Liberal Approach to the Study of Indian Politics.pdf

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1. Liberal approach to politics

2. INTRODUCTION
•Scholars have explained politics in different ways. These ways are
known as approaches or perspectives.
•different approaches to study Indian politics: liberal, Marxist and
Gandhian.
•Liberal perspective views politics in terms of political structures and
processes.
•liberal perspective prefers to use political system in place of the state.
•It mainly focus on consensus within political system rather than class
relations or conflicts.

3. CORE ELEMENTS OF LIBERAL APPROACH
•Institutions: Political System, Not the State.
•Processes
•Values

4. Institutions: Political System, Not the State.
•Liberal approach uses political system instead of state.
•Political system consist of certain institutions and structures.
•Institutions-political parties, interest groups or civil society organisations,
government etc.
•Social structures-religion,casteetc.
•While these institutions and structures interact with each other conflicts
and eventually consensus arises.
•This approach mainly focusses studying on consensus building.
•this approach dominated the study of Indian politics for around four
•decades from the 1950s

5. processes
>Functions which are performed by different institutions and
organizations.
>Functions-political mobilization(voter mobilization and political
participation), interest articulation(process of expressing
interest),interest aggregations(combining interests into policy).
>Impacts of democratization-
1.democratization into lower strata of society
2. transition from traditional semi feudal and traditional to equal and
liberal indiansociety.
3.Emergence of civil society organisations.

6. values
•liberal approach includes values i.e. liberty, human,rights(individual
and community rights) and equalities.
•It is the duty of state to provide protection to the vulnerable sections,
ethnic groups,scheduledtribes ,minorities and language and culture
of different communities.

7. LIBERAL APPROACH TO STUDY POLITICS
•Liberal approach when applied to study Indian politics can also be
called Systemic approach.
•Systemic approach was developed by David Easton and James S.
Colman to study development of political systems in the developing
countries in the 1950s-1960s.
•As political system develops different political institutions and
structures may have conflicts and consensus.
•RajniKothari’s Politics in India uses Systemic approach and
categorisedCongress party of the 1950s-1960s as Congress System.

8. CRITICISMs
•C.B. Bhambhri(1974) critiqued RajniKothari’s approach for not
including class character of the state, location and distribution of
political power, the role of imperialism and economic aspects-trade
unions,bigfarmers and industrialists etc.
•Many scholars studies congress system of different states to
understand political system till 1970.
•Impacts of land reforms, green revolution and other welfare schemes
were not given due importance.
•Eventually state was seen as an autonomous unit and this approach is
called statist approach.

9. CHANGING SCOPE OF LIBERAL APPROACH
•It is no longer averse to using the concept of state.
•it studies people’s mobilization through civil society organisations,
multiculturism, social capital or in electoral politics

10. Civil society vsCivil society organisation
•There are many cases where states have failed to provide or protect
their citizens or communities.
•When such failure occurs civil society societyorganisationscome into
play to protect rights of citizens or communities.
•NeeraChandhoke(1995) explains, civil society is a space that exists
between the family and the state. In this space civil society
organizations operate.

11. Multiculturalism
•Liberal approach recognisesthe rights of not only individuals but also
groups.
•Individuals are brought in a culture and they may tend to live accordingly.
•Cultural communities generally demand various kinds of rights to maintain
their collective identity. Such rights called group, collective or communal
rights.
•According to Mahajan,pluralism-meagre existence of diversity.
•Multiculturalism-guarantees or attempts to provide cultural rights of
religious and linguistic minority communities to preserve their culture,
language, and script, and other rights.

12. Social Capital-Tocquevilliannotion and Robert
Putnam
•Social capital denotes existence of networkingamong people in a
group or community, who share common values and trust each other.
•Revolutionary social movements to communal riots are impact of this.
•AshutoshVarshney'sbook Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and
Muslims in India, in the study of ethnic riots in six cities of India

13. Convergence or similarities btw liberal and
Marxist approach.
•Since the 1980s, there has been a convergence of liberal and Marxist
approach.
•They use terms such as state or political system interchangeably.
•Pranab Bardhan, a neo-Marxist scholar, contends that in India state is
an autonomous actor, which plays an important role in shaping and
mouldingpower relations among classes.
•According
•to Lloydand Susanne Rudolph, Indian state is a centeriststateand it
function as ‘demand polity’ (subject to demands from various groups)
and ‘command polity’(power to command).