Introduction

England is a parliamentary democracy, so is India. There are Members of Parliament, political parties, interest and pressure groups, and electorates in both countries. This means there should not be any fundamental differences in the functioning of the two democracies. However, political parties, pressure and interest groups, electorates and their representatives behave differently in the two countries. Electorates and political leaders belonging to different regions even within India behave differently. When the institutional arrangements and democratic set-up are more or less the same, what are the factors that make the functioning of the English democracy different from the Indian democracy? What are the factors that make political process and functioning of democracy vary across regions even within India? Behaviour of voters, sympathizers, protestors, interest and demand groups, political leaders and political parties may not be the same in Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Patna. What factors will explain the difference in the behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, orientations and values of the voters, leaders, groups, etc. In short, what is ‘the socio-psychological environment of the political system’¹ as Higgott says? Students of political studies and political sociologists, explore the sociological and psychological dimensions of political system. How do the psychological and social aspects of human beings influence the political aspect? Almond and Powell describe political culture as ‘psychological dimension of the political system’.² Similar to the social behaviour of people with reference to culture or economic behaviour with respect to economic culture, we understand the political behaviour of the voters and citizens with the help of political culture.

Various factors may influence development of people’s socio-psychological attitude towards the political system and its other components. Alan R. Ball talks of historical, social, economic, ethnic and colonial factors.³ Historical factors influence development of political attitudes of people. In England, the co-existence of subject or traditional elements with that of the democratic or participant elements, provide an example. In fact, the Conservative and Labour parties present two different options and political sub-cultures. Thus, British political culture is an example of historical continuity where the traditional and participant coexist. On the other hand, France presents a historically contrasting example. The French Revolution introduced new values of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ and democratic participant structures.

Transformation from feudal economy to capitalist-industrial or socialist–industrial also affects the attitude of the people towards the political system. In socialist countries, the political system itself seeks to regulate political orientation. There is limited or no scope for political orientation to input objects or self as active participant. This is because there is regulation of demands and interests as well as participation. The type of economy—capitalist, socialist or mixed—will also influence the development of political culture. This will influence absence or presence of demand and interest groups, their capability to assert and expectations from the system. Economic factors such as industrialization, urbanization and large working population, on the one hand, and agrarian, farming and large peasant population, on the other, contribute differently to the development of the political culture. Ball maintains that while the first will support a liberal democratic attitude, the second will present a conservative situation. It is generally held that agrarian rural economy is prone to parochial and subject orientation, while industrial urban economy tends to support participant culture.

Ethnic composition of a society also influences the development and nature of political culture. In most of the European countries, development of the nation-states has been on the lines of mono-ethnic character—French, German, English, Polish, Serb, etc. However, due to geographical migration, these countries have also accommodated immigrant ethnic groups. As such, a homogenous political culture requires consensus amongst all groups. The issue of ethnic adjustment in USA and Canada has different aspects. While USA has adopted the ‘melting pot’ model for assimilating ethnic groups, Canada has strong ethnic manifestations, at least, from the French. In many European countries, ethnic sub-cultures are manifest. The Irish and the Basque (Spain) problems are such examples. Ethnic differences have been a factor in the democratic instability in developing countries. Observers have pointed out that ethnic differences result in sharp social cleavages and fragmented political culture in many of the African and Asian countries. In fact, it has been argued that the introduction of a multi-party democratic set-up in societies with fragmented political culture has led to further aggravation of division. This is because multi-party competition needs to draw its social infrastructure and social bases from society and in many cases this reinforces the existing divisions. In India, for example, mobilization of castes in multi-party competition, particularly after the late 1960s, provides such an example. It appears that coalitional instability in India after the 1967 elections, both at the State and the Union level, is a reflection of mobilization of ‘middle castes’ and ‘lower caste’ as separate from the Congress model of ‘patron-client’ mobilization.

In developing countries, the legacy of the colonial past leaves its mark on the development of political culture. It is said that colonial administration created ethnic and social differences for administrative conveniences, which have revisited to disturb the development of a homogenous or, at least, a coherent political culture. Secondly, depth and intervention of the colonial administration also differed from region to region. In India, for example, in economic terms, the British introduced or reinforced three types of land relations—zamindari (right of land and revenue collection of an area to a feudal chief), mahalwari (revenue collection on the basis of collective grant) and ryotwari (village based revenue collection) in different areas. Politically, the British followed the policy of segregating regions and areas under their own direct control from those, which were princely states. The implication was that while British direct intervention could not influence the princely states, the latter followed their own policies. Arguably, if British rule in India is taken as an instrument of modernization and reform through social legislation, then there were areas in which these changes did not apply. Further, gradual introduction of self-government in India by the colonial rule was slow to sip in the princely states. Political participation and political socialization must have been restricted in princely states compared to the directly governed areas. Theoretically, it can be said that areas affected by the system of zamindari are more suited to patron–client orientation and parochial political culture, while areas under a princely state must have been prone to subject political culture.

On the other hand, the legacy, which became part of the anti-colonial struggle in India, gave a lasting thread to evolution of political culture in post-independent India. Particularly, two aspects are important: (i) Gandhian legacy of protest and antipathy to the political system as alien, and (ii) mass mobilization of people and their politicization. The first still renders its duty and we see our polity full of protests. The second has rendered people in many parts of the country to a participant political culture. The first creates an affective orientation of rejection of the political system opposed to people’s interests, the second, helps people actively participate in the system. A combined effect of British policy and administration and nature of our anti-colonial struggle has been a fragmented political culture, either in terms of co-existence of traditional and modern political cultures or elite and mass political culture as Myron Weiner says. A national, centralized and dominant political culture, which is modernizing co-exists and competes with a traditional sub-culture. Myron Weiner has characterized India’s political culture in two parts—Elite and Mass Political Culture, which we will discuss in the following sections.