In India, if one looks at the broad political spectrum, it appears that after independence the nature and composition of elites have undergone change. During the British period, there were limited choices and areas where elite formation or elite recruitment could take place, even though, after 1858, educational, business, professional and employment opportunities under the British government provided chances for elite recruitment. In fact, the nationalist movement for independence provided a platform for various personalities from the field of law, medicine, literature, education etc. to provide leadership to the national movement. It is true that national leadership came from the upper echelons of the society but rising national consciousness amongst the peasantry, workers, students, women, and others subsequently not only provided the base for a national movement, they became the sustaining factor. However, there is a school of historians called the imperialist school also known as the Cambridge School, which believes that the Indian national movement ‘was not people’s movement but a product of the needs and interests of the elite groups who used it to serve either their own narrow interests or the interests of their prescriptive groups’.49 Historians, colonial officials and sympathizers charge that the interests and needs of the elite groups in India not only provided origin but also the driving force of the ideology of the national movement. These include Reginald Coupland, Percival Spear (Oxford History of India), Valentine Chirol (Indian Unrest), Anil Seal (The Emergence of Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in Late 19th Century) and J. A. Gallagher (along with G. Johnson and Anil Seal, Locality, Province and Nation. They further charge that these elite groups organized their interest around religious and caste identities and these elites mobilized the masses for serving their own interests. In fact, it is also charged that the national movement was a struggle of the competing elites for colonial favour. As pointed out by Bipan Chandra and others, Anil Seal termed the national leaders as ‘brokers’ with downward linkages forming a ‘broker–client relationship’ with the Indian masses and middle level leaders at provincial levels as ‘sub-contractors’. It appears that to discredit the mass base and national consciousness as the basis of the national movement, colonial sympathizers evolved this elite theory. Bipan Chandra and others in the book, India’s Struggle for Independence, have refuted these assumptions and have shown that the growing mass basis and national consciousness were the driving forces behind the national movement.
However, there have been differing opinions about the nature of the leadership of the Indian National Congress that led and steered the national struggle as the central movement. It is argued that the Congress has been merely a party dominated by elites belonging to the upper echelons of legal, academic and medical profession and landed gentry. It is accepted that the ‘professional elite’ dominated the Congress. Empirically speaking, even after independence, the Congress party leadership has largely been composed of persons belonging to these professions. Some observers of the Indian political process, for example, Atul Kohli and others have observed that ‘a number of intermediate castes … were traditionally ignored by the elite-dominated congress …’ and he adds that after the Green Revolution and benefit flowing from agricultural growth, these castes supported the non-congress opposition.50 Several political analysts51 observe that after the mid-1960s, mobilization of middle-caste elites at the provincial level, whose economic position as rich peasants coincides as middle class, became a rallying point as the non-congress opposition that culminated in the non-congress coalition governments in late 1960s in seven states. In the hands of R. M. Lohia, J. P. Narayan, Charan Singh, Madhu Limaye and others, mobilization of these provincial elite meant non-congress opposition unity and ultimately defeat of the Congress party in the late 1970s.
Francine Frankel has argued that entry of the ‘Other Backward Classes’ in the political process because of their mobilization ‘represents a formidable challenge to the politics of accommodation’. He suggests that this is due two factors. One, limitation on public offices and patronage that could be distributed amongst the new elite, and second, process of accommodation should be acceptable to the dominant coalition and ‘without overturning the overall structure of inequality on which the privileged position of the middle classes and the Forward Castes has rested since the colonial period’.52 However, after the 1980s, the emergence and dominance of middle castes/other backwards castes, is visible in formation of non-Congress governments. This appears to be an example of emergence of provincial level elites belonging to non-urban non-professional and non-industrial classes. This has reflection at the federal level also. Emergence of regional and provincial level elites meant their political intervention at the Government of India level. Restriction in the scope of the national elite and increase in the role of the provincial elite has reflection in the operation of the party system. Political analysts have called this phenomenon as ‘process of regionalization and federalization’ where national party gets regionally restricted in their base and regional/provincial parties come to play an active role at the centre in coalition formation. For example, Left parties have been regionally restricted to Kerala, Bengal, Tripura, Andhra and part of Bihar, etc., BJP to North and Western India, Congress in places where the Left and the BJP are not dominant). It has been argued that due to emergence of the provincial elite at the state and regional levels, political competition at the state level has increased and many political formations, state, regional and national parties compete for political power. It is also true that transfer of their expectations and political ambitions to the federal level by the provincial elites, coalitional competition at the centre has also increased. For example, Chandra Babu Naidu, Laloo Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and others interchange between the Chief Minister at the state level and Member of Parliament and Cabinet ministers at the Union. The present coalition government of Dr Manmohan Singh is an accommodated ambition of both national and provincial and regional elites.
If we go by the analysis as done by Pranab Bardhan in his The Political Economy of Development in India there are three dominant classes influencing government decisions. The industrial capitalist class, the rich farmers, and the professionals including the white-collar workers (urban professionals and bureaucracy including civilian and military) constitute the ‘Dominant Propriety Classes’.53 Bardhan argues that these classes on their own and individually may not be powerful but as a dominant coalition they are capable of forcing the government’s decision-making and resource allocation in their favour—subsidies on water, electricity, fertilizer, agro-inputs, financial support at low interest rates, agricultural and food policy, etc. To this dominant coalition, we have provincial and dominant castes elites.
Unlike the pre-independence elites, in post-independent India the composition of elites has changed. Urban professional (legal, academic, medicine, management, banking, accountancy, IT etc.) and bureaucratic (civil servants and other white-collars) elite, industrial and commercial elite, voluntary sector elite (NGOs), agricultural and caste elite, etc., have been playing significant roles in creating pressure and pulls for favourable power distribution. A recent example could be cited of the contending arguments and protests regarding the reservation of seats for certain caste groups in the medical profession. Every society distributes its resources as per criterion it deems fit. Nevertheless, it may not be the only efficient and optimal way of power distribution. It is historically visible that no society has been able to distribute its resources by installing either by merit only as the basis or by showering only personal favour of the powerful or by excluding some of its own constituents.
Pareto’s differentiation of governing and non-governing elites may be relevant in the Indian context to explain how different sets of elites staked claim for power and eroded dominance of the Congress party, displaced one-party dominance at the state level by regional and state elites and created a necessity for accommodating national and regional and state elite at the federal level. Though there is no clear-cut indication of Pareto’s circulation of elites, there is stiff competition for accommodation, recruitment and share in power. At the state level, it is more of displacement of one set of elites by another than circulation. For example, in Bihar and UP compared to the 1960s when upper caste elite dominated the political scene, at present, middle caste elites are leading coalitions. One important factor that should be noted here is the practical problem in caste-based and party- based elite formation. It has been observed that factionalism in Indian politics spoils the possibility of a cohesive political and caste-based elite. For example, C. P. Bhambhri, analysing the causes of failure of the Janata experiment in the late 1970s as coalition government in India has observed that ‘the factional struggle in the Janata party was around five well-organised constituent groups which were competing fiercely for strengthening their control over the party’.54 Factions within political parties have been the bane of the political process in India. Political analysts and observers such as Morris-Jones, Rajni Kothari, Ramashray Roy, Paul Brass and others have analysed the way factions work within parties and create instability in electoral, political and coalitional processes. The presence of factional groups within parties points towards lesser relevance of Michels’ theory of Iron Law of Oligarchy in which each party is led by oligarchy as if it is cohesive. Mosca’s analysis of sub-elites consisting of civil servants, managers, scientists, and scholars as an important element besides the ruling elite is relevant in understanding the composition of the Indian middle class and how it behaves. However, the primary contention of all the three elite theorists, Pareto, Mosca and Michels remains that even in a democracy, power distribution is elitist and held by a minority, either a governing elite (Pareto) or a ruling elite (Mosca) or oligarchy (Michels). To this extent, their cynicism about impossibility of democratic dispersal of power may not hold good in India. Power is distributed on multiple dimensions. Intervention of the state, welfare activities, empowerment of the women and depressed classes, adult suffrage and electoral process, operation of local bodies and above all, the provisions and operation of the Constitution of India created a context for power sharing by majority.
Besides the industrialists, politicians and proprietors in sunrise areas such as the Information Technology sector and service areas, the Indian middle class consisting of a variety of groups, professions, castes and occupations, provides fertile ground for emergence and recruitment of elites. Origin of middle classes in India is considered as a product of the colonial period. A. R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism and B. B. Misra, The Indian Middle Classes, Their Growth in Modern Times are the two serious attempts to map the rise of middle classes during the colonial period. It is agreed that formation of the Indian middle classes owes to the emergence of professional services (legal, medicine, etc.), educational achievements, government services and industrial and commercial activities during the colonial rule. B. B. Misra, for example, points out that unlike Europe where the middle classes were a natural product of industrial revolution, in India no such precedent is available. Francine Frankel corroborating Misra opines that ‘Indian middle classes … were artificially created under the British rule, primarily by educational policy introduced for meeting the administrative requirements of the Raj.’55
No doubt, many of the professional and government services were the administrative and colonial requirements, but nevertheless, the social base of the middle classes was very much rooted in the traditional caste system. Early educated classes largely drew from the castes of Brahmans and Kayasthas, who had historical monopoly on literary and knowledge tradition. When the Indian National Congress pressed for Indianization of the civil services, it was certainly an interest of the English educated upper castes, though it was also a matter related to self-government. However, there is coincidence of traditional caste-based elites and modern education and profession-based elites. Frankel highlights the strong correlation between upper caste rank, English education, professional classes and civil services in the first half of the twentieth century. We can add that this correlation did not disturb the elites’ composition after independence also. The introduction of reservation, initially for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and subsequently for Other Backward Class in education, government employment and now in professional institutions has become one of the causes for breakdown of this social background and middle class correlation. We will not be wrong in saying that it is the breakdown of this correlation, which is the centre of controversy in the form of anti-reservation struggles.
Concept of the elite could be helpful in understanding power and influence exercised by groups or sections or class of people on resource allocation, governing and policies by government. In India, the Government’s policy on education, public employment and positive discrimination has resulted in recruitment of elites from weaker sections of society. Concept of empowerment is used to describe the processes that result from the benefit being drawn by the policy of reservation for economically, socially and educationally weaker sections of society. An elite theorist may argue that empowerment is nothing but elite recruitment. On the other hand, it can also be agued that it is a process of social change and social upliftment. However, this requires two conditions: (i) to uplift and empower all those who are already benefiting should be excluded from further protection and this we can call second-generation exclusion principle. (ii) the basic educational qualification will be made available in such a manner that there will be equality of opportunity to all within the protected group for upliftment, and this we can call condition of equal protection principle. Exclusion principle under the concept of creamy layer applies in case of some sections of society and the requirement at (i) is met. However, this concept is not applicable in case of all the sections covered under the policy of protection. Furthermore, even if the second-generation exclusion principle is made universal, in the absence of the condition of the equal protection principle, the policy of reservation will result in elite formation. For example, if within the category of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 70 per cent people remain without basic qualification for the employment being protected, what possibility is there that policy of reservation will not result in elite formation or appropriation of the protection by a few groups within this category. In a society with extreme historical discriminations and injustice, policy of protection, though laudable, cannot escape the process of elite formation unless equal conditions to enjoy the protection is given to all members of the category protected. We argue that policy of reservation can be helpful in social change and upliftment only when criteria of second-generation exclusion principle and condition of equal protection principle above are met, lest it results in elite formation.
Contemporary Indian society has elites being recruited from a variety of social backgrounds and bases. Expansions of industrial, commercial and service sector activities; increase in managerial, professional, and academic activities; role of post-independent civil services; reservation in government employment; Green revolution and economic betterment of many middle castes peasants; all provide bases of elite formation. However, a pertinent question arises here: how much interested are the elites as far as the political democracy in India is concerned? Even if it is conceded that the national movement under the Congress was dominated by the elites, it cannot be denied that they struggled to establish democracy in India. In fact, Bipan Chandra has rightly argued that ‘it was, in fact, the Congress, and not the bureaucratic and authoritarian colonial state … which indigenised, popularised and rooted parliamentary democracy in India’.56 However, we are presently faced with a different situation. The attitude of the contemporary middle class elites suggests that they are not only apathetic to politics but appear as if they are ‘fatigued’ by democracy. Pavan K. Verma in his The Great Indian Middle Class has discussed the apathetic perception of the middle class about politics and has concluded that given their consumption requirements and apathetic attitude, one may need to revise the traditional view of the middle class as the main supporters of political democracy.57 A balanced middle class as the mainstay of democracy was the Aristotelian formula that has really been part of the liberal democratic thinking until it has been challenged by the elitist and pluralist theories. In India, while social, economic and professional bases of elite recruitment have increased, it is doubtful, whether the urban elite is a political man and political woman anymore. Most of them are interested in politics to network and influence resource allocation but not to participate for democratic stability, institution-building and participatory democracy. When the middle class grows apathetic and treats politics as undesirable, while allowing it, to paraphrase Bernard Shaw, as the first refuge of the criminals, corruptors and pettifoggers, political democracy is bound to suffer and degenerate.
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