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To teeretupim^ to tfc* ACADKSH/ KKfflSTRAfc. OHIVKKS/lT Ofl J,OMK)N, IB A T I SOI!#:. W.c.l *rp' ¥lrs?t?rf ProQuest Number: 10731630 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731630 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 IDEOLOGICAL FACTORS IN SELECTED FIELDS OF POLICY' - MAKING; IN INDIA. Submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy in the University of London, 1969, by 2o6 Allen. 1 ABSTRACT The thesis deals with the relationship between ideology and policy-making. The main concern is the development of agrarian policy in India since Independence, but this topic necessarily has roots and ramifications which extend much further, both backwards into time and laterally into other aspects of policy. The aim is also to consider how relevant are various sociological definitions of, and approaches to, ideology, for dealing with the problem of its relationship to policy making. The question of whether ideology is to be defined as manifest doctrine, or as underlying and possibly implicit evaluative assumption, is as important as whether ideology is to be interpreted primarily in a psychological, social structural or functional ’systems* context. An application of some of these approaches to the successive stages of political debate in India shows that no one type of approach can by itself adequately account for the nature of prevailing ideology and its relationship to policy or potential policy. But i;he various approaches may be subdivided and combined to provide ideal-type characterisdhioas of the way in which ideology plays an active role in political situations. It appears, however, that in such ideal-types the elements of a power - or structure - based interpretation of ideology tend to dominate. Finally, there is the problem of how the changing nature of*official* ideology and policy in India, manifested in the swing from an advocacy of relatively socialist to relatively ’pragmatic* solutions, is to be described. There is a danger of constructing a false dichotomy between ’ideology* on the one hand and ’pragmatism’ on the other. This can only be resolved by looking at the way in which the role of ideology has changed over time, and especially in the context of the rising and declining power of Congress and the Government. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S. I am grateful to Professor Adrian Mayer who supervised the thesis, for his help and advice. Acknowledgement is also due to the Social Science Research Council, from whom I have received my grant. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. Polioy and Ideology........................ 5 Policy and criticisms of policy:*the agrarian case...6 Sociological analyses of ideology.............. 18 Levels of difference between the theories............ 34 Implications for the ideology-policy relationship....43 CHAPTER 2. Rationalism and Congress Policy Before Independence.............. .. ............. 56 Nationalism and theories of ideology.......... ...... 56 Congress and nationalism in the pre-Gandhian phase...63 The Gandhian phase.....................................74 Congress and agrarian grievances.. ......... 79 How did Zamindari Abolition emerge as a slogan?...... 94 Conclusion............................................. 104 CHAPTER 3. Socialism, Gandhism and Congress Policy Before Independence........ 113 Socialism and theories of ideology............. 113 The heterogeneity of socialist thought in India...... 119 Relative influence of the streams of socialist thought................ 131 Socialism and Congress policy................ 137 The policies themselves.................................. 149 Conclusion: socialism and its role..................... 161 CHAPTER 4« Ideology and Policy in the First Period After Independence...................... 169 The complementarity of the various theories of ideology • • * • .170 The state of Congress ideology at Independence.......173 Congress, ideology and policy after Independence: three phases...... ..179 Congress, ideology and industry up tp 1955........... 181 Congress, ideology and the rural sector in the early 1950's........... .............................. 190 The First Plan, ideology and rural policy.............203 The long-term significance of this first period after Independence..................................... 216 4 CHAPITER 5* Ideology and Policy in the Mid-50's and — — * After.......................................223 Phases in Congress development............. 223 Congress in the mid-50*s: a rise in Government init iative ..... 225 Impact of the mid-50's policies.......................236 The I960* s: Congress on the defensive................ 258 The agricultural sector in the 1960*s............ ....267 Conclusion: the ideological cycle..................... 273 CHAPTER 6 . Ideology and Policy in the States...... ...282 The importance of state politics...................... 282 Politics and ideology in the states.................. 285 Changes over time.......... 297 The curve of ideological initiative at centre and state.................................................. 303 Ideological contradictions and U.P. policy.... ?....... 313 Ideological continuity and change......... **335 CONCLUSION.............. 350 BIBLIOGRAPHY 366 5 CHAPTER I Policy and Ideology 11 The primary problem of Asia is probably the agrarian problem... in India something has been done in the past few years in regard to the agrarian problem and the semi-feudal conditions that existed then. Pretty far-reaching changes are being made now. We are putting an end to the big landlord system, the zaraindari system.... And so one of the major upsetting features in Asia has been controlled in India because of this policy that we have pursued in regard to land” (Nehru 1949 quoted in Norman 1965: 496). ”A total disregard in the current phase of land reform of the right of social groups to equal treatment; the right of individual cultivators to floors and ceilings; the long - cherished hope of the landless agricultural workers to a share in land...have very much watered down the utility of zamindari abolition, leaving village India almost completely disillusioned” (Singh 1961: 55-36). *'ln 1950 the U.P. Legislative Assembly passed the U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land .Reform Act. Should one repeat 6 what so many writers have said before, that this law changed practically nothing, since it only meant that the tenants changed their name to sirdare and paid to the state what they had previously paid to the zamindar Etienne 1968: 58 & 60}? -o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- P olicy and criticisms of policy: the agrarian case, Post-Independence policies in India have given rise to at least two types of literature* The first might be called the apologetic and explanatory. It seeks to elucidate and advance a rationale for the mechanism of planning in particular. The second type is the post mortem variety, and, as the label suggests,seeks to analyse where and how the process of planning has gone astray. This is an attitude which has been encouraged by the Planning Commission itself, perhaps with varying degrees of enthusiasm at different stages in the development of planning, but nevertheless with important results, as some of the Programme Evaluation Organisation Reports show.1 That such critiques of planning and of the policies 7 associated with planning should have emerged so readily is not surprising. It would be more surprising if there were not a good many ways in which specific policies were felt to have failed, or at least to have underfulfilled themselves, and it would be regrettable if such criticisms could not be expressed. What is particularly interesting, however, is the range of approaches which is manifest in these critiques, and the range of factors which they indicate as being' relevant for any attempt to understand the gap between policy proposals and the achievement of results which are generally felt to be satisfactory. The range of criticisms is well-illustrated by attitudes to one particular set of policies, those relating to the agrarian and land reform measures which have been implemented 2 in India since Independence. Perhaps the most vocal observers and sections of political opinion tend to be those with the greatest sense of disillusionment and frustration, which makes it difficult to assess how representative such views are. ' Nevertheless, accusations that certain policies or aspects of policies have failed, or have produced little material change,have been made, sufficiently often to indicate that the disappointment is fairly widespread. Obstacles to implementation. The reasons given for 8 dissatisfaction with the results of the reforms are various but there is at least one major divide amongst the types of assessments made. First, there are those analyses which may be described as being in the realm of explanation, and of explanation in pragmatic terms. They cite a series of i factors which have acted as obstacles in the path of policy implementation. Several such factors come immediately to mind. For instance,