Changing Patterns of Political Leadership in India

In: The review of politics, Band 28, Heft 3, S. 308-318

Abstract

FOR many centuries the pattern of political leadership in India was two-tiered. At the top was "the Government" — what I will call macropolitical leadership — surrounded with pomp and magnificence and all the trappings of wealth and power. Macropolitical leadership changed hands with some frequency, and in modern times was often foreign, first Mughal and then British. In general the macropolitical leadership impinged little on the lives of the ordinary Indian. It was remote from the village and interfered seldom in village affairs, except to raise revenue and maintain a relative law and order. Village India had its own ancient pattern of leadership — what I will call micropolitical leadership. The village was a highly traditional and rigid social and political unit. The higher castes within the village combined social, economic, political, and ritual pre-eminence, and the lower castes tended to be dependent on them to a greater or lesser degree. The Indian village was a complicated network of precedence and relationship, but political authority was concentrated in the leaders of the dominant castes. These men were concerned with settling disputes between communities in the village, protecting the village and its lands from outsiders, and gaining concessions for the village from the macropolitical leadership.