Some Remarks on Contemporary Indian Society, State and Government, 2013

7/28/2019 Some Remarks on Contemporary Indian Society, State and Government, 2013

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SOME REMARKS ON CONTEMPORARY INDIAN SOCIETY, STATE

AND GOVERNMENT

Pradip Baksi

While reading Karl Marxs Draft Plan for a Work on the Modern State [MECW,

Volume 4: 666]1, some thoughts occurred to me over time. The following remarks

are preliminary expressions of those thoughts. Here Marxs Draft is [in red]

followed clause by clause, by my remarks [in black].

1) The history of origin of the French RevolutionThe self-conceit of the political sphere to mistake itself for the ardent state.

The attitude of the revolutionaries towards civil society. All elements exist in

duplicate form, as civic elements and [those of] the state.

1) There does not exist and, perhaps, there will never be any Indian/SouthAsian equivalent of the French Revolution. In this situation, how may we

proceed towards the multiple histories of the origins of the contemporary

South Asian States and Governments? We may simultaneously proceed

from: a) the normative texts like theArthashastra, the manuscripts of which

were not rediscovered in Karl Marxs time, through texts like the Fatva-yi

jahandari, Ain-i-Akbari, and the British Imperial Government of India Act

of 1935, to arrive at The Constitution, The Penal Code of India [and those

of Pakistan and Bangladesh], amended till date; and, b) a Part by Part and

Article by Article study of the currently operative Constitutions of South

Asia, together with the Laws enforced by the current governments of this

regionwith the aim ofunderstanding and unveiling the self-conceit of the

politicalsphere, including the self-conceit of the Communist Parties and

Groups led by members of the hegemonic castes. Ours are no ardent states.

We have inherited imperial governments, subservient to the interests of the

current avatars of the Varnashrama Dharma, reorganizing itself undercontemporary global conditions. Since we have a hybrid civil society, which

consists ofAdivasi, caste and, partially class-like components the attitude

of our future-oriented political operators to the emergent hybrid civil society

becomes issue based, non-linear and chaotic, often pragmatic, parochial or

imperial. Here all elements exist in multiple forms: as old clan/caste-


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bhaichara based civic elements; imposed, new, partially European-looking,

Bania elements; and, those of the Hujur-Mai-Baap-Sarkar.

2) The proclamation of the rights of man and the constitution of the state.Individual freedom and public authority.

Freedom, equality and unity. Sovereignty of the people.

2) TheDeclaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Woman-Citizen (1791)2, a

text that went into oblivion and, was not known to Karl Marx, the proclamation of

the rights of man and the lack of Fundamental Rights related articles of The

Constitution of India [and similar articles of the other Constitutions of the region],

in comparative, historical and critical perspective.

Lack of individual freedom,power of familial, clan, casteetc. norms over

individuals; violation of the rules of public authority and, the customary sources of

such impunity.

Various types of bondage, inequality, inequity and communal/clan/caste based

unity. No sovereignty of the people, sovereignty only of theHujur-Mai-Baap-

Sarkar, concretely expressed as the sovereignty of the leaders of the ruling clans

and castes, embedded in the executive, judiciary and legislaturein that order.

3) State and civil society.

3)Imperial Government and Society based on primary loyalty to family, clan and

caste, clothed by a cosmetic and perfunctory rule-of-law-state and, NGOcracies

controlled by domestic and foreign funding agencies masquerading as civil society.

4) The representative state and the charter.

The constitutional representative state, the democratic representative state.

4) The unrepresentative empire and the unstated but taken for granted Vidhis.


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The constitutional unrepresentative empire, the democratic unrepresentative

empire: views from the center and the periphery, viewed by the hegemonic media

and, viewed from the lived reality of the non-voting-praja and the voter-praja.

5)Division of Power. Legislative and executive power.

5) Undivided Power. Primacy of the Unelected Component of Executive Power

over its Elected Component and, overall primacy of Executive Power over

Legislative Power.

6)Legislative powerand the legislative bodies. Political clubs.

6) Legislative powerand the legislative bodies as rubber stamps of the unelected

political executives, masquerading as secretaries of elected ministers. Model

Kautilyas Sachibayatta Rashtra. Ruling and opposition political parties as clubsof coalitions of ruling castes.

7) Executive Power. Centralisation and hierarchy. Centralisation and political

civilisation. Federal system and industrialism. State administration and local

government.

7)Executive Poweras embodiment of imperial authority of the hegemonic castes.

Centralisation and hierarchy of the empire and its ruling castes evolved over

several thousand years. Political centralisation and civilisation based on clan/castebased social and ideological hegemony. Ideological hegemony of the rulers that is

historically more consolidated than their repressive hegemony. Federal system at

odds with the interests of industrializing empire. Central and Regional

Governmental administration and local government/Panchayati Raj, subservient to

the interests of the hegemonic clans/castes or, to those of some quasi-caste-

like/quasi-class-like hybrid formations like the Bengali bhadraloks.

8)Judicial powerand law.

8)Judicial poweroscillating from dharma to law and back3.

8)Nationality and thepeople.


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8) Hegemonic and Non-Hegemonic Nationalities, Confessional Communities,

Castes, Adivasis and People Marginalised on grounds of occupation, sexual

preference, gender or birth.

9) Thepolitical parties.

9) Thepolitical parties as layers upon layersJaat-Biradari Panchayats: where the

male members of the most powerful castes effectively control the decision making

mechanisms of the central organs, the next level of committees may accommodate

the less and less powerful castes and genders in descending order. Even in caste-

specific parties of the weaker castes, the advisers to the central leaders may come

from the hegemonic castes.

9) Suffrage, the fight for the abolition of the state and of bourgeois society.

9) Suffrage, currently a victim of caste-based social rigging in the villages and,

technical rigging in the urban and suburban areas, however, has the potential to be

used in the fight for the abolition of the imperial government and its social base,

the contemporary avatars of ruling-caste-hegemony, if rectified by continuous

familial, social, religious, cultural and educational reforms initiated by the

dissidents from below and from above.

Notes

1. Available at: 2. See:

3. Baxi, Upendra (1986), From Dharma to Law and Back? [Section II, inChapter 5: Peoples Law in India, The Hindu Society], in: Asian Indigenous

Law: In Interaction with Received Law, edited by Professor Masaji Chiba,

London and New York: KPI; and,

Menski, Werner (2004), From Dharma to Law and Back? Postmodern

Hindu law in a Global World, available at:

Kolkata, 8 June 2013
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/11/state.htmhttp://www.academia.edu/3100911/Olympe_de_Gouges._1791._Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Woman_and_of_the_Woman-Citizenhttp://www.academia.edu/3100911/Olympe_de_Gouges._1791._Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Woman_and_of_the_Woman-Citizenhttp://www.academia.edu/3100911/Olympe_de_Gouges._1791._Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Woman_and_of_the_Woman-Citizenhttp://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4410/1/hpsacp_20.pdfhttp://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4410/1/hpsacp_20.pdfhttp://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4410/1/hpsacp_20.pdfhttp://www.academia.edu/3100911/Olympe_de_Gouges._1791._Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Woman_and_of_the_Woman-Citizenhttp://www.academia.edu/3100911/Olympe_de_Gouges._1791._Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Woman_and_of_the_Woman-Citizenhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/11/state.htm

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Some Remarks on Contemporary Indian Society, State and Government, 2013