradition.
b) Talcott Parsons writes that “Modernisation follows an ‘evolutionary
universal” model.
c) D.P. Mukherjee, A.R. Desai and Ram Krishna Mukherjee emphasized
the significance of a dialectical model in Indian Sociology.
d) Sanskritization characterized a change within the framework of Indian
tradition.

3.5.1 Modernization and Continuity of Tradition

Modernization like social change is not only a composite concept but also an
ideological concept. The models of modernization co-vary with the choice of
ideologies. The composite nature of this concept renders it pervasive in the
vocabulary of social sciences and evokes its kinship with concepts like
‘development’, ‘growth’, ‘evolution’ and ‘progress’. The basic problematic idea
of modernization in the Third World nations is ideological, particularly when we
examine the modernization ideology in India. Louis Dumont finds the relative
48
autonomy between dominant tradition and absolute values. In the pre-colonial Ideological Images of India
era, the micro institutions of India like caste system, family, village, and
community retained the traditional structures. However, modernization brought
homogeneity in elite structures but the ‘trickle down’ effect is not visible because
social base for recruitment of these elites were limited. After reforms, these bases
widened and the elite culture got prominence in urban centres.

The concept of modernity cannot be understood in isolation to tradition. So, it is

necessary to see how modern values are being assimilated into the traditional
norms and develop a composite norm, which provides the continuity to the process
of social change. So, the historicity of modernisation should be seen in Indian
sense as Marriot calls it “Indianisation of modernity”. Modernity and traditions
are found together in one basket where traditional role structures are giving way
to the modern norms and traditional norms are also keeping their own significance.
For instance, in the cultural structure of India, the Islamic impact constitutes an
important heterogenetic source of cultural transformation and synthesis and its
significance can be seen at the levels of both the little and great traditions. This
has been followed by westernization as a major form of exogenous cultural impact
on India, and its ramifications also have relevance for the little and great traditions.

The changes in social structure could also be discussed more fruitfully when a
distinction is made between the macro- structures and micro-structures. The
instances of macro-structures are: bureaucracy, industry, market, leadership,
political parties, etc. These consist of role relationships, which have a pan-Indian
extension of boundaries. In contrast, the micro-structures, such as kinship, family,
caste and sub-caste, tribe, etc., have limited boundaries for extension of role
relationships and their obligations. The integrated approach, as offered by Singh
through a schematic arrangement of concepts of change, has the advantage of
being comprehensive as well as theoretically consistent.

In the book on "Essays on Modernization in India" (1977), Singh has analysed

the varied and complex processes involved in modernization in India, the forces
released by it and their bearing on the stability, creativity and development of
India as a dynamic nation and composite civilization. Offering an integrated
perspective, Singh portrays the challenges and contradictions that India encounters
in the course of its modernization. Can modernization be treated as a universalistic
process or does it have its own historicity? What are the essentially cognitive
and cultural correlates of modernization? Can it be looked upon as a scientific
and operational notion in social science and can its magnitude empirically be
tested on a sub-structure of society? What are the processes involved in political,
cultural, social and educational modernization in India? And, what new faces of
social, political and cultural contradictions are released while these processes
are on? And, how do these forces account for the future stability, sustained
creativity and development of India as a dynamic nation and composite
civilization?

In an important essay on ideology, theory and method in Indian Sociology,

Yogendra Singh (1979), divides a period of a quarter century of Sociology in
India from 1952 to 1977 into four heuristic categories:
i) 1952 to 1960 – a period of adaptive changes and innovations;
ii) 1960 to 1965 – a period of significant shifts in theoretic priorities and
49
Ideas of India beginning of some critical tensions in theory and ideology of Indian
Sociology;
iii) 1965 to 1970 – a period of marked sociological self-awareness and growth
of new directions in theoretical and substantive contributions; and
iv) 1970 to 1977 – a period of new maturity and new horizons of knowledge.

He attributes these four periods to four types of theoretic developments in Indian

Sociology. These theoretic orientations are:
a) Philosophical theoretical orientation
b) Culturological orientation
c) Structural theoretic orientation
d) Dialectical-historical orientation
The philosophical orientation in Indian Sociology is associated with the
contributions of Radhakamal Mukerjee, D.P. Mukerji and A.K. Saran. This
orientation has not made a significant impact on the theoretical nature of Indian
Sociology according to Singh (1983). It is interesting to note that despite the
profoundness of scholarship of these scholars, the impact is minimal. The impact
of western Sociology was becoming more and more enveloping and empirical
bases of societal understanding looked simpler than the rigour of philosophy.

The culturological orientation begins with the work of Srinivas, Religion and
Society among the Coorgs of South India. Brahminization, Sanskritization and
Westernization were major concepts derived from this study. Sanskritization
characterized a change within the framework of Indian tradition.

The structural theoretic orientation focuses on power structure, social

stratification, family structure, demography and similar aspects which reveal
patterns, arrangements and repetitiveness. The empirical aspects are converted
into abstracted concepts, models and categories. The structural studies have also
taken up a comparative framework.

The dialectical-historical orientation is primarily based on Marxist approach and

method for the analysis of social reality. The dialectical method has not been
termed as Marxist as adaptations have been made keeping in view the Indian
social reality. It is, however, a less developed branch of Indian Sociology. D.P.
Mukherjee and Ram Krishna Mukherjee emphasized the significance of the
dialectical model. A.R. Desai has consistently used dialectical-historical approach
with ideological fervour and commitment. He has consistently exposed
contradictions in policies and programmes of change. The dialectical-historical
theoretic orientation grew rapidly in the seventies, when micro-empirical realities
were subjected to class observation along with macro-structural social and
economic processes in India (Singh, 1983).

Singh’s typology of four major theoretic orientations is significant and logically

coherent. According to Singh (1993), these theoretical orientations basically have
implicit or explicit ideological connotation. The implications can be discerned at
the level of analysis, which as a critique rejects the way social reality is managed
or justifies the formation of social reality as it has come to be, manipulated and

50
constructed. At an other level, they imply need for alternatives, modifications Ideological Images of India
and corrections. Knowledge-neutrality is a contradiction in terms. Evaluation
and analysis of social reality reveals systematic formulation of scattered, diverse
and immediate impressions, which are mediated through the common man’s
impressionistic perceptions and views. At the third level, dominance of theoretical
orientations generated institutionally tends to lead to negation and blinding of
our own intellectual traditions.

3.6 LET US SUM UP

This unit has traversed through the very descriptive imaging of Indian society.
First of all, the concepts like ‘Ideology’, ‘Ideological Imaging’ and ‘Ideological
Imaging of Indian society’ were clarified. Ideological underpinnings behind the
basic features of Indian ideology such as pluralism and Nationalism were
discussed. India’s pluralism is best understood in terms of its Unity in Diversity.
Pan-Indianness objectively co-exists with the regional national consciousness.
The next section suggests that Indian civilization is distinguished from other
civilizations of the world in respect of its continuity and heterogeneity, its
accommodating ethos and its composite character. The final section looks at the
ideological components of social change, modernization and continuity of
tradition in India. It says that tradition and modernity in India are not obstacles
to each other but rather go together. The causal forces, substantive domain,
contexts and direction of change provide us the logical boundaries within which
the more specific processes of social change in India could be observed and
described.

3.7 REFERENCES
Majumdar R. C 1951 The History and Culture of the Indian People (Bombay:
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,), vol. 1, p. 42.

Nanda Subrat K 2006 Cultural Nationalism in a Multi-National Context: The

Case of India, Sociological Bulletin, 55 (1), January-April, Pp. 24-44

Singh Yogendra 1973 Modernization of Indian tradition: a systemic study of

social change, Thomson Press (India), Publication Division.

Singh Yogendra 1978 Essays on modernization in India, Manohar,.

Singh Yogendra 1993 Social Change in India: Crisis and Resilience, Har-Anand
Publications.

Tagore Rabindranath, The History of Bharatavarsha, available online at

www.ifih.org.

3.8 SPECIMEN ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR

PROGRESS
Check Your Progress 1
i) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark T for true or
F for false against each statement.
51
Ideas of India a) F.
b) T.
c) T
d) F.
ii) What are three phases of Indian History described in the Book entitled “The
Indian Ideology”?
Three phases are
a) the struggle for independence led by Gandhi,
b) the 1947 partition and the making of the Indian republic under Nehru’s
leadership
c) the Indian nationalism.
Check Your Progress 2
i) List out any three prominent criteria that distinguish Indian civilization from
other civilizations of the world.
a) its continuity and heterogeneity,
b) its accommodating ethos
c) composite character
ii) Name any three aspects that are to be included in a study in order to best
understand the concept of Civilization.
a) cataloguing (listing of cultural traits);
b) cultural essence (to identify the essential underlying process); and
c) cultural communication (enduring elements that are transmitted among
the parts of the society).
Check Your Progress 3
i) What is meant by ‘traditionalization’ and ‘modernization’ in the words of Y
Singh? Use one sentence for your answer.
a) Traditionalization comprises the total range of changes governed by
orthogenetic patterns in the cultural and social structures.
b) Modernization similarly represents the net balance of changes following
from heterogenetic contacts.
ii) Name the four types of theoretic developments in Indian sociology as
discussed by Y Singh?
a) Philosophical theoretical orientation
b) Culturological orientation
c) Structural theoretic orientation
d) Dialectical-historical orientation
iii) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark a T for true or
F for false against each statement.
52
 a) T. Ideological Images of India

b) T.
c) T
d) T

FURTHER READING
Majumdar R. C 1951 The History and Culture of the Indian People (Bombay:
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,), vol. 1, p. 42.

Nanda Subrat K 2006 Cultural Nationalism in a Multi-National Context: The

Case of India, Sociological Bulletin, 55 (1), January-April, Pp. 24-44

Singh Yogendra 1973 Modernization of Indian tradition: a systemic study of

social change, Thomson Press (India), Publication Division.

GLOSSARY
Caste: An ascriptive grouping which is community based.

Great Tradition: Cultural trait or tradition, which is written and widely accepted
by the elite of the society who are educated and learned.

Little Tradition: Cultural trait or tradition, which is oral and operates at the
village level.

Sanskritisation: M.N. Srinivas used this concept for the first time to refer to a
process of social change whereby a low Hindu caste or tribe adopts the customs
ritual, ideology and life style of the higher caste with a view to improve its own
caste status.

53
Ideas of India
UNIT 4 ETHNOGRAPHIC IMAGES OF
INDIA*

Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Ethnographic Image
4.3 Ethnographic Image of India
4.4 Unity in Diversity
4.5 Village
4.6 Caste
4.7 Tribes
4.8 Religion
4.9 Little and Great Traditions
4.10 Let us Sum up
4.11 References
4.12 Specimen Answers to Check your Progress

4.0 OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you should be able to:-
define the idea of image and the concept of ethnographic image
discuss the nature of ethnographic image of Indian society
give a description of the parameters of ethnographic image of Indian society
outline the portrayal of unity in diversity, village India, caste, tribes and
religion
identify the features of ‘Little and Great Traditions’ in India.

4.1 INTRODUCTION
The idea of image here does not necessarily relate to something visual, a
photograph, a film captured by a camera, telescope, microscope, or other device,
or displayed on a computer or video screen or a geometric sketch or a map.
Another form of data collection is that of the “image.” The image is the
protuberance that an individual puts onto an item or mental construct. An image
can be constructed about the physical world through a particular individual’s
perspective, primarily based on that individual’s past or observed experiences.
As for example an individual may form an image of a novel after completing
reading it. Similarly, one can be in a position to tell you from the field the
difference between the ways the birth of a girl child is viewed in a family in
Mizoram (welcome) and that in Madhya Pradesh (a burden). The idea of the
image is a primary tool for ethnographers to collect data which presents a holistic
cultural portrait of the field and subjects that incorporates the views of the

54 *Contributed by Rabindra Kumar Mohanty

participants (emic) as well as the views of the researcher (etic). It might also Ethnographic Images of India
consolidate the needs of the group and advance need-based actionable changes
in the society studied.

After delineating the idea of image as a mental construct or a descriptive category,

the first unit, this unit deals with the concept of ethnographic image as such and
ethnographic image of Indian society. While listing out the parameters of
ethnographic image of Indian society, the next section relates to the basic portrayal
of India’s unity in diversity, village India, caste, tribes and religion. The last
section of this unit discussed the features of little and great traditions in India
society.

4.2 ETHNOGRAPHIC IMAGE

'Ethnographic image' the refers to a methodological framework which is a detailed
portrayal of the features of population, culture, communities, their ethnogenesis
and habitat. Ethnography is the process of documenting the culture of a group
from the subject’s own perspectives. Ethnography, as the presentation of empirical
data on human societies and cultures, is interdisciplinary in character absorbing
within its fold the social, and cultural branches of Anthropology, Culture Studies,
Sociology, Communication Studies, Social Work, Education, Folkloristics,
Religious Studies, Geography, Criminology, History and Museology.

Ethnographic image is a symbolic expression or authentic impression that a

person, a community or culture, organization, or product presents to the public
about its glorious characteristics. The idea of an image relies on the imagination
which is used and utilized to reflect on the patterns of the groups ideas and
beliefs expressed through language or other activities, and how they behave in
their groups as expressed through their actions that the researcher observed. The
image presents the perspective, experiences, and influences of an individual as a
single entity and in consequence the individual may represent this image in the
group under study. Data analysis involves interpretation of the functions and
meanings of human actions. There are two popular forms of ethnography such as
realist ethnography and critical ethnography, which have been brought into
academic discourse in an attempt to reform the contemporary understanding of
society, culture, history, traditions and ethnic diversities.

Ethnographic research can range from a realist perspective, in which behavior is

observed, to a constructivist perspective where understanding is socially
constructed by the researcher and subjects. Research can range from an objectivist
account of fixed, observable behaviors to an interpretivist narrative describing
“the interplay of individual agency and social structure” (Schatz,2009:117).
Critical theory researchers address “issues of power within the researcher-
researched relationships and the links between knowledge and power.”

4.3 ETHNOGRAPHIC IMAGE OF INDIA

The early account of ethnographic image of India is found in ‘The People of
India’ project instituted by British India to study the society, culture, caste, tribe
and Indian folklore. Two able British East India Company officers trained in
Anthropology, John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye compiled an eight-
volume study entitled The People of India between 1868 and 1875, containing
55
Ideas of India 468 annotated photographs of the native castes and tribes of India. The origin of
the project is traced to the desire of Lord Canning, the then Governor-General of
India, who conceived of the collection of images for the private edification of
himself and his wife (Metcalfe,1997:117).

The very purpose of this project was to develop a fuller understanding of the
customs and beliefs of the people whom they were to administer with strategic
control. Hence it was a visual documentation of “typical” physical attributes,
dress and other aspects of native life with brief notes regarding what were thought
to be the “essential characteristics” of each community.

In 1908 Herbert Risley, the Census Commissioner for the 1901 Census of India,
furthered the same project and came out with another volume ‘The People of
India’ containing 25 illustrations on Races, Caste and Tribes in India.

Many member of the Indian intelligentsia were unimpressed with the general
undertone and the outcome that their people had been depicted both unfairly and
dispassionately. The last such type of work by British ethnographers cum
administrators, was J. H. Hutton’s Caste in India, published in 1944.

The contributions of different national traditions either American, Indian, French,

or British anthropologists along with the internal diversity of national traditions
have led to multidirectional influences on ethnographic image of India. Both
western and Indian ethnographic image of India had following areas of emphasis
in common:
a) Unity in Diversity
b) Village India
c) Caste
d) Tribes
e) Religion
f) Little and Great Traditions

4.4 UNITY IN DIVERSITY

India’s unity in diversity has been variously portrayed. Kashmir to Kanyakumari,
India is one. Indian society exemplifies the best case of unity in diversity.

India is a vibrant amalgamation of varied cultural practices, races, ethnic groups,

climate, religions, regions and traditions. Ancient Indian culture stood for an
infinite variety of symbols and rituals. The fine arts were valued in ancient India.
It is said that India is the cradle of the human race, the birth place of human
speech, the mother of history and the great grandmother of tradition. Indian culture
believes in the principle of humanity, tolerance, unity, universal brotherhood,
secularism and close-knit social system. Indians have maintained their modesty
and simplicity despite the aggressiveness of the Muslim conquerors and the
reforming zeal of the British, the Portuguese and the Dutch. The Indians are
distinguished for their humanness and serene nature without any severity in their
principles and ideals.In spite of several diversities based on caste, regions, race,
languages, religious and colour diversities, Indian society has maintained its
unity.
56
 Ethnographic Images of India
4.5 VILLAGE INDIA
A book entitled Village India by McKim Marriott —like its twin India’s Villages
by Srinivas (both published in 1955)—presented the first results of their
ethnographic endeavour. Marriott’s study situated Indian “civilization” from a
grass-roots empirical perspective. Srinivas’s contribution in Village India is a
classic example of an account of “social structure.” He perceives Rampura, the
pseudonym for his village of study, as “a well-defined structural entity”. He
investigated how local castes are, on the one hand, separated by rules of
commensality and, on the other hand, interdependent through occupational
specialization and patron-client relationships. The dominant caste fulfils, in his
view, a unifying function for the village as a whole.
Ethnographic imaging of village India exhibits contested dimensions as well.
Kathleen Gough did not see “India's” village as a “well-defined structural entity.”
She observed the severe social consequences of drastic economic changes:
decreasing coherence at the village level and increasing rivalry between castes,
especially the contestation of Brahmanical dominance in Kumbapettai, a village
in the Tanjore District of Tamil Nadu. Similarly, André Béteille, Gerald D.
Berreman, Joan Mencher, and Frederick G. Bailey, were being mainly concerned
with questions of power and dominance in Village India.
Mandelbaum (1972) writes, “A village is not a neatly separable social and
conceptual package but it is nonetheless fundamental social unit.”The French
sociologist Louis Dumont refers to three meanings of the term ‘village community’
as a political society, as a body of co-owners of the soil and as the emblem of
traditional economy and polity, a watchword of Indian patriotism. Thus, according
to this view the village community in India has been a part of India’s polity and
economy. A village is far more than a locale, more than just a collection of houses,
lanes and fields.

Activity 1
Prepare a Social Map of your village or locality you belong to, indicating
the infrastructure facility and the basic services available in the area. Give
also a brief ethnographic account regarding the type change the locality
has experienced during last 10 years. Share the same among your
classmates.

In the early nineteenth century, British administrators described Indian villages

as ‘little republics’. They opined that Indian villages have a simple form of
government and are economically self-sufficient units. Villages of India have to
give a share of produce to the king and need to send their young men to serve in
the wars. Other than these two restrictions, Indian villages have no interference
on the higher levels of political authority and they are unconcerned about who
are ruling them, according to British administrators. The standard quotation, often
reprinted, on the Indian village as a monolithic, atomistic, unchanging entity is
from a report by Sir Charles Metcalfe, one of the founding administrators of
British rule in India. The passage begins, “The village communities are little
republics, having nearly everything they want within themselves and almost
independent of any foreign relations.” It goes on to say that wars pass over it,
regimes come and go, but the village as a society always emerges unchanged,
unshaken, and self-sufficient. 57
Ideas of India Check Your Progress 1
i) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark T for true or
F for false against each statement.
a) The image is the protuberance that an individual puts onto an item or
mental construct.
b) The views of the researcher on ethnographic data are called emic views.
c) Both western and Indian ethnographic image of India had Unity in
Diversity as an area of emphasis in common.
d) 1955 is a landmark in the history of village studies in India.
ii) What are the three meanings that Louis Dumont associates with the term
village community?
Three meanings are
a) ................................................................................................................
b) ................................................................................................................
c) ................................................................................................................

4.6 CASTE
Indian society comprises the different social systems and sub-systems such as
family, jati, and village, and the different role actors have in these systems, the
latter being understood in behavioural terms, as interactions between different
individuals and groups. Several ethnographers concentrated on caste because
they believed that understanding caste was to understand people and hence to
understand India. Caste, locally called ‘jati’ is the backbone of the Indian social
system. Caste ranking is perceived as an extreme form of “stratification,” and
“pervasive inequality” is indicated as a key feature of the caste system as has
been viewed by David G Mandelbaum. For Louis Dumont, by contrast, caste is
not an observable reality in the first place but a “state of mind”. This means that
caste cannot be explained merely as a particular form of social structure or a
particular type of social behaviour but primarily in terms of ideas and values.
There are thousands of such jatis, and each has its distinctive rules, customs, and
modes of government. The term Varna (literally meaning “color”) refers to the
ancient and somewhat ideal fourfold division of Hindu society: (1) the Brahmans,
the priestly and learned class; (2) the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers; (3) the
Vaisyas, the farmers and merchants; and (4) the Sudras, the peasants and laborers.
Below the category of Sudras were the untouchables, or Panchamas (literally
“fifth division”), who performed the most menial tasks.
Marriott (1955) sees intercaste transactions in Kishan Garhi village “as a kind of
tournament among 24 teams [castes] which make up this village society”. The
actors’ goal in this tournament is to gain “dominance over others through feeding
them or securing dependence on others by being fed by them”.

M N. Srinivas (1955) has also debated the question of rigidity in caste. In an

ethnographic study of the Coorgs of South India, he observed considerable
flexibility and mobility in their caste hierarchies. He asserts that the caste system
58 is far from a rigid system in which the position of each component caste is fixed
for all time; instead, movement has always been possible, especially in the middle Ethnographic Images of India
regions of the hierarchy. It was always possible for groups born into a lower
caste to “rise to a higher position by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism” i.e.
adopt the customs of the higher castes. The concept of Sanskritisation or the
adoption of upper-caste norms by the lower castes, addressed the complexity
and fluidity of caste relations.

Max Muller, (1860) a German Indologist, writes,” the whole caste system, as it
has come down to us, bears unmistakable evidence of Brahminical origin”. Muller
reveals that the Brahmans have been the strongest advocates of the caste system.
They have created the vast divisions in Hindu society. They cruelly punished
those who questioned the caste system and their supremacy. The principle of
exclusion and inclusion or seclusion or rejection based on birth and endogamy
resulted in diversification of caste groups, occupational roles and rituals.

S.V. Ketkar (1979) believes hereditary membership and endogamy as the basis
of caste as an organic structure of relations. Here the organic nature of caste
refers to harmony of relations between different caste groups. Emile Senart writes:
A caste system is one whereby a society is divided into a number of self-contained
and completed segregated units (castes), the mutual relations between them are
ritually determined in a graded scale.

K.L.Sharma (1980) views that caste has never been a static system. The prevalence
of thousands of castes and sub-castes and many more clans and sub- clans within
these castes is a proof of diversification, differentiation and change in the caste
system. Inter caste and mixed marriages, migration, change in occupations, the
Buddhist movement, the impact of Islam, the impact of British and several other
factors have made caste not only an adaptive but also a living symbol of social
relations.

4.7 TRIBES
India can proudly be called the largest “tribal” population in the world. Most of
the tribal people of India live in hilly or forested remote and isolated landscape
where population is very thin and communication difficult. They are found from
high valleys near the spine of Himalayas to southernmost India. The main tribal
territories are in the broad central belt of hilly country from West Bengal, Orissa,
and Bihar on the east, through central India, to the upland parts of Rajasthan,
Gujarat, and Maharashtra on the west. Although there are great social and cultural
differences among the tribal people dispersed across India, the main occupations
of the tribes are (1) shifting cultivation; (2) forestry and food gathering by hunting;
(3) settled agriculture; (4) agricultural labour; animal husbandry; and (6)
household industry

D.G.Mandelbaum (1972) points out the following characteristics of Indian tribes:

(1)kinship as an instrument of social bonds;(2) lack of hierarchy(rigid status
distinction) among men and groups(clans and lineage);(3) absence of strong and
formal organizations;(4) communitarian basis of land holding;(5) segmentary
character;(6) little value on surplus accumulation, on the use of capital and on
market trading;(7) lack of distinction between form and substance of religion;
and (8) a distinct psychological make-up for enjoying life.

The tribal people are bound by a sense of strong identity. Language, kinship, 59
Ideas of India magical rites and practices, pattern of habitation, food habits, and styles of life
are the special features of tribal life. Kinship in tribal community governs the
major social, economic and political life of their people. In tribal life the principal
links for the whole society are based on kinship. Individual equality as kinsmen
is assumed, dependency and sub-ordination among men are minimized. Agnatic
bonds form the fundamental web, affinal ties are of lesser significance. Tribal
societies are small in size. They possess a morality, religion, and world view of
their own, corresponding to their social relations.

B.K.Roy Burman (1972) divides tribal communities into five territorial groupings,
taking into account their historical, ethnic and socio-cultural relations. These
are as follows (1) North-East India, comprising Assam, Arunachal Pradesh,
Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura;(2)the sub- Himalayan region of north and north-
west India, comprising hill districts of Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh;(3)
Central and East India, comprising West Bengal, Bihar(now Jharkhand),Orissa,
Madhya Pradesh(now Chhattisgarh) and Andhra Pradesh;(4) South India
comprising Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka; and (5) Western India, comprising
Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The Scheduled Tribes (article 342 of Constitution of India) in India, also referred
to as adivasis (original inhabitants), are spread across the central, northeast, and
southern regions of India. These various tribes resided in India long before the
Aryans had arrived roughly in 1500 B.C. The tribals were however socially and
geographically isolated, following the entry of the Aryans and then consequently
the Muslims and the British. More than six hundred and fifty tribes that make up
the Scheduled Tribes speak a multitude of languages. They are also religiously
diverse, with some following animism, while others have adopted Hinduism,
Islam, or Christianity. The social traditions of most tribals make them stand out
from the country‘s mainstream Hindu population.

Along with being geographically and socially isolated, the tribal groups have
historically been politically under-represented. Their regions of residence also
have been economically underdeveloped. Scheduled tribe status under the Indian
Constitution has designated reserved seats for tribals in political forums, such as
the parliament, along with job reservations in the civil service and educational
institutions. Some of the noted scheduled tribes in India comprise: Andamanese,
Bodo, Bhils, Chakma, Dhodia Tribes of Gujarat, Gonds, Khasis, aboriginal people
of Lakshadweep, Kurichiya, Kurumbar, Tripuris, Mizos, Mundaris, Nagas,
Nicobarese, Oraon, Santals, Todas, Maldharis of Gujarat, Cholanaikkan, Warli,
Kisan Tribe, Dongria Kondh, Bonda, Kutia Kondh, and Bishapus .

Check Your Progress 2

i) How do Mandelbaum and Dumont differ with regard to their views on caste
in India?
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
60
ii) Name any three any three main occupations of tribes in India. Ethnographic Images of India

a) ................................................................................................................
b) ................................................................................................................
c) ................................................................................................................

4.8 RELIGION
Religious diversity has been a defining characteristic of India’s population for
centuries. The country has no official state religion, but religion plays a central
role in Indian daily life. Thus, India’s unity in diversity is also visible in the
sphere of religion. The major religions of India are Hinduism (majority religion),
Islam (largest minority religion), Sikhism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism,
Zoroastrianism, Judaism and the Bahá’í Faith. India is a land where people of
different religions and cultures live in harmony. This harmony is seen in the
celebration of festivals. The message of love and brotherhood is expressed by all
the religions and cultures of India.

Whether it’s the gathering of the faithful, bowing in prayer in the courtyard of a
mosque, or the gathering of lamps that light up houses at Diwali, the good cheer
of Christmas or the brotherhood of Baisakhi, the religions of India are celebrations
of shared emotions that bring people together. People from the different religions
and cultures of India, unite in a common chord of brotherhood and amity in this
fascinating and diverse land.

At the ethnographic level, some scholars try to see interconnections between

religion and power. Religious status as expressed in the opposition of pure/impure
is for Dumont the key value of Indian society, and it is represented by the Brahman
priest in the Varna model. Within the ideology, this value does not merely stand
in opposition to its antithesis—power, represented by the kshatriya varna or the
king—rather it encompasses the latter. Religion, the pure, and the Brahman thus
represent society as a whole. While, according to Dumont, on the ideological
level the religious is thus always superior to power, on the empirical level the
reverse may be the case: the king being—in terms of power— superior to the
materially dependent Brahman priest. The superior encompassing value of purity
and the clear distinction between religious status (Brahman) and power (the king)
are the main conclusions Dumont draws from his analysis of the varna model.

Ranjit Guha (1987) emphasizes the role of religion for understanding subaltern
agency. For Guha, “religiosity was, by all accounts, central to the Santal rebellion
of 1855. The notion of power which inspired it, was made up of such ideas and
expressed in such words and acts as were explicitly religious in character. It was
not that power was a content wrapped up in a form external to it called religion.
It is not possible to speak of insurgency in this case except as a religious
consciousness”.

Religion is taken seriously in Indian society to form communities or social groups.

Followers of India’s religions have created “communities,” or groups who largely
coexist peacefully but live and worship in separate social circles. Accordingly,
when violence does break out between groups, it is referred to as “communal”
violence. The concept of communalism is discussed in a later unit.

61
Ideas of India
4.9 LITTLE AND GREAT TRADITIONS
Milton Singer and Robert Redfield (1955) developed the twin concept of Little
Tradition and Great Tradition while studying the orthogenesis of Indian
civilization in Madras city, now known as Chennai. Tradition means handing
down of information, beliefs and customs by word of mouth be way of examples
from one generation to another. In other words, tradition is the inherited practices
or opinion and conventions associated with a social group for a particular period.
This also includes the attitudes of the people, durable interactional patterns and
socio-cultural institutions. Great tradition is associated with the elites, literate
and reflective few who are capable of analysing, interpreting and reflecting
cultural knowledge. Great tradition is a body of knowledge which functions as
the beacon light of knowledge. In contradiction to this little tradition comprises
the belief pattern, the institutions, knowledge including proverbs, riddles,
anecdotes, folk tales, legends, myths and the whole body of folk-lore of the folk
and /or the unlettered peasants who imbibe cultural knowledge from the great
tradition. The unity of Indian civilization is reflected in the perpetuation of the
unity of worldview of both the folk /peasant and the elites or the literati through
cultural performance and their cultural products. Cultural performance is
institutionalized around the structure of both great traditions and little traditions.

There are several centres of the great tradition in India and there is a network of
socio-cultural relationship. This relationship is based on cultural knowledge and
ideology. There is a difference in cultural performances of great tradition and
little traditions. The domain of great tradition represents the textual or the
Shastriya nuances, whereas the universes of little traditions are folk/peasant and
local versions of textual knowledge and cultural performance. Great tradition
stands for persisting important arrangements of various roles and statuses
appearing in such corporate bodies, like caste, sects, teachers, reciters, ritual
leaders, priests, cultural performers, religious preachers etc. all of whom are
engaged in inculcation and regular dissemination of cultural knowledge. The
body of knowledge which they include is from various religious texts, such as
mythology and epics.

The little tradition of its own role incumbents: folk artists, folk musicians, story-
tellers, tellers of riddles, street singers, mendicant performers, interpreters of
proverbs and puzzles, street dancers, astrologers, fortune-tellers and medicine
men. In a village, the primary school teacher is a key person as regards little
tradition knowledge. He himself performs multiple cultural roles and with the
help of village leaders organises various folk performances, mythological plays,
dramas, recitation of sacred language, saying of prayers accompanied by folk
music which serve two purposes: (1) singing of devotional songs and (2) providing
entertainment. The former activity is a sacred duty and the latter act is a secular
one, meant for relieving stress and strain to which the peasants are sometimes
subjected to.

The two traditions are not distinguishable in very isolated tribes. Among the
Andaman Islanders we find nothing at all about any esoteric aspect of religion or
thought. An older person may be likely to know what there is to be known as any
other. There are differences between laymen and specialists in the understanding
of the religion. In a primitive tribe this sort of dichotomy is similar to the difference
between the great tradition and little tradition in respect of civilisation and peasant
62
society, respectively. The folk or tribal society constitutes a proto-dimension of Ethnographic Images of India
peasant society.

Marriott stressed that in the North Indian context, the great Sanskritic tradition
could be viewed as an ‘indigenous civilization’; a body of cultural forms
elaborated in an orthogenetic fashion from a regional pool of ideas. Great tradition
Hinduism thus constituted a primary civilization by contrast with other great
traditions such as Spanish Catholicism in Latin America which were foreign
impositions rather than the orthogenetic outgrowth of indigenous culture. Such
heterogenetic great traditions did nonetheless amalgamate, or syncretize, with
indigenous traditions to form ‘secondary civilizations’.

Check Your Progress 3

i) What is meant by ‘little tradition’ and ‘great tradition’? Use one sentence
for your answer.
a) Great tradition is associated with ..........................................................
................................................................................................................
b) Little tradition comprises .......................................................................
................................................................................................................
ii) How is the unity of Indian civilization best reflected?
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
iii) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark a T for true or
F for false against each statement.
a) The folk or tribal society constitutes a proto-dimension of peasant
society.
b) The primary school teacher organising mythological plays is his
performing sacred duty not secular one.
c) Among the Andaman Islanders we find nothing at all about any esoteric
aspect of religion or thought.
d) India has no official state religion.

4.10 LET US SUM UP

First of all, in this unit, the idea of image was defined as a mental construct or a
descriptive category followed by clarification of concepts like ethnographic image
and most specifically the ethnographic image of Indian society. The parameters
of ethnographic image of Indian society such as India’s Unity in Diversity, Village
India, Caste, Tribes and Religion were discussed next. Before summing up, the
penultimate section identified the features of Little and Great Traditions in India.
63
Ideas of India
4.11 REFERENCES
Bailey, F G.1960. Tribe, Caste and Nation. Manchester, Manchester University
Press.
Bailey, F. G. 1969 “Structure and change in Indian society: A review article.”
Pacific Affairs 42 (4): 494–502
Cohn, Bernard S. 1955. “The changing status of a depressed caste.” In Village
India: Studies in the little community, edited by McKim Marriott, 53–77. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press.
Dirks, Nicholas B. 2001. Castes of mind: Colonialism and the making of modern
India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dirks, Nicholas B. 1990. “The original caste: Power, history, and hierarchy in
South Asia.” In India through Hindu categories, edited by McKim Marriott,59–
77. New Delhi: Sage.
Dumont, Louis, and David F. Pocock. 1957. “Village studies.” Contributions to
Indian Sociology 1: 23–41.
Dumont, Louis. 1980. Homo hierarchicus: The caste system and its implications.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Dumont, Louis.1970. Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implication.
London: Paladin.
Gandhi MK 1929 (1957) The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Beacon Press,
Guha, Ranajit. 1987. “Introduction.” In An anthropologist among the historians
and other essays, by Bernard S. Cohn, vii–xxvi. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
Hutton J. H. 1946Caste in India, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Madan, T. N. 1994. Pathways: Approaches to the study of society in India.
NewDelhi: Oxford University Press.
Madan, T.N. (ed). 1992. Religion in India. New Delhi: OUP.
Mandelbaum, David G. 1970. Society in India. Berkeley: The University of
California Press.
Metcalf, Thomas R. (1997). Ideologies of the Raj. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Risley, Herbert Hope (1908). The People of India (1st ed.). Calcutta: Thacker,
Spink & Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co.
Risley, Herbert Hope (1915). Crooke, William, ed. The People of India (2nd
ed.). Calcutta & Simla: Thacker, Spink & Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co.
Schatz, Edward, ed. Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the
Study of Power. University of Chicago Press. 2009.
Sharma, K.L 1980. Essays on Social Stratification. New Delhi: Rawat.
Srinivas MN 2000 Social Change in Modern India, Orient Longman, New Delhi.
64
Srinivas, M. N. 1955b. “The social system of a Mysore village.” In Village Ethnographic Images of India
India: Studies in the little community, edited by McKim Marriott, 1–35. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press.

4.12 SPECIMEN ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR

PROGRESS
Check Your Progress 1
i) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark T for true or
F for false against each statement.
a) T.
b) F.
c) T
d) T
ii) What are the three meanings that Louis Dumont associates with the term
village community?
Three meanings are
a) as a political society,
b) as a body of co-owners of the soil and as the emblem of traditional
economy and polity.
c) a watchword of Indian patriotism.
Check Your Progress 2
ii) How do Mandelbum and Dumont differ with regard to their views on Caste
in India?
Caste ranking is perceived by David G Mandelbaum as an extreme form of
“stratification,” and “pervasive inequality” which is a key feature of the
caste system. Louis Dumont, by contrast says, caste is not an observable
reality in the first place but a “state of mind”.
ii) Name any three main occupations of Tribes in India.
a) shifting cultivation;
b) forestry and food gathering by hunting; and
c) agricultural labour and animal husbandry.
Check Your Progress 3
i) What is meant by ‘little tradition’ and ‘great tradition’? Use one sentence
for your answer.
a) Great tradition is associated with the elites, literate and reflective few
who are capable of analysing, interpreting and reflecting cultural
knowledge.
b) Little tradition comprises the belief pattern, the institutions, knowledge
including proverbs, riddles, anecdotes, folk tales, legends, myths and
65
Ideas of India the whole body of folk-lore of the folk and /or the unlettered peasants
who imbibe cultural knowledge from the great tradition.
ii) How is the Unity of Indian civilization best reflected?
The unity of Indian civilization is reflected in the perpetuation of the unity
of worldview of both the folk /peasant and the elites or the literati through
cultural performance and their cultural products. Cultural performance is
institutionalized around the structure of both great tradition and little
traditions.
iii) State whether the following statements are true or false. Mark a T for true
orF for false against each statement.
a) T.
b) F.
c) T
d) T

Further Reading
Bailey, F G.1960. Tribe, Caste and Nation. Manchester, Manchester University
Press.
Dumont, Louis. 1980. Homo hierarchicus: The caste system and its implications.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Guha, Ranajit. 1987. “Introduction.” In An anthropologist among the historians
and other essays, by Bernard S. Cohn, vii–xxvi. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
Hutton J. H. 1946Caste in India, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Mandelbaum, David G. 1970. Society in India. Berkeley: The University
ofCalifornia Press.
Srinivas M N 2000 Social Change in Modern India, Orient Longman, New Delhi.

GLOSSARY
Varna: The Varna distributes social groups into four categories, all over India. It
is a model of social and ritual hierarchy of caste groups. These are four Brahman,
Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. The Varna provides a cultural idiom to the caste
system.
Caste: An ascriptive grouping which is community based.
Great Tradition: Cultural trait or tradition, which is written and widely accepted
by the elite of the society who are educated and learned.
Little Tradition: Cultural trait or tradition, which is oral and operates at the
village level.
Sanskritisation: M.N. Srinivas used this concept for the first time to refer to a
process of social change whereby a low Hindu caste or tribe adopts the customs
ritual, ideology and life style of the higher caste with a view to improve its own
caste status.

66
 Ethnographic Images of India
UNIT 5 CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATIONS*

Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Indian Constitution: Its Making
5.3 Indian Constitution: Basic Features
5.3.1 Main Ideals
5.3.2 Fundamental Rights and Duties
5.3.3 Directive Principles of State Policy
5.3.4 Federalism, Adult Franchise, Judiciary, Policy of Positive Discrimination
5.4 Let Us Sum Up
5.5 References
5.6 Specimen Answers to Check Your Progress

5.0 OBJECTIVES
After going through this unit you would be able to:
examine India as a constitutional democracy,
narrate the history of making of the Constitution;
explain various aspects of the Constitution adopted by Independent India
like socialism, secularism;
describe concepts like Fundamental Rights and Duties, Directives of State
Policy, Universal adult suffrage, etc.

5.1 INTRODUCTION
When we talk about India as a modern nation-state it is imperative to understand
the Constitution which provides the basic framework for the legislature, executive
and judiciary to function everyday without any obstruction. Indian Constitution
is an extremely detailed document which has laid the foundation for the modern
Indian state to function and prosper. After attaining its freedom from the British,
India needed a modern outlook also keeping its tradition in mind. The long struggle
of freedom for Indian sovereignty had made Constitution makers aware of the
importance of liberty or freedom for the Indians. Equality was a basic principle
followed in spirit and in essence in all the Articles (positive discrimination
borrowed from American model for Reservation for certain sections to bring the
marginalized at par with the rest of the population) and fraternity for all Indians.

5.2 INDIAN CONSTITUTION: IT’S MAKING

On 26th January 1950, the lengthiest written Constitution in the world, the Indian
Constitution came into force. The Constitution provides a foundation and
framework for governance and assigns roles to the institutions of the legislature,

*Contributed by Uzma Azhar

67
Ideas of India executive and judiciary. It is also a document which promises social and economic
justice.

In the Preamble, the Constitution proclaims India as a sovereign, socialist,

democratic republic ensuring for all its citizens justice, liberty, equality and
fraternity. All the laws have to conform in accordance with the statutes of the
Constitution, any provision of law or regulation which is inconsistent with it is
null and void.

The constitution is an essential document which describes the basic functions of

good or constructive governance; ensures the protection of the rights and interests
of its citizens and directs government to work for their welfare in all spheres of
life. It also indicates how citizens should conduct themselves and be responsible
to the government.

Preamble
Preamble of the constitution is the part which defines the ideals and idea
of the people of India. It lays down the social philosophy of our nation-
state and governance based on this philosophy. The Preamble to our
constitution reads as follows:

‘‘We, The People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India

into a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens;
Justice, social economic and political; Liberty of thought, expression, belief,
faith and worship; Equality of status and of opportunity and to promote
them among all; Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the
unity and integrity of the nation; In our constituent Assembly this 26th day
of November, 1949 Do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves the
constitution.’’

Now let us look at how the constitution came into effect, the process of its making.
It becomes significant to see the Government of India Act 1935 because it formed
part of the basic documents that were consulted by the experts involved in making
the constitution of India.

The Government of India Act, 1935 is a landmark act which further advanced
the movement towards self-rule leading to the independence of India. This Act
for the first time by the colonial administration aimed at establishing the federal
system of Government of India, the most complicated document ever enacted by
the British Parliament running into 451 clauses and 15 Schedules. The major
features were: (a) All India Federation; (b) Provincial Autonomy; (c) Dyarchy at
the Centre; and (d) Federal Court.

The framers of the Constitution perceived unity, social revolution, and democracy
as the three interdependent goals which had to be sought together and could not
be pursued or achieved disjointedly, which Granville Austin refers to as the three
strands of a seamless web (Austin, 2001,pp. ix-x). Three important documents
of the pre-independence period provided the framework for the Constitution apart
from the Government of India Act of 1935, these were :

i) The Nehru Report (1928)

The Nehru Report was produced by a sub-committee headed by Motilal
68 Nehru. The colonial government doubted the capabilities of the Indian
 leaders, that they would not be able to produce such a document. However Constitutional Foundations
this document produced by the sub-committee constituted for this purpose.
It as was further approved by the All Party Conference in August, 1928 held
at Lucknow (Austin, 2001, p. 55). A Declaration of Rights mainly, it declared
that the chief aims of the Constitution would be to secure for Indians
fundamental rights and provide certain safeguards to minorities. The
independence perceived at this time was of a dominion, which would function
under the authority of the British, and not total independence.

ii) The Karachi Resolution (1931)

The drafting of the Karachi Resolution has been credited to Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru. In March 1931, the Congress Convention held at Karachi adopted
the resolution on economic and social changes and Fundamental Rights. It
was a declaration of rights and a humanitarian, socialist manifesto. The
document’s provisions did in fact become the spiritual and, in some cases,
the direct antecedents of the Directive Principles (Austin 2001: x).

iii) The Sapru Report (1945)

The Sapru Report published in 1945, vitiated by communal tensions and

conflicts around this time, concerned itself mainly with the problems of
minority fears which were overshadowing the political scene. By this time,
it had become clear that India would achieve its independence in the near
future and the minorities had to be reassured about their security. The Sapru
Report declared that Fundamental Rights within the new Constitution would
have to include certain safeguards for minorities. The report stated:

‘That what the constitution demands and expects is perfect equality between
one section of the community and another in the matter of political and
civic rights, equality of liberty and security in the enjoyment of the freedom
of religious worship and the pursuit of the ordinary applications of life’
(Sapru, 1945, p. 260).

Through the Independence Act of 1947, India attained independence on

August 15, 1947 and the British colonial rule in India came to an end. The
same Act had also conferred power on the Constituent Assembly to frame a
Constitution for India. This Act was the result of a prolonged struggle for
political freedom and the constitution of the Constituent Assembly as the
precise mechanism and authority to draft the Constitution for India was the
precise course to follow for the new nation–state for its political sovereignty.

Although the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly took place on 9th
December, 1946 the provision for its constitution through the Cabinet
Mission had already been made. Initially it had 207 members including 15
women. It was reckoned by the Constitution Drafting Committee that the
inclusion of traditionally marginalised sections is to be of prime importance
in order to ensure that their concerns were reflected in the Constitution. The
Committee consisted of several national leaders like Dr. Rajendra Prasad,
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
and others as members with Dr. Rajendra Prasad as its Chairman. However,
the Constituent Assembly was not very active before the Indian Independence
Act of 1947 and it became more active and did majority of its work only
69
Ideas of India after passing of the Act. Once a federal constitution was decided upon, the
major models were selected for study. The models fell mostly into two
categories; the Constitution of the United States on the one hand, and the
Constitution Acts passed by the British Parliament establishing federal
constitutions for Canada, Australia and India, all of which had drawn mostly
on the American experience.

Various committees were constituted by the Constituent Assembly to deal

with different aspects of the constitution. The Reports of these committees
were considered by the Constituent Assembly and it appointed a Drafting
Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, whose efforts
had finally culminated in adoption of the so drafted Constitution of India by
the Constituent Assembly on 26th November, 1949 and came into force on
26th January 1950.

Source : Unit 5 The Constitution of India and MWG-010-B2E.p65

Check Your Progress I

1) What were the major features of Government of India Act of 1935?
.......................................................................................................................
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.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
2) Name three important documents from pre-Independence era which helped
in creating the framework for the constitution.
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.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................

5.3. INDIAN CONSTITUTION: BASIC FEATURES

On 2nd November, 1949, the Indian Constitution was adopted by the Constituent
Assembly. It is the lengthiest Constitution which originally had 395 Articles,
divided into 22 parts and 9 schedules. For many developing countries it has been
a model to follow for reference.

5.3.1 Main ideals

a) Sovereignty
The Constitution in its introduction declares that the people of India have
adopted and enacted the Constitution and they are the ones who are the
custodians of the republic. Indian citizens are the real force in whom power
70 is vested and Indian state is free from any foreign domination.
b) Socialist and Secular Constitutional Foundations

In 1976, through the 42nd amendment of the Constitution, in the Preamble

of the Constitution the terms ‘Socialist and Secular’ the terms were
incorporated. Socialist in traditional sense meant that the means of
production would be owned by the state and state would make every effort
for equal distribution of wealth. Socialism in the Indian context meant Indian
state would ensure minimum standard of living for all and a reduced gap
between the rich and the poor.

Although, the term ‘Secular’ aims at the separation of religion from the
State, but in the Indian context the state respects all religions and even
facilitates festive rituals on various religious occasions for different religions,
for example, Kumbh mela, Haj preparations, etc. Indian secularism does
not mean irreligiousness, it means respect for all faiths and religions. Since,
India is a multi-religious and multi-lingual country with vast differences,
the country declared itself as a secular nation on the eve of independence to
give equal opportunity to its citizens to practice their religion without any
hesitation or fear. Secular state may be characterised as:
i) state having no religion of its own;
ii) state not giving a preferential treatment to the followers of any faith;
iii) state not practising any discrimination against any person on account
of his/her faith;
iv) state providing equal opportunity of employment in government
establishments to people of all faiths.

c) Parliamentary Form of Government

A parliamentary form of government has been established both at the Centre
and the State by the Constitution of India. It means that the Prime Minister
and his Council of Ministers are responsible for all their actions to the
government, particularly to the Lok Sabha or Lower House of Parliament.
When they lose their confidence with the people (majority in the House/
Parliament) they should resign. In case they refuse to resign, the opposition
parties will move a no-confidence motion and remove the government from
power.

5.3.2 Fundamental Rights and Duties

Part III of the Constitution guarantees the Fundamental Rights to all its citizens,
borrowed mainly from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 and
Bill of Rights enshrined in the American constitution. The Fundamental Rights
ensure political and civil rights, as the concept of Fundamental Rights was
introduced to create a society which was egalitarian. From any form of coercions
or restrictions by the State or by the society, all its citizens would be free equally.
Liberty would no longer be the privilege of the few. One can approach the Supreme
Court directly in case of violation of Fundamental Rights. They are:

a) Right to Equality (Articles. 14-18)

According to Article 14, the State will treat all its citizens with ‘equality
before law’ and ‘equal protection of laws’ within the territory of India. It is
71
Ideas of India influenced by American and British constitutions, and means that all citizens
will be given equal treatment in similar circumstances. Article 15 says that
the State shall not discriminate against a citizen on grounds of caste, religion,
race, sex or place of birth or any of them, but permits the state to make
special provisions in certain circumstances.

Article 15-Clause (1) says, the State is prohibited to discriminate between

citizens on grounds of religion, race, caste, place of birth or any of them

Article 15-Clause (2) says, discrimination by the State and the citizens with
regard to access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public
entertainment or the use of wells, tanks bathing ghats, roads and places of
public resorts maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to
the use of general public is prohibited. Identifying the need for special
protection, it offers special protection for women and children [Art 15 (3)]
and provides reservation for socially and educationally backward classes of
the citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes through Article
15 Clause (4).

Article 16 talks about the Right to equality of opportunity in public

employment which explains that no citizen shall be discriminated against
or be ineligible for any employment or office under the State on grounds
only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, descent or residence.
Additional grounds of ‘descent and residence’ not included in Article. 15
were added in Art.16. Also, Art.16-(4) provides reservation for appointments
or posts in favour of any Backward Classes of citizens who, in the opinion
of the State, are not adequately represented in the services under the State.

Article 17 declares abolition of Untouchability and forbids its practice in

any form. In 1995, Untouchability Offences Act was enacted by the
Parliament recently renamed as Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1995.
Additionally to strengthen it, the government also enacted Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act in 1989 and Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes ‘Prevention of Atrocities rules’ in 1995.

b) Right to Freedom (Articles. 19-22)

Under Articles 19-23, Freedom as a fundamental right has been explained.
All citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, peaceful
assembly without arms, unionization or forming association, free movement
and freedom to settle anywhere within the country.
The grounds of restrictions for freedom of speech and expression are:
i) security of the State
ii) friendly relation with foreign States,
iii) public order,
iv) decency and morality,
iv) contempt of Court,
v) defamation,
vi) incitement of an offence, and

72 vii) sovereignty and integrity of India.

c) Right against Exploitations (Articles 23-24) Constitutional Foundations

The Article 23 prohibits forced labour, trafficking in human beings (children

and women for sex), begging, slavery, etc. Through Article 24, the
Constitution prohibits employment of children below 14 years of age in
factories and hazardous employment. To prohibit children from working,
government has enacted several laws like Employment of Children Act,
1938, Children (pledging of labour) Act, 1933, the Mines Act, 1952 and
Child Worker Regulation Act, 1986.

d) Right to Freedom of Religion (Articles 25-28)

Although the term‘religion’ is not defined in the Constitution, it states

secularism as one of its aims in the Preamble. The Constitution guarantees
a) freedom of conscience, b) freedom to profess, practise and propagate any
religion. Restrictions to this freedom are religious liberties subject to public
order, morality and health (Artcle 25). Religious groups and other sections
have the following rights to establish and maintain institutions for religious
and charitable purposes:
a) to manage their own affairs in the matters of religion,
b) to own and acquire movable and immovable properties,
c) to administer such properties in accordance with the law.
In State aided institutions there is prohibition of religious instruction. To
maintain the secular character, Article 27 provides ‘no one shall be compelled
to pay any tax for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion
or religious denomination’. This is to ensure that the secular character of
the State remains non-partisan.

e) Cultural and Educational Rights (Articles 29-30)

Under Article 29 the State has been entrusted the responsibility for the
protection of interests of minorities. Constitution also confers minorities
right to establish and administer educational institutions and provides
following four distinctive rights :

a) Article 29 (Clause 1) Right of any section of citizens to conserve its

own language, script or culture

b) Article 30 (Clause 1) Right of all religious and linguistic minorities to

establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.

c) Article 30 (Clause 2) Right of an educational institution not to be

discriminated in matters of State aid on grounds that it is managed by a
religious or linguistic minority.

d) Article 29 (Clause 2) Right of the citizen not to be denied admission in

to any State maintained or State aided institutions on grounds of religion,
caste, race or language.

The word ‘minority’ has not been defined in the constitution but is used in a
wide sense to refer to a section of citizens, minorities shall be protected in
respect of their language, script and culture.
73
Ideas of India f) Right to Constitutional Remedies (Articles 32-35)

Rights have to be accompanied by efficient system of governance for their

enforcement. Under Article 32 the Constitution guarantees that a person
has the right to move the Supreme Court directly for the enforcement of
their fundamental rights. Except during emergency under Article 352 as
otherwise provided in the Constitution, Right to Constitutional remedies
shall not be suspended.

Various kinds of writs for the enforcement of these rights can be issued by
the Supreme Court. One can seek redressal through following petitions:

i) Writ of Habeas Corpus means “To have a body”. This is a safeguard

against arbitrary acts of not just private individuals but also of the
executive. It can be filed by anyone (including the arrested person,
his relatives, friends etc.) and will force the arresting authorities to
produce the person physically/bodily in the court.

ii) Writ of Mandamus means ‘we command’. It commands the person to

whom it is addressed to perform quasi public or public legal duty
which he/she has refused to perform and whose performance cannot
be enforced by any other legal remedy.

iii) Writ of Prohibition means ‘to forbid or to stop’. Through this, Supreme
Court or High Court can issue directions to a lower court or institution
of governance, forbidding the latter to encroach on jurisdiction with
which it is not legally vested or to continue proceeding in a case in
excess of its jurisdiction.

iv) Writ of Certiorari means ‘to be more fully informed of’. After a case
has been decided by a lower court it can be issued denouncing or
abolishing that order. The objective is to secure that order, as
jurisdiction of an inferior court does not encroach the jurisdiction
which it does not possess.

v) Writ of Quo warranto means ‘by what warrant or by what order’. The
court inquires into the legality of the claim which a party may assert
to a public office and to remove him/her from employment if the claim
is not found.

e) Fundamental Duties
In 1976 as Article 51-A in Part IV-A, fundamental duties were incorporated
by the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution. India is the only country having
in the Constitution rights and duties side by side. Rights and duties are
correlated. The following ten are the charter of duties for the citizens of
India:
a) to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the
National flag and the National Anthem;
b) to cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national
struggle for freedom.
c) to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;
74
 d) to defend the country and render national service when called upon to Constitutional Foundations
do so;
e) to promote harmony and spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the
people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or
sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of
women;
f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;
g) to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes,
rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures;
h) to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and
reform;
i) to safeguard public property and to abjure violence;
j) to strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective
activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour
and achievement.
k) Who is a parent or guardian, to provide opportunities for education to
his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen
years [Inserted by the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002).

For direct enforcement of these duties there is no provision in the Constitution.

They cannot be enforced by writs, but can be promoted only by constitutional
methods. Their inclusion has been justified on the basis that they would help to
strengthen our democracy. These duties are obligatory on all Indian citizens.
Only through enlightened public opinion and education that the feelings of pride
and responsibility towards these constitutional duties to the nation can be
inculcated in the citizens.

Activity
At your Study Center with other students, make a Presentation on the
Fundamental Rights and Duties and spread information around you in your
neighbourhood, making common people aware of their Fundamental Rights
and Duties.

5.3.3 Directive Principles of State Policy

Under Part IV of the constitution, Directive Principles of State Policy are stated
from Article 36 to Article 51, borrowed from the Irish Constitution. These
objective is to embody the concept of ‘welfare state’ is the objective of these
Directive Principles. Basically, these are the directions or ideals for the State and
law making bodies to keep in mind while framing policies and laws. They deal
with the social, economic and cultural rights and are not justifiable in the court
of law. They are aspirational in nature and play an advisory role for the
government. For example:
i) Articles 38 and 39 say Equal distribution of wealth and material resources
among all classes of people so as to prevent its concentration in a few hands.
ii) Article 43 says Provision of adequate means of livelihood to all the citizens.
iii) Article 39 says Equal pay for equal/similar work for both men and women. 75
Ideas of India iv) Article 41 says Right to work, education and public assistance.
As we have mentioned above, while Fundamental Rights (civil and political
rights) are justiceable (can be claimed in a court of law), the Directive Principles
(social, cultural, and economic rights) are non-justiceable (cannot be claimed in
a court of law) and are more in the nature of aspirations than rights. This became
a site for contestation within the Constituent Assembly. B.N. Rao, A. K. Ayyar,
B.R. Ambedkar, K.M. Munshi, and K.T. Shah who shared a liberal socialist
outlook were in favour of making the Directive Principles justiceable (Austin
,2001,p. 77). Within the prevailing social and economic structures, they felt that
a large segment of the Indian population was poor and illiterate and this weaker
section of population might not be in a position to access the Fundamental Rights
if the larger issues of land reforms, re-distribution of wealth, and eradication of
illiteracy were not addressed first. Therefore for them, the issues of social, cultural
and economic rights were far more essential to ensure an egalitarian political
Constitutional democracy to usher in a new egalitarian social order.

However, the suggestion to make Part IV justiceable was rejected by the larger
committee. But, judiciary has stepped in certain cases and has incorporated some
of the Directive Principles of State Policy into the domain of Fundamental Rights
by expanding the notion of the Right to Life and Liberty Article 21 of the
Constitution in cases ranging on issues regarding minimum wages to Right to
livelihood, etc.

5.3.4 Federalism, Adult Franchise, Judiciary, Policy of Positive

Discrimination
i) Indian State is federal in nature, in the sense that the powers are distributed
between the Union and the states. During times of emergency arising out of
external danger the Union Government can assume a unitary character and
the Central union government is empowered to legislate for all the States.

ii) Universal Adult Franchise

It means all the adult citizens above the age of 18 years are given the right to
vote without any discrimination of caste, class, region, religion, gender or
race. It is a basic principle of equality on which democracy rests.

iii) Independent Judiciary

The legislature, executive and judiciary are the three main institutions through
which the state functions. As per the norms of separation of powers, Indian
judiciary is independent. This independence of judiciary is ensured through
direct appointment by the President and judges cannot be removed simply
by the executive.

Judicial Review
From USA’s constitution, India borrowed the idea that the judiciary can
declare a law passed by the Union or State government (legislature/executive)
as unconstitutional or null and void if it violates the rights guaranteed under
the Fundamental rights to the people of India.

Rigid and Flexible Document

India has a written Constitution and borrows many features from American
76
 constitution but it is not as rigid as the American constitution. In the form of Constitutional Foundations
procedures for amendments it has incorporated flexibility. There are methods
which are mentioned by which the constitutional laws can be changed or
amended. To put it simply, the procedure for change or amendment in laws
is clearly and, simply explained and not tedious.

iv) Positive Discrimination

Part XVI of the Constitution deals with reservation for SCs and STs. The
policy for granting special privileges to the downtrodden, underprivileged
and marginalized sections of the population are also known as affirmative
action programs. This policy was followed by USA for the victims of racial
discrimination. In India, Dalits and Tribals were given special status for
reservation in various categories for their upliftment and to make them a
part of the mainstream population. Some of the constitutional provisions
which aimed at positive discrimination are:
Article 17: Abolition of “untouchability” and making its practice in any
form a punishable offence.
Article 46: Promotion of educational and economic interests.
Article 16 and 335: Preferential treatment in matters of employment in public
services.
Article 330 and 332: Reservation of seats in the Lok Sabha and State
Assemblies.
Later, reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in 1992 and
reservation for Women in Panchayats (1996) were added.
Source: IGNOU Unit 5 The Constitution of India, Unit 1 Indian Constitution
and Unit 2 Constitutional Obligations

Check Your Progress II

1) When were the terms Socialism and Secularism added to the Constitution?
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2) Mention two Fundamental Rights and Duties.
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77
Ideas of India
5.4 LET US SUM UP
In this unit, we have looked at the basic framework of constitutional foundation
of democracy in India. We have observed the mechanism through which
legislature, executive and judiciary function in day to day running of institutions
of the state. India adopted its Constitution in 1950 and we are celebrating 70
years of the Indian Republic. We have seen the process of its making in detail.
The basic ideals, features and objectives as defined in the Constitution have also
been explained in this unit. The Constitution lays out not just the Fundamental
Rights of its nationals impending upon the State to ensure that they are not
infringed upon but also the enjoined Fundamental Duties for its citizens towards
the nation state have to be followed as well.

Through various features like socialism, secularism, democracy, reservations,

and independent judiciary we are able to witness the wisdom with which our
Constitution has been designed. It is a document which creates the balance
between various institutions of the state, namely legislature, executive and
judiciary, through clearly laid out guidelines.

5.5 SPECIMEN ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR

PROGRESS
Check Your Progress I
1) The major features were: (a) All India Federation; (b) Provincial Autonomy;
(c) Dyarchy at the Centre; and (d) Federal Court.
2) Three important documents of the pre-independence period which provided
the framework for the Constitution were:
• The Nehru Report of 1928,
• The Karachi Resolution of 1931, and
• The Sapru Report of 1945.
Check Your Progress II
1) In 1976, through the 42nd amendment of the Constitution in the Preamble
of the Constitution the terms ‘Socialist and Secular’ were incorporated.
2) Fundamental Rights : Right to Equality and Right to Freedom Fundamental
Duties: To uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;
and, to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture.

5.6 REFERENCES
Austin, G. (2001) The Indian Constitution Cornerstone of a Nation, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press.
Unit 5 The Constitution of India
http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/9908/1/Unit%205.pdf accessed on
20th Jan 2019
Agnes Flavia The Constitutional Debates
78
http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/5611/1/MWG-010-B2-U4.pdf Constitutional Foundations
accessed on 20th Jan 2019
Unit 1 Indian Constitution
http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/17193/1/Unit-1.pdf accessed on 26th
Jan 2019
Unit 2 Constitutional Obligations
http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/7912/1/Unit-2.pdf accessed on 24th
Jan 2019

GLOSSARY
Preamble: Part of the constitution which defines the ideals and idea of the
people of India.

Sovereignty: People are free from foreign rule and have adopted and enacted
the Constitution and they are the ones who are the custodians of the republic.

Socialist: Means of production would be owned by the state.

Secular: It aims at the separation of religion from the state.

Directive Principles of State Policy: The directions or ideals for the State and
law making bodies to keep in mind while framing policies and laws.

Federalism: Powers are distributed between the Union and the states.

Universal Adult Franchise: It means all the adult citizens above the age of 18
years are given the right to vote without any discrimination of caste, class, region,
religion, gender or race.

Positive Discrimination: The policy for granting special privileges to the

downtrodden underprivileged and marginalized sections of the population.

FURTHER READINGS
Austin, G. (2001) The Indian Constitution Cornerstone of a Nation, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press.
Unit 5 The Constitution of India
http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/9908/1/Unit%205.pdf accessed on
20th Jan 2019
Agnes Flavia The Constitutional Debates
http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/5611/1/MWG-010-B2-U4.pdf
accessed on 20th Jan 2019

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