Political culture and poverty in India today
Sociology
Name
Course
Instructor
Date
Introduction
Culture is a complex phenomenon that comprises that man acquires as a member of a particular society. Culture can either be material or nonmaterial. Material culture comprises of tangible objects and equipment produced and made by man. Nonmaterial culture on the other comprises of capabilities that man acquires in a group life (Radhakrishnan, 2004). Every civilization possesses its character rooted in its cultural dharma or values. Like any other country, India has its culture that the people follow in their daily lives. The paper will examine India’s culture political system and look at the problem associated with the country’s culture. It will also looks at how the political system and culture have an effect on the solutions and development policies on the problems India faces.
Political culture
Culture is a profound possession ramified throughout a person’s life. Regardless of the part or aspect of a society considered, the presence of the mode of culture is of great importance. Politics is among the unavoidable facts or circumstances of human relations and existence. People are always involved in a particular fashion at a time in a kind of the political system. Every political system is enclosed in a psychological and sociological environment set of beliefs, values, attitudes and orientation of people when it comes to politics. These orientation and beliefs are what is termed as the political culture. Political culture within a nation tries to give a definition of the situation in which particular political actions are taken. It also provides a subjective orientation when it comes to the politics of a nation. Political culture comprises of political ideas as well as the operating ideas of polity. Political culture comprises of the political values, attitudes to politics, national character, ideologies, and cultural ethos. It is also a kind of style and substantive kind of politics.
The political culture of people in a country gives them the orientation towards its processes and polity. Learning about political culture comprises of observing how political structure operates. Political beliefs are affected and affect the way structures operate as well as the circle of relationship between structure and culture. Political culture can, therefore, be termed as the manifestation of subjective and psychological dimensions of politics. Political culture arises from collective history of a particular political system and also the life histories of those who are part of the system. Therefore, political culture is to the political system just as culture is to a particular social system.
Political culture in India today
There has not been any stable inner-equilibrium achieved by India today because it is condemned to grow up or undergo evolution at the history cross-roads. Rapid globalization and economic globalization, as well as the mergence of speed as an important part of culture and politics, have led to a high-risk society. India’s political community is still in the making. It is a mechanical mixture that is made up of ancestral bureaucracy, isolated and insulted armed forces, and a corporate sector that is self-centered. It also comprises of upcoming rural-urban classes that are hybrid and organized TU and white collar labor workers. The political class is ideological and political. It is also infatuated with a culture of expression and not that of restrain and also free-market economy that is based on neo-conservation. Leaders have established their trysts and with a destiny (Mayer, 2006).
There has also been the assertion of corruption and other authoritarian behavior. The vast assets of the state have ended up being propriety, undercover of a public sector that has been bureaucratized. There has also been a growth in corruption that has led to the destruction of good government and also the honesty within society. The administrative and political elite are powerful parasites within the Indian society.
Elements of political culture
There are various things that make up the political culture in India. First of all, there has been the politicization of the civil society. Everything within the civil society in India has been turned out into a political affair. These include things like NGO’s, gender relations, the child and also other vulnerable sections of the society. The long-range tolerance and historical time of India have also been politicized. Literature, language and other creative art forms have been politicized (Mayer, 2006). These things have been made all about politics such that different works of art and literature are done based on political figures or political issues. The other political element in India is fragmentation that refers to the tendency of fragmenting and re-integrating, fractionalization, splitting, and consensually of the political formations, for instance, political parties. Within India, there is also a culture revolving around political bhakti, a cult that involves hero worship, personality, and dynasticism. It has resulted to the worship of the political leaders in India and treating them as if they are gods. Another element of the political culture in India is majoritarianism that has led to a crisis in the representative system and also led to minorityism. In India, there is a lot of politics of streets and populism that has consequently led to bona fide political processes being depoliticized. When it comes to conflict resolution, there are a lot of litigious propensities (Mayer, 2006). There is a lot of political incest and plagiarism in India which includes administrative reform. Another element of political culture in India is regionalism whereby, the country is divided into different regions based on their political affiliations. In India, there is a dominant culture of bureaucratic controls that has led to a lot of economic disparity in different regions within the country. Another element is corruption that is carried out consciously by the leaders in India. The leaders in India also practice politics with a lot of different forms of crime.
There is also a lot of chankayan diplomacies and Hindu ambiguities in the open polity of India. Ethics of illegality are also a common element of India’s political culture. There is also a lot of politics involving violence to intimidate people and break the morale of minorities as well as encourage the macho culture among the Hindus. It means that there is use of a lot of words masculinization for the Hindus while among Muslims there is use of effeminization. There is a lot of abuse of the grey zones of what is termed as discretionary powers. Political leaders in India also practice a lot of procrastination and biding time in order to dilute any progressive measures by the cult when it comes to appointing investigators and commissions of inquiry. In the recent decade, the idea of politics has ended up being reductionist and fragmentary. For instance, elections have now become democratic than they were before (Sharma, 2009). The majoritarian notion of politics in India demands that everyone in the country becomes part of the mainstream politics. Within this middle-class majoritarianism, there is a lot that becomes corroded. There is the need to protect democracy against majoritarianism by minorities like Buddhist, Muslims, Christians and other tribes in India. An example is the politicization of the civil society that is meant to be away from the power orbit and carrying out its functions independently. Civil society refers to an association that is voluntary in nature that stands between the state and households with some form of autonomy. The civil society in India toady is quite dispersed and fragmented. The existing balance between the civil society and state is going tilting backward (Mayer, 2006).
The existing autonomous space, that the civil society enjoyed, is slowly shrinking. The voluntary sector has currently become bureaucratized. Currently, NGO’S India is termed as Non-Gazetted Officers. There is also the use of legislative power in India such as gangajal in order to purify the illegalities that leaders advocate. There has been a lot of commercialization of residential areas across both major and minor cities. It includes big cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai to other upcoming cities like Jammu, Jaipur, and Bhopal. Illegal developments have gone on over the past decade with support from the political leaders under the eyes of the authorities in the different parts of the country (Sharma, 2009).
Problem with India’s political system
The democratic pillars within India are quite deep that it is hard for them to be pulled. A proven fact is that a lot of time and mechanisms have been used to save the democratic values within India. Even though India has the best system to maintain democracy, there have been many gaps created that have led to the growth of the unnecessary weed that has brought India to its current dilapidated state. The political system in India is in a way that it can manage to expand its base through the existing loopholes. However, the forefathers of the constitution used in India have not done a lot of assessment that can help in dealing with the political defects that are in India. It is a problem that has now become unmanageable and it is quite difficult to control (Sharma, 2009)
There are various defects within the political system in India. First, India lacks a strong political party that is ready to defect against the political system in India. Congress was the majority party in India, and it ruled consecutively. Having a strong and major political party is of benefit in that it can do well to people but at the same time, it can misuse power. The strong party has ended up being degraded due to power misuse. Currently, the political system in India is run by regional and sub-regional parties resulting to multiple party system (Yadav, 2013)
Another problem in the political system in India is coalition governments. There is a rising era of the coalition government in India, but this is a problem because the leading party has always to listen to the demands of other parties they with which they are working together. It leads to slow decision-making, and few policies fail to come to action because of the opposition. Coalition governments lead to favoritism and delayed decision-making. Family politics is a major problem in the political system in India. Family politics is natural and common in India. If an individual goes into politics, their entire family goes into the political process. The opinions of family members are often rubbed on to the people. There is a lot of inheritance within the Indian political system.
Poverty in India
According to the universality of economic logic, we can say that poverty in India is caused by the political system. Among other British colonies, India is the only country that has managed to have a sustained democracy. However, it does not mean that the country is immune to the democracy paradox. The different democracy dynamics together with Nehruvian growth model left no room for safety of life in India from the visible foot of the government. There was no abolishment of private property but ended up micromanaging the aspects of production, distribution and consumption. The government achieved this through a quota system termed as license-permit. The system meant that bureaucrats and politicians had a lot of power (Sharma, 2009). It resulted to a lot of misuse of power that led to a lot of corruption within the different systems in India. Apart from the influence of political leaders we can say that the culture of the Indian people has also led to its unending state of poverty. In Hindu religion, the purpose of one’s life is to work towards being relieved from cycles of birth and death. One way of accomplishing this goal is through denouncing the material world. Most mortals are not able to denounce material world and hence there is a suggested way of living with prescribed guidelines. According to the Indian culture, the human lifestyle is divided into four parts by age each with its goals and rules. Therefore, the people of India do not strive to achieve nay material thing in life (Radhakrishnan, 2004). The country lacks focused individuals who are meant to work hard to better the country. It has led to the people being manipulated by their leaders and hence there is no substantial l development of the people and the country as a whole. It is also the few leaders in power who continue being richer every day.
India has suffered from arrested development for a very long time and failed fully to exploit the potential of its democratic system in order for people to benefit. The historical politicization in India left a backlog of conflicts that were not resolved. The political system in India is the key to the issues of poverty that India has been facing. Most of the leaders in India are born having seats beneath them Political inheritance, family politics and corruption are experienced due to certain people holding power. They pass on these ideologies to other leaders who they can influence because they are their family members. It calls for the end of Family politics and the politics of inheritance. Fresh ideas should be injected into the political system of India. Democracy should be followed to the latter when it comes to electing and appointing leaders. Political empowerment and chance should reach everyone within India. Few leaders and businessmen should not hold power as property.
Conclusion
Though India is the most democratic country in the world, just like all others it has its own weaknesses. India is governed by its own culture and has a political culture in place. The political culture in India has numerous problems associated with it that have led to the lingering poverty in the country. The only solution to the problem is by changing the political culture in India s well as the ideologies and beliefs of the people.
References
Mayer, P. (2006). Patterns of Urban Political Culture in India. Asian Survey, 400-407.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Radhakrishnan, S. (2004). Culture of India. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 18-21.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Sharma, R. (2009). Political culture in post-independent India. New Delhi: Ram Avtar Sharma and Sushma Yadav.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Sudarshan, R. (2010). In quest of state: Politics and judiciary in India*. The Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 44-69.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Yadav, Y. (2013). The Enigma that is Politics in India. Studies in Indian Politics, 13-20.
