India Under the Impact of Western Political Ideas and Institutions

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296101400405
• Date: 01 December 1961
• Author: E. Malcolm Hause
• Published date: 01 December 1961
• Subject Matter: Articles

879

INDIA

UNDER

THE

IMPACT

OF

WESTERN

POLITICAL

IDEAS

AND

INSTITUTIONS

E.

MALCOLM

HAUSE

University

of

Idaho

HEREAS,

IN

EARLIER

TIMES,

the

East

was

the

fertile

womb

of

~

~~

/

great

religions,

spawning

them

across

the

face

of

the

world,

in

these

W

V

v

times

Western

political

ingenuity

is

reciprocating

in

an

awesome

compliment

by

transmitting

to

the

politically

infertile

East

viable

political

ideas

and

institutions.

The

phenomenon

of

liberated,

underprivileged

peoples

seizing

upon

the

political

institutions

and

ideals

of

their

former

Western

masters

has

become

commonplace-so

common

that

the

significance

of

it

needs

analysis.

A

commentary

par

excellence

on

this

political

impact

of

West

on

East

is

the

fact

that

all

former

colonial

countries

have

embraced

the

outward

forms

of

Western

representative

institutions.

The

departing

&dquo;captains

and

kings&dquo;

may

or

may

not

have

left

a

legacy

of

enmity

behind,

but

they

have

always

left

an

admiration

for

their

political

talent.

This

largess

to

the

Asian

and

African

by

the

West

is

the

great

impact

of

these

times.

Hardly

without

exception,

these

freed

people

are

creating

constituent

assemblies,

writing

constitutions,

electing

representative

parliaments,

making

laws,

organizing

political

parties,

debating

the

merits

of

federal

vs.

unitary

systems,

separation

of

powers,

ministerial

re-

sponsibility,

universal

suffrage,

human

rights,

independent

judiciaries,

economic

planning

and

foreign

policy.’

As

often

as

not

these

political

amateurs

encounter

a

diversity

of

difficulties

grafting

imported

political

institutions

onto

indigenous

customs

and

traditions

and

making

them

work.

The

absence

too

often

of

a

strong

sense

of

national

unity,

the

paucity

of

democratic

experiences,

the

weakness

of

political

parties,

and

the

impotence

of

other

voluntary

political

groups

plague

them.

The

in-

sidious

interplay

in

a

world

of

bipolar

powers

competing

for

allies

and

subvert,

ing

new

regimes

before

they

are

firmly

set

on

their

courses

all

contribute

to

the

political

instability

so

much

in

evidence

today.

Were

it

not

that

the

pro-

longed

struggles

for

freedom

from

alien

Western

rule

have

proven

fruitful

in

breeding

familiar

Western

instruments

of

revolutionary

action

there

would

be

even

more

disorder.2

2

India’s

experiences

are

not

greatly

dissimilar

to

those

of

these

new

states

other

than

that

she

seems

to

be

having

uncommon

success

in

both

her

political

institutions

and

functions.

Although

she

is

successfully

adjusting

and

adapting

herself

to

Western

political

impacts,

India

is

still

Indian;

and

a

great

&dquo;Mariana

Trench,&dquo;

with

only

a

few

strands

of

common

political

customs

and

practices

so

far

woven

and

strung

across

it,

separates

her

from

the

West.

At

local

levels

particularly,

Indian

political

processes

well-nigh

defy

identification

with

any

comparable

thing

in

the

West,

or,

at

most,

are

only

strangely

familiar.

A

1

Dankwart

A.

Rustow,

"New

Horizons

for

Comparative

Politics,"

World

Politics,

IX

(July

1957),

540.

2

Richard

L.

Park

and

Irene

Tinker

(eds.),

Leadership

and

Political

Institutions

in

India

(Prince-

ton:

Princeton

University

Press,

1959),

pp.

34,

35.

880

Western

&dquo;student

of

politics ...

is

well

advised

to

be

on

his

guard&dquo;

against

assuming

&dquo;that

institutions

with

familiar

names&dquo;

necessarily

perform

&dquo;wholly

familiar

f unctions.&dquo;

3 Scholars

writing

on

Western

political

institutions

face

a

comparatively

simple

task;

conceptualization

is

not

complex

when

author,

reader,

and

subject

matter

are

all

part

of

the

same

civilization.

The

study

of

non-Western

countries

is

vastly

more

difficult;

in

both

the

domestic

and

the

international

area,

one

faces

a

dismaying,

frustrating

complexity

of

contradicting

and

conflicting

&dquo;religious,

communal,

cultural

and

linguistic

differences.&dquo;

4

Nor

can

Western

scholarship

currently

look

for

help

from

any

large

number

of

able

Indian

scholars

to

analyze

their

country’s

recent

and

ancient

political

heritage

or

to

depict

the

contemporary

Western

impact

upon

it.

Sardar

K.

M.

Panniker,

India’s

foremost

authority

on

international

affairs,

in

a

timely

address

deplored

the

ostensible

fact

that

in

Indian

universities

&dquo;political

science

is

the

most

neglected

course&dquo;;

nor,

he

regretted,

has

Indian

thought

made

any

&dquo;original

contribution&dquo;

to

it,

nor

inquired

into

principles

upon

which

Indian

political

institutions

have been

reared,

nor

examined

the

&dquo;validity

of

the

many

assumptions&dquo;

of

public

life.5

Assuming

that

there

truly

are

non-Western

political

institutions

in

India,6

let

us

analyze

several

aspects

of

these

political

phenomena.7

For

over

three

hun-

dred

years

India

has

lain

within

the

radius

of

Western

contacts;

the

last

hundred

years

have

witnessed

the

unfolding

of

a

deliberate

British

policy

to

teach

the

philosophy

and

principles

of

individual

freedom

and

representative

government

and

to

train

Indians

in

the

pragmatic

use

of

them.

The

partition

of

India

in

1947

can

be

partially

attributed

to

the

diverging

responses

of

the

Muslim

and

Hindu

communities

to

Western

impacts

of

democratic

ideologies

and

political

concepts.

The

more

secular

minded,

Western-oriented

Indian

intelligentsia

grasped

more

eagerly

at

parliamentary

institutions

and

economic

planning

and

parted

company

with

the

more

immobile,

theocratic,

and

communal-bound

Muslim.

But

this

impact

of

the

West

upon

India,

beginning

first

with

urban

areas,

has

created

a

new

fundamental

cleavage

within

the

society

itself

which,

at

the

bottom,

is

a

conflict

between

communalism

and

secularism,

between

the

tradi-

tionally

minded

Hindu

and

the

Western-oriented

native

elite;

the

latter

are

in

turn

segmented

between

those

who

look

to

the

Anglo-Saxon

West

and

those

who

favor

the

totalitarian

example

of

the

U.S.S.R.

These

Western

elites

3

W.

H.

Morris-Jones,

Parliament

in

India

(Philadelphia:

University

of

Pennsylvania

Press,

1957),

p. 2.

4

Joan

V.

Bondurant,

Regionalism

versus

Provincialism

:

a

Study

in

Problems

of

Indian

National

Unity

("Indian

Press

Digests"

[Berkeley:

Institute

of

International

Studies,

University

of

California,

December

1958]),

p.

1.

5

K.

M.

Pannikar,

Indian

Doctrine

of

Politics

(Ahmedabad:

Harold

Laski

Institute

of

Political

Science,

1955).

6

Lucian

W.

Pye,

"The

Non-Western

Political

Process,"

Journal

of

Politics,

XX

(August

1958),

468-86;

Alfred

Diamant,

"Is

There

a

Non-Western

Political

Process?

Comments

on

Lucian

W.

Pye’s,

’The

Non-Western

Political

Process,’"

Journal

of

Politics,

XXI

(February

1959),

123-27.

7

See

Barbara

Ward,

The

Interplay

of

East

and

West

(London:

Allen

&

Unwin,

1957);

also

Barbara

Ward

Jackson,

"India

on

the

Eve

of

Its

Third

Plan,"

Foreign

Affairs,

XXXIX

(January

1961),

259-70.