Per
Content
This article was downloaded by: [O P Jindal Global University]
On: 12 August 2014, At: 21:38
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,
UK
Critical Review of International
Social and Political Philosophy
Publication details, including instructions for authors
and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fcri20
Private and public spheres in
India
Bhikhu Parekh
a
a
University of Westminster , London, UK
Published online: 25 Jun 2009.
To cite this article: Bhikhu Parekh (2009) Private and public spheres in India,
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 12:2, 313-328, DOI:
10.1080/13698230902892218
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230902892218
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the
information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or
suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed
in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the
views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should
not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,
claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities
whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection
with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2009, 313–328
Private and public spheres in India
Bhikhu Parekh*
University of Westminster, London, UK
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical
10.1080/13698230902892218
FCRI_A_389393.sgm
1369-8230
Original
Taylor
202009
12
Professor
[email protected]
000002009
and
&
Review
Article
Francis
BhikhuParekh
(print)/1743-8772
Francis
of International
Ltd
(online)
Social and Political Philosophy
In the traditional Indian way of life, the social realm consisting of the
joint family, the kinship network and the caste plays a dominant role, and
colonises both the private and public spheres. This is challenged by the
increasingly influential ideas of personal autonomy, equal citizenship
and a democratically constituted public realm. The tension between the
two provides a clue to much of contemporary Indian political life. India
cannot successfully cope with it without redefining the boundaries
between private and public spheres and developing appropriate norms
for them.
Keywords: autonomy; caste; family; hierarchy; kinship; marriage;
privacy; public good; status; trust
Human activities and relations can be classified in several ways. The privatepublic distinction is one of them. It involves distinguishing them in terms of
the two closely related ideas of who has access to and exercises control over
them. An activity or a relation is private if access to and control over it are
limited to a particular individual or group of individuals. To say that an individual’s beliefs, opinions or relations to his wife and children are private is to
say that they are entirely a matter for him, that he is not accountable to others
for them, and that they may not pry into or interfere with them. The term
public refers to what is open or in principle accessible to all and where they
may legitimately participate or take an active interest. Parks and streets are
public in this sense, and so are books, cinemas, modes of transport and political institutions. By the terms private and public sphere, I refer to areas of life
where the activities and relations involved are respectively of a private or
public nature as I have defined these terms.
No area of human life is inherently private or public. Where and how
firmly the line is drawn between them, what activities are placed under each,
and the relative status or importance of the two spheres varies from society to
society. There is nothing inherently private about even the basic biological
functions and sexuality. They are so considered in most modern societies, but
many premodern and even some contemporary societies take a different
*Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1369-8230 print/ISSN 1743-8772 online
© 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13698230902892218
http://www.informaworld.com
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
314
B. Parekh
view. In some societies, again, collective life is seen as the ruler’s fiefdom or
private property, and he is free to conduct it as he pleases; in others it is a
public activity involving all citizens. In classical Athens a high value was
placed on political participation, seen as the highest expression of human
freedom, and private life, associated with the inherent compulsions of human
life and considered a realm of necessity, signified privation. In modern society the opposite is the case. Privacy is associated with freedom and privilege
and is greatly cherished, whereas political life is assigned a largely instrumental value.
The fact that an activity, a relationship or an area of life is considered
private does not mean that it is exempt from social regulation. Directly or
indirectly it involves or affects others. And even when it does not, society
has norms concerning the proper way to undertake it. In modern Western
society in which privacy is greatly valued, individuals are free to marry
whoever they like, but their spouses must be human beings (not animals), of
a certain age, outside a certain degree of consanguinity, and in most societies of the ‘opposite’ sex. Their sexual preferences are their own business,
but these should not involve children, bestiality and, in most societies,
sodomy. They may believe what they like and live as they please, but their
beliefs should not incite hatred against other groups, and their ways of life
should not cause a nuisance to their neighbours, disturb public peace, violate
norms of decency, or endanger public health. Although regulated by social
conventions and even laws, the relevant human activity or area of life is
private and free from others’ interference because the conventions and laws
are regulative and not prescriptive. They do not dictate choices, only specify
the general conditions all choices should meet. So long as individuals do so,
they may make whatever choices they like without being answerable to
others.
Thanks largely to the spread of the idea of individual autonomy from the
eighteenth century onwards, modern Western society has developed a historically unique manner of defining and distinguishing private and public
spheres. Since it represents important values and provides a necessary backdrop to the discussion of the Indian way of life, a brief sketch of its basic
outline would be useful.
The idea of autonomy implies that individuals see themselves as selfdetermining agents, masters of themselves, and greatly value and indeed
define their dignity in terms of their freedom to run their lives themselves. It
forms the basis of articulating human life into three broad areas, depending
on the kind and degree of autonomy they allow. First, private sphere or an
area of life where individuals are free to organise their personal lives as they
please. Second, civil society or the area where they enter into uncoerced relations with others in pursuit of self-interest, pleasure or common purposes.
Third, the political community or the area of life where individuals are necessarily part of a collective life and are subject to its constraints.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
315
So far as their personal life is concerned, autonomous individuals take
pride in organising it as they please. They make their own choices, marry who
they fancy, follow the career that interests them most, form their own views
and beliefs, decide the size of their family, what tastes and interests to cultivate, and so on. These are private matters for which they are not answerable
to anyone and whose inviolability is protected by social and legal sanctions.
Indeed a culture is developed in which individuals internalise respect not only
for their own but also for others’ autonomy, and refrain from interfering with
choices of even those who are closest to them.
In the nineteenth century, the ideas of autonomy and privacy came to be
associated with the rather different belief that individuals find their fulfilment
and are ‘truly themselves’ only in the world of intimate relations represented
by the family. Unlike the wider world, which was composed of strangers and
governed by rules and thus ‘artificial’, the family represented a home, a place
where one expressed oneself without inhibition and constraints. It was
governed by love and lifelong commitment, and provided an environment in
which to explore and enjoy marital intimacy and nurture children. This belief
further reinforced the importance and inviolability of the private sphere.
Civil society is the realm of associative freedom. It includes freely chosen
activities, relations and groups in which individuals come together to pursue
common purposes. All associations are voluntary, and their members join and
leave them at will. Unlike the family, civil society is not based on kinship but
consent and shared interests. It involves strangers with whom one’s relations
are transactional and episodic as well those to whom one is bound by the ties
of varying degrees of closeness. It is governed by rules and social conventions,
whose observance constitutes the practice of civility or ‘civilised’ way of life.
The political community is a form of civil society but with important
differences. It is compulsory in the sense that one cannot avoid being a
member of it. One may of course leave one’s community, but only by joining
another. It is also coercive in that it enjoys the monopoly of violence and uses
it as the last resort to ensure compliance with its laws. It has the power of life
and death over its members and may require them to fight in its wars and
impose capital punishment. The principle of individual autonomy, however,
requires that the political community should become a voluntary association
as much as possible. Its authority should be derived from the consent of its
citizens. It should protect the privacy of the family and the associative freedom of the civil society, and pursue only those purposes that its citizens
approve. The political community is not the private property of its ruler but a
res publica, a public institution serving public good in a publicly accountable
manner. Its affairs are their affairs and they have a right to debate, discuss,
form and communicate their views on how these should be conducted. As a
public activity, governing the country should be transparent, based on
publicly accessible information, responsive to public opinion, and conducted
in the full light of publicity.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
316
B. Parekh
The political community understood in this way is underpinned by several
interrelated beliefs and practices. It involves freedom of expression, including
that of the press. It also involves equal citizenship. Autonomous individuals
are equal in their moral status and demand equal rights. They possess the
requisite basic capacity to participate in its affairs, and have an equal stake in
them. Since the state speaks in the name of them all and implicates them in
its decisions, each of them has the right to ensure that he or she is happy with
these. Democracy in the sense of equal citizenship and universal franchise is
entailed by the idea of individual autonomy, and over time and after a considerable struggle it became an integral feature of the modern Western political
community.
Since governing the political community is a public activity, it entails a
new, public, identity that is governed by its own appropriate norms and insulated against the intrusion of other identities. Citizenship is a public status,
and citizens are public persons who are expected to pursue public good and
display public spirit. They should vote and form their opinions on the basis
of what best promotes the good of the community rather than what best serves
their personal interests. And they should discuss public affairs in terms of
public considerations and public reason, not their private beliefs and intuitions. This is just as and even more true of public officials. They occupy
public offices, which are positions of trust, are intended to achieve clearly
stated public purposes and are governed by rules and procedures. They are
therefore expected to rise above their personal interests, social affiliations and
familial ties, and take decisions on the basis of an impartial assessment of all
relevant interests.
The modern Western way of structuring human life outlined above is not
without its critics. So far as the inviolability of the private sphere is
concerned, feminists argue that it privatises and privileges a vital area of
human life, places women at the mercy of the dominant male, and protects
and intensifies gender inequality. Republican writers concentrate on children,
and argue that as the nursery of future citizens, the family should be viewed
not as a private but as a semi-public institution and brought under greater
public control. Socialist writers argue that the privatised family breeds
partiality and selfishness, constitutes a bastion of privilege, and needs to be
suitably redefined and reconstituted. Nationalists think that it cuts off the
family from the nation, and fails to foster such virtues as love of the nation
and the willingness to subordinate personal and familial interests and loyalties to those of the country.
These writers also question the current structure of the political community. For feminists it defines public life in terms of and privileges masculine
concerns and sensibilities, and has a patriarchal bias. For republicans it is
individualistic, takes an instrumental view of political life, does not provide
adequate formal and informal spaces for participation, and fails to foster
civic and political virtues. For socialists the modern political community is
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
317
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
atomistic, impersonal, abstract, tied to narrow class interests, and needs to
embody the ethos of fraternity and solidarity. Nationalists think that it is
heavily biased towards individual rights, ‘mechanical’ in its operations, too
impersonal in its ethos to engage the hearts of its citizens, and needs to be
reorganised along familial lines. While these and related criticisms have led
to some modification in the structures of private and public spheres and
made their boundary less rigid, the basic belief that they are autonomous,
separate and governed by different norms continues to command widespread
consensus.
India
The traditional Indian way of structuring human life is significantly different
from its modern Western counterpart. This is largely because like the premodern West, Indians do not place much value on individual autonomy. Although
the latter has begun to enter Indian life and exercises varying degrees of influence on different sections of society and in different areas, its reach remains
rather limited and its impact uneven. The tension it has created and the way
in which it modifies and is in turn modified by the traditional ways of life and
thought provides an important clue to contemporary Indian society.
In the traditional Indian view which continues to underpin much of Indian
life, the individual is embedded in a web of social relations. These include the
caste, the extended kinship network, and above all the family, defined broadly
to include parents, siblings, wife and children. The individual grows up in the
midst of these relations, feels different degrees of attachment and loyalty to
those involved, and inherits all manner of moral and prudential obligations to
them. The obligations arise from several sources such as the ties of kinship,
common interests, past favours done to oneself or one parents, and the
expected or hoped for future help. When one falls on bad times, those most
likely to help are one’s kinsmen or members and welfare associations of one’s
caste. This is particularly so because the welfare services provided by the state
were and remain exiguous, bureaucratic and often corrupt. At a different
level, one would need to find a spouse for one’s siblings or children, and that
again depends on whether one is a caste member of good standing. A member
of one’s family might fall ill and need long-term care or solace and support,
and that too comes most readily from the kinship network and the caste.
The family is at the heart of the Indian life. The individual feels an integral
part of it, and is bound to his parents and to a lesser extent his brothers and
sisters by the deepest ties of love and commitment. They also generally make
great sacrifices to bring him up and to give him as good a start in life as their
resources allow, thereby placing him in their debt. Thanks to all this, the individual does not see his life as his to do what he likes with it. It is made possible
by others and is tied to theirs by the deepest bonds. They have therefore
claims on him which he is not at liberty to disregard. His decisions concerning
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
318
B. Parekh
marriage, career, residence, pattern of life, etc. are all expected to be guided
by the interests of the family. And since one’s parents know one as well as
one does oneself, and additionally have greater experience and wisdom and
one’s long-term interest at their heart, their advice in these matters is sought
and often followed.
Marriage is a relation not between two individuals but two families, and
signifies not a new relationship but the addition of a new female member to
the existing family. Since she brings with her a different attitude to life, has
her premarital attachments and can threaten the stability of the family, parents
and even siblings take great care, and use all kinds of incentives and threats,
to ensure that the husband-wife relationship does not become autonomous
and self-contained. When children appear on the scene, their grandparents
exercise considerable influence over and sometimes even take control of their
upbringing, often with the approval of the parents. In many Indian families
children grow up attached as much to their grandparents and even their uncles
and aunts as to their parents. And adults are expected to make no moral
distinction between their own children and those of their siblings and to pay
equal regard to their interests.
Personal autonomy and privacy are not much valued in Indian society.
There is nothing private from members of one’s family, and there is no desire
to clearly mark off one’s life from theirs and claim exclusive control over it.
While there is little privacy within the family, the privacy of the family is
greatly valued. What goes on within the family may not be disclosed to
outsiders, and those who do so incur its wrath. Outsiders also generally
respect the privacy of the family and take no undue interest in its internal
affairs. Adulterous affairs within a family, for example, might be noticed by
outsiders, but are generally not talked about and made a matter of gossip.
Thanks to the strong sense of propriety and respect for the privacy of the
family, the usual ‘kiss and tell’ stories by divorced spouses or jilted
mistresses are relatively rare in India, and those breaking the norm are looked
down upon and even ostracised.
Even the private lives of well known public leaders are rarely a subject of
public curiosity. And when stories about these do the social round, they rarely
form part of public discussion. Even private conversations about their lives
are generally restrained and tinged with a sense of guilt at breaking an important cultural norm. Pandit Nehru’s relations with Edwina Mountbatten were
known, but rarely pried into or discussed. Mahatma Gandhi’s complex
emotional involvement with Sarladevi Chaudharani, whom he once called his
‘spiritual wife’, were known in some circles, but no one thought it proper to
talk or write about it. It needed his grandson to mention it in his biography of
him, and even he was widely criticised for doing so, not because he had dented
the halo surrounding the national icon, for Gandhi is too great a man to be
damaged by such stories, but because it was not a matter of public interest and
pandered to prurient curiosity.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
319
It is this that partly explains the Indian tendency to avoid autobiography
or biography and, if it is written, to exclude personal details of a private
nature. Gandhi again provides a good example of this. When urged to write
his autobiography, he balked at the thought of making public his family
details, such as the way his father treated his wife and children, his weaknesses and indiscretions, the family disagreements and disputes, and so on.
These were private matters. Some of these were told to him or done in the
belief that they would be kept confidential, and to make them public was not
only improper but a breach of trust. When Gandhi eventually wrote his autobiography, he largely concentrated on the public or publicly relevant private
details of his life.
Since Indian social life is articulated in terms of the family, kinship
network and the caste and greatly values their solidarity, much of social
morality centres on these relations. Obligations to those involved in them are
clearly specified, socially enforced, and often internalised. The individual
defines her self-respect and judges her moral worth on the basis of her conscientious discharge of these obligations. The world beyond these relations,
however, is composed of strangers with whom one stands in no recognisable
relationship. It is governed by moral and cultural norms that are vague, thin,
without strong social sanctions, poorly internalised and violated with ease,
and hence it is seen as cold, impersonal and marked by fear and distrust. Since
their social morality is heavily kinship-centred, Indians have had considerable difficulty conceptualising and finding a respectable space for that
governing other kinds of relations. And since this is where the public sphere
is located, public morality, including the basic norms of civil and political
life, remains relatively weak in India.
Take something as simple as streets and public parks. Since they lie
outside the family home, they are seen as a no-man’s land, an empty space,
almost a wilderness. While the Indian home is clean and tidy, streets and even
parks are unacceptably dirty. Streets are used as garbage heaps, and rubbish
and leftover food is thrown around in parks. Even the front of the house is
sometimes turned into as a garbage heap. Since public spaces are not seen as
theirs, Indians generally take no care of them and expect the civic authority
to do so. And if it does not, as is generally the case, things are left as they are.
It is striking that few Indians protest against dirty streets and lack of pavements and zebra crossings, almost as if they cannot see how things can be
otherwise (Kakar and Kakar 2007, p. 21).
A similar attitude is at work in relation to one’s neighbourhood and even
the building in which one lives. A three-storeyed apartment building needs a
lift. Rather than build it themselves because it adds to the cost of the house,
builders sometimes leave a space for it, expecting the apartment owners to
decide whether to have one, when and of what kind. This is often a source of
conflict. Those on the ground floor will not pay their share of the cost of the
lift because they do not need it. Some on the upper floors might be single or
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
320
B. Parekh
young couples and prefer to climb up the steps. The cost of the lift has to be
divided among the remaining few, who either resent their disproportionate
share or cannot afford it. The building is left with a large eyesore in the
middle, which is either left as it is or turned into a huge garbage heap with
its rarely collected contents. If those on the upper floors needed the lift and
decided to install one, they will keep it locked and deny its use to others,
who then make their lives miserable or the lift unworkable in all too familiar
ways.
Hardly any of those involved think that the lift is a public good even
though they might not use it themselves and that their apartments are not
located on an island but are part of a building whose upkeep is in their
common interest. Nor is it appreciated that the huge gap left by the unbuilt
lift is an eyesore and a public nuisance. Even the long-term calculation that
the lift adds to the future value of one’s apartment or might become necessary
in one’s old age or when one has children is dismissed as too hypothetical to
be relevant. Since the idea of a public good presupposes that one views the
relevant facility from a wider communal point of view, it does not arise or
motivate people when there is no sense of community outside a kinship
network. It is striking that when the apartment owners belong to an extended
family or when the building is the property of a caste, the kind of problem
raised by the lift generally does not arise.
This attitude also informs the conduct of political life where several structural factors inherent in Indian society come into play and aggravate the situation. As the modern view of political life sketched earlier rightly
emphasises, the political community is marked by several distinguishing
features and can only be sustained by respecting its appropriate norms.
Members of a political community see themselves as citizens and conduct
their common affairs on the basis of what promotes the common or public
good. Qua citizens or bearers of a shared political identity, its members are
and recognise each other as equals. They conduct their affairs by means of
debate and discussion in which arguments and reasons alone count. The force
of an argument depends on its intrinsic merit and not on the status of the individual making it. Arguments are depersonalised, detached from those making
them, and their refutation in no way diminishes the dignity or the social status
of the individual involved.
The political community, further, is held together by common subscription to and respect for its shared institutions. Institutions involve offices,
which carry appropriate forms of authority and are governed by a clearly
stated body of rules and procedures. The office is depersonalised or separated
from its incumbent, and the latter, who acquires his authority from his office
not from his personal qualities and power, may not use it for purposes and in
a manner disallowed by it. Finally, like any other form of common life, the
political community presupposes that citizens will observe its norms, that
none of them will be a free rider, and that, if some were, they will invite
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
321
appropriate sanctions. In other words the political community requires a basic
trust between citizens and in public institutions.
Some of these constitutive features of political life are weak or poorly
developed in India. Thanks, among other things, to India’s centuries old caste
system, Indian self-consciousness is informed by a deep sense of status or
hierarchy. As Sudhir and Katharina Kakar, two keen and comparative students
of Indian society, remark, ‘Irrespective of his educational status and more than
in any other culture in the world, an Indian is a homo hierarchicus’ (see Kakar
and Kakar 2007, p. 8; for a fuller discussion, see Parekh 1999, ch. 2, especially
pp. 45 ff.). Individuals judge their self-worth and define their self-respect in
terms of their place in a hierarchy and their distance from others. One is nobody
unless one is somebody, and one is somebody only if one is above someone.
Even the erstwhile untouchables have their own hierarchy, and their own
untouchables! This is also evident in the way individuals are introduced to
strangers, beginning with a eulogy and emphasising their status. And calling
cards often list almost all their bearers’ degrees and past and present official
positions!
In an hierarchical society one dominates those below and debases oneself
before those above. Just as one expects the former to recognise their inferiority, one feels it one’s duty to recognise one’s own in relation to the latter. As
in other hierarchical societies, status difference in India infects one’s very
humanity and extends to all areas of life. Those of an inferior status are
expected to demonstrate their inferiority in all their relations. They may not
sit when their superiors are standing, should yield them their seats on a train
or a bus, do their errands for them, render them appropriate personal services,
and dare not disagree with them. Not surprisingly, individuals cannot take
even their basic dignity and self-respect for granted unless these are underpinned by an appropriate social status.1
The idea of basic human equality is not unfamiliar to India. Throughout
its history it has thrown up egalitarian movements, but these remained
marginal and did not alter the wider social structure. The decisive change
came with arrival of modernity which led to considerable moral and social
churning and culminated in India’s democracy at independence. Unlike
almost all other democracies, which introduced legal and political equality in
stages, India granted it to all its citizens more or less in one go. This was a
remarkable experiment in a society where over half the population was
below the poverty line, nearly two-thirds illiterate, and economic and social
inequalities were deep and firmly entrenched. Legal and political equality
has generated its own momentum and is leading to profound changes in
many areas of life. It also, however, faces considerable resistance from the
traditional ways of thought and life, and its transformative potential is emasculated. Equality remains largely confined to the legal and political spheres,
and has not yet significantly transformed the structure and quality of normal
relations between different social groups. It has not yet decisively changed
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
322
B. Parekh
the hierarchical view of life either, and undermined or even significantly
weakened the obsession with status. Subordinate groups use the language of
equality to push their claims against their superiors, but resist the similar
demands of those below them. This ideological incoherence generates deep
moral unease and even bad faith, and makes it difficult for them to unite
around the shared vision of a minimally egalitarian society.
The hierarchical view of life remains so deep that as the caste system is
weakening, wealth and political power have begun to take its place as the
bases of a new system of hierarchy. Unlike caste-based superiority, which is
ascriptive and cannot be taken away, that based on wealth and political power
is fragile and can be lost when fortunes turn. Not surprisingly, it breeds deep
anxiety and insecurity about one’s status, and leads to an intensely aggressive
and desperate concern not only to hold on to such wealth or power as one
already has but also to keep adding to it.
Wealth and political power are sources of inequality in all societies. In
India they are also sources of status or overall superiority with the result that
the ensuing inequality takes a particularly ugly form Since wealth and political power are taken to make one a superior person, that superiority needs to
manifest itself, and be acknowledged by others, in all areas of life. Wealth is
not only enjoyed but flaunted through such things as massive and extravagant
marriage receptions, a large number of attendants to herald one’s arrival,
exemption from norms that bind others, ability to humiliate others with impunity, and so on. Political power takes even uglier forms, largely because it is
more precarious, especially in a democracy, and less a result of one’s own
efforts. Those in power surround themselves by a crowd of hangers-on, and
the greater their official status the greater is their retinue. They demand and
generally get police escorts and security guards even when they do not need
these, because their purpose is not so much to protect as to affirm and
proclaim the superior status of the persons involved. More importantly they
refuse to be subject to the rules they rigorously impose on others. A security
officer at an airport or a public function who dares to ask a superior-looking
person for his identity card, invitation or security pass is sure to lose his job.2
If a corrupt politician ever gets caught and is convicted, a rare event in 60
years of independent India, he is not subject to the same regime as the other
inmates. He demands and often receives privileges they dare not ask for, and
turns the prison into a virtual home when he is in jail.
The pervasive sense of hierarchy affects Indian political life at all levels.
In every organisation, including political parties and government departments, information and decision-making are centralised. Those lower down
are afraid to take decisions lest they make mistakes or wrongly double-guess
their superior’s intentions, and feel paralysed without guidance from above.
The organisation is personalised, belongs to those at the top, and others do not
identify with it, see it as theirs, and build up a sense of collective solidarity.
This discourages collaborative or team work, and hinders institution-building.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
323
Those at the top are not used to criticism, and those at the bottom to making
it. If critical remarks are made, they tend to be taken personally and construed
as a challenge and even as a slight. Losing an argument is sometimes equated
with losing status, and hence as a form of humiliation. This inhibits rigorous
discussion of policy and critical feedback, and tends to result in hasty and
poorly thought-out decisions.
Great hierarchies and inequalities make it difficult for people to identify
with each other and develop common interests and a sense of mutual concern.
It is hardly surprising that the sense of social justice remains undeveloped in
India. The acute and heartbreaking poverty in which a quarter of the country
lives is seen as an embarrassment rather than a matter of national shame, and
provokes little moral outrage except among a small enlightened section of the
professional classes. The poor have no organised voice, and their problems
appear on the public agenda only when articulated in the language of and
taken up by castes. Since backward castes and marginalised social groups
have little faith in the state’s ability to deliver on long-term programmes, they
concentrate on their short-term interests, especially their share of the jobs
offered by the policy of positive discrimination. As a result there is no political pressure to deal with health, education, public sanitation and other
general matters that affect the well-being of all and need urgent attention.
Although the Indian public expenditure in these areas is one of the lowest in
the world, there has been little organised pressure to increase it.
One would normally expect political parties in India to develop and
campaign for comprehensive programmes of social and economic development, since they derive their support from coalitions of particular castes or
religious groups and the charismatic appeal of their leaders. However, they
see no need and feel no pressure to do so. They avoid internal institutional
structures lest these should be used to hold their leaders accountable to the
rank and file, or to bind them to a particular policy and restrict their freedom
to form self-serving alliances with other political parties. Political parties
rarely convene annual conferences where big issues can be publicly debated
and sensible policies formulated. Some even dispense with election manifestos. And when they do publish them, even their leaders have frequently been
caught out knowing nothing about their content. Not surprisingly elections are
not about ideologies but empty slogans such as garibi hatao (remove poverty)
and garvase kaho hum Hindu hai (say with pride that we are Hindus).
The Indian media are by and large fairly robust, and do a good job in holding the government accountable, airing public grievances, and giving the
country’s public life verve and vitality. They are not, however, very good at
debating great public issues and political programmes, and in any case they
are hardly the place to conduct a vigorous national debate on alternative visions
of the country. That role belongs to political parties and Parliament. Barring
those on the left, the former are heavily personalised and are little more than
power-seeking instruments. And although Parliament has sometimes been a
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
324
B. Parekh
scene of great debates, it is often too fractious and rowdy to allow serious
reflection on the country’s problems. Not surprisingly many important decisions are taken behind its back and bounced on the country. Even such great
changes as the programme of liberalisation that began in the 1990s and has
continued since, and the fundamental shift in foreign policy that began in 2001
and is symbolised by the proposed US–India deal on civil nuclear fuel, were
not the products of extensive national or parliamentary debates and careful
long-term planning. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that India today lacks
institutionalised public spaces where a sense of national purpose can be
articulated.3
Since Indian social morality is heavily centred on kinship, civil and political life lacks clearly established norms and remains vulnerable to the
constant intrusion of kinship based demands. Occupants of public offices are
subjected to all kinds of pressure from their family, relatives and caste
members. The son, the wife and even the son-in-law and daughter-in-law
expect to succeed their father, husband and in-laws as political leaders.
Distant relations come seeking jobs or promotion. Caste members want
public funds or land for a building. Kinsmen want to be adopted as candidates
in local, state level and parliamentary elections. Greatly surprised when asked
why he had appointed his son to an important job, a well-known politician
retorted, ‘Who then? Your son?’ His reply reflects a fairy widespread attitude
and makes good sense within his moral framework.
A similar attitude to public office travels lower down. If seats in the executive class on an Air India flight are empty, officials sometimes upgrade their
family members, friends and relatives from economy class. Their reasoning
is fairly simple, and in their view fully justified. The seats are empty and do
not belong to passengers. They, the officials, are in charge of the flight, and
hence at liberty to dispose of these seats as they see fit. And by enabling their
family members to travel in greater comfort, they are promoting their good
and discharging their obligations to them without harming anyone. The idea
that this is a misuse of their authority, that their office requires them to ensure
and their authority only extends to ensuring that passengers travel in the class
they have paid for, is not entertained. Nor is the obvious fact that filling the
executive class in this way damages the long-term interests of the airline,
whose executive class passengers abandon it in favour of another where their
higher fare ensures them comfortable travel in a less crowded and less noisy
cabin. The attitude shown by the airline officials is even more pronounced
among cabinet ministers. Air India is a national carrier and is supposed to
‘belong’ to the government whose ministers may therefore use it as they
please. When travelling abroad with their usual large retinues, the most senior
among them sometimes demand seats at a very short notice, and legitimate
passengers get off-loaded.4 Ministers turn up late for the flight, which then
gets delayed, sometimes by hours. Similar things happen on the trains. When
ministers visit places, roads are supposed to belong to them and closed off to
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
325
normal traffic. These and similar forms of behaviour are their ways of
showing that they are superior people and exempt from the rules and discipline that bind others.
When confronted with kinship based claims, some public leaders and
officials think that these outweigh or are morally as weighty as the duty of
impartiality entailed by their office, and either yield to them or work out some
kind of compromise. Others who rightly uphold the public norms governing
their office sometimes pay a heavy price. They are seen as sticklers for rules,
rigid, unduly fastidious, uncaring, lacking a commitment to their family and
relations. Their disappointed caste members might loosen or even sever their
ties with them, and deny their sons and daughters marriage partners. Their
family and kinsmen might become cool, sulk and refuse to extend such help
as they need in difficult times. One needs to be a moral hero to resist such pressures, and not all public figures and officials can or should be expected to be
one. It is not enough to expect public figures and officials to observe the norms
of public morality; social structure and public culture should not make it excessively difficult and socially costly for them to do so. Unless the traditional hold
of the family and kinship networks is loosened, and the demands based on them
are widely seen as illegitimate, public life in India remains morally fragile.
As I argued earlier, no common or shared good is possible without trust,
especially one as complex and impersonal as the good of the political community. If citizens thought that a sizeable number of them were free riders, they
would see no reason to respect the law, pay the taxes, and in general to bear
their share of the inevitable burden of common life. Trust develops when
people feel confident that others will observe the relevant norms, ideally
because they have internalised them, and that those transgressing them will
be subjected to appropriate sanctions. In India both these conditions generally
obtain within the family and the caste, and hence there is considerable trust
among their members. People make great sacrifices for each other in the
confident expectation that these will be reciprocated, and make informal loans
of huge sums of money in the firm knowledge that these will be returned.
The basic conditions of trust are poorly developed outside the kinship
network, and as a result there is much distrust and even cynicism in Indian
public life. Norms of public morality are not widely internalised and woven
into the individual’s sense of self-worth and self-respect. Their violations are
accepted as a normal part of political life, do not provoke a moral outrage, and
carry few social sanctions. In such a situation the state has a vital role to play
in fostering trust. It can lay down appropriate norms of public life, honour
those who exemplify them to the highest degree, and visit those transgressing
them with the full rigor of the law. This has not happened in India to the
extent that it should have. Leaders of independent India were acutely aware
of the problem and began very well.5 Drawing on the Indian tradition of rajdharma and Western norms of public morality, they laid down high standards
of public life, set excellent personal examples, and saw to it that their
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
326
B. Parekh
violations were appropriately punished. Their task was made easier by the
moral idealism of the independence movement, the determination of
the Indian people to make a new historical start, the social homogeneity of the
political class, and its relative insulation from the pressures of caste and
kinship networks.
As the older generation disappeared or failed to keep up the momentum,
and the democratic process brought in new social groups with their urgent
economic and other concerns, the public sphere began to lose its coherence.
Many of these groups were rightly bitter and felt that, since the upper castes
had traditionally used the machinery of government to pursue their interests,
it was now their turn to do the same. They were also rightly impatient, could
not trust the state to look after their interests, and aimed at quick, short-term
gains. Since they had no habit of working together, each group concentrated
on looking after itself, and predictably relied on the solidarity of kinship and
caste. If political institutions and norms stood in their way, they were to be
jettisoned. For their part the upper castes and vested interests are frightened
of losing control of the state and do the same.
The result is a drastic deterioration of India’s public life. Norms governing it are vague and subordinated to group interests, and the institutions of
the state are notoriously ineffective in enforcing them. In spite of widespread
criticism, criminals are elected to Parliament and state legislatures, currently
forming nearly a sixth of their membership. Those known to have grossly
misused their authority or violated basic norms of public life escape prosecution or secure acquittal by corrupt means and political blackmail. No norms
regulate, and no sanctions follow, the conduct of politicians offering their
loyalty to the highest bidder, or joining parties and espousing policies they
had explicitly disavowed during their election campaigns. It is hardly
surprising that citizens’ trust in political figures and institutions is extremely
low. And when someone of Dr Manmohan Singh’s exemplary integrity and
honesty becomes Prime Minister, he is hailed as a saviour and forgiven his
other limitations.
The general lack of trust means that few believe a word of what most
public figures say. This is of course a universal phenomenon, but it has
reached disturbing proportions in India. Politicians say things they do not
believe; indeed many of them do not believe in anything. Their actions are not
indicative of their convictions, for the actions are often politically motivated
and the convictions are fluid or offered to the highest bidder. Promises given
by political parties and governments are frequently broken and rarely trusted.
When political speech gets devalued in this way and to this degree, the very
lifeblood of political life is drained away. The lack of trust also extends to the
conduct of public figures and officials. Few Indians trust their impartiality or
expect them to judge the demands of the general public on their merit. Their
only hope therefore is to find ways of exerting ‘influence’ on decision-makers
by finding appropriate ‘connections’, using corrupt means, or both.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
327
Conclusion
In the light of our discussion, India faces two problems in relation to the structure of its private and public spheres.6 So far as the former is concerned, the
modern idea of individual autonomy is beginning to take roots and to generate
demands for greater personal freedom in organising one’s life. Indians
however continue to place high value on the family and kinship networks and
the obligations that these entail. They are rightly anxious that autonomy
should not lead to narrow and aggressive individualism and a social climate
of loneliness, abandonment and insecurity, as it has done in much of the West.
Their problem, therefore, which is in no way unique to India, is how to reconcile individual autonomy with the rich world of social relations.
India’s public sphere is in a perilous state and faces even more acute problems. Its regeneration requires a culture of equality and an end to the deeply
ingrained hierarchical consciousness. It requires widespread recognition that
common life in different areas, such as a shared building, streets and parks,
civic associations and above all the political community, has its own norms
and constraints, and cannot be sustained if its members take a purely instrumental and narrowly self-centred view of it. Regeneration of the public
sphere also necessitates a greater emphasis than hitherto on the shared identity of citizenship. Unlike most of the modern West, India recognises the role
of social, ethnic, religious and other identities in the public sphere, partly
because of the compulsions of its social structure, partly to ensure peace and
stability, and partly because many Indians think that these identities enrich
and have a rightful place in public life. India has, however, swung to the other
extreme. It has allowed these identities to colonise public life, and ignored the
vital importance of shared citizenship without which they lack a coordinating
and regulative principle.7
In its challenging task of restructuring its private and public spheres and
establishing a proper relation between the two, India has much to learn from
the West. However since its history, traditions, social structure and moral
aspirations are different, it cannot copy the West and needs to develop its own
distinct model. As of now the direction of its development remains confused
and unclear.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to my good friends Professor Noël O’Sullivan for several long
discussions on the subject, and Professor Thomas Pantham for his helpful comments
on this paper.
Notes
1. Mehta (2003). The book is a powerful Tocquevillian critique of India’s deeply
unequal social structure.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
328
B. Parekh
2. Commenting on his inability to prevent the gross misuse of the practice of putting
a red or a blue light on the roof of the car to evade normal traffic regulations, the
head of police for New Delhi remarked that his police were too ‘junior in social
status to the occupants of the car’ to have the confidence to stop them (cited in
Luce 2006, p. 203).
3. See Mehta (2003), p. 129. See also p. 134 where he argues that ‘Indian democracy
is extraordinarily nondeliberative, especially about policy implications that have
a long-run impact.’
4. Edward Luce cites an interesting example. Although he and his two friends had
bought expensive tickets to watch a cricket match between India and England,
they were denied entry to the ground along with thousands of other ticket-holders,
many of whom had travelled long distances. This was so because the President of
the Delhi Cricket Club, who was also India’s law minister, had printed and sent
out thousands of complimentary tickets for VIPs. Since the ground was big
enough only to hold the latter, most of the others were turned away, with mounted
police charging an angry crowd (Luce 2006, p. 204).
5. For some amusing examples and a game theory-based analysis of Indian behaviour, see Raghunathan (2006).
6. For a fuller discussion see Parekh (2006). See also the articles by Mahajan,
Beteille, Omvedt and Jain in Mahajan and Reifeld (2003).
7. For a useful discussion of this as well as the cultural context of the private - public
distinction in India, see Madan (2006), chap. 13.
Note on contributor
Bhikhu Parekh is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Westminster
and Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull. He is a Fellow
of the British Academy, President of the Academy for Social Sciences, and a Labour
member of the House of Lords. He is the author of several books, his latest being A
new politics of identity (2008).
References
Kakar, S. and Kakar, K., 2007. The Indians: Portrait of a people. London: Penguin.
Luce, Edward, 2006. In spite of the gods: The strange rise of modern India. London:
Little Brown.
Madan, T.N., 2006. Images of the world: Essays on religion, secularism and culture.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Mahajan, G. and Reifeld, H., eds, 2003. The public and the private: Issues of democratic citizenship. New Delhi: Sage.
Mehta, P.B., 2003. The burden of democracy. New Delhi: Penguin.
Parekh, Bhikhu, 1999. Colonialism, tradition and reform. New Delhi: Sage.
Parekh, Bhikhu, 2006. Limits of the Indian political imagination. In: V.R. Mehta and
Thomas Pantham, eds. Political ideas in modern India: Thematic explorations.
New Delhi: Sage.
Raghunathan, V., 2006. Games Indians play: Why we are the way we are. New
Delhi: Penguin.
On: 12 August 2014, At: 21:38
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,
UK
Critical Review of International
Social and Political Philosophy
Publication details, including instructions for authors
and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fcri20
Private and public spheres in
India
Bhikhu Parekh
a
a
University of Westminster , London, UK
Published online: 25 Jun 2009.
To cite this article: Bhikhu Parekh (2009) Private and public spheres in India,
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 12:2, 313-328, DOI:
10.1080/13698230902892218
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230902892218
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the
information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or
suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed
in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the
views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should
not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,
claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities
whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection
with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2009, 313–328
Private and public spheres in India
Bhikhu Parekh*
University of Westminster, London, UK
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical
10.1080/13698230902892218
FCRI_A_389393.sgm
1369-8230
Original
Taylor
202009
12
Professor
[email protected]
000002009
and
&
Review
Article
Francis
BhikhuParekh
(print)/1743-8772
Francis
of International
Ltd
(online)
Social and Political Philosophy
In the traditional Indian way of life, the social realm consisting of the
joint family, the kinship network and the caste plays a dominant role, and
colonises both the private and public spheres. This is challenged by the
increasingly influential ideas of personal autonomy, equal citizenship
and a democratically constituted public realm. The tension between the
two provides a clue to much of contemporary Indian political life. India
cannot successfully cope with it without redefining the boundaries
between private and public spheres and developing appropriate norms
for them.
Keywords: autonomy; caste; family; hierarchy; kinship; marriage;
privacy; public good; status; trust
Human activities and relations can be classified in several ways. The privatepublic distinction is one of them. It involves distinguishing them in terms of
the two closely related ideas of who has access to and exercises control over
them. An activity or a relation is private if access to and control over it are
limited to a particular individual or group of individuals. To say that an individual’s beliefs, opinions or relations to his wife and children are private is to
say that they are entirely a matter for him, that he is not accountable to others
for them, and that they may not pry into or interfere with them. The term
public refers to what is open or in principle accessible to all and where they
may legitimately participate or take an active interest. Parks and streets are
public in this sense, and so are books, cinemas, modes of transport and political institutions. By the terms private and public sphere, I refer to areas of life
where the activities and relations involved are respectively of a private or
public nature as I have defined these terms.
No area of human life is inherently private or public. Where and how
firmly the line is drawn between them, what activities are placed under each,
and the relative status or importance of the two spheres varies from society to
society. There is nothing inherently private about even the basic biological
functions and sexuality. They are so considered in most modern societies, but
many premodern and even some contemporary societies take a different
*Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1369-8230 print/ISSN 1743-8772 online
© 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13698230902892218
http://www.informaworld.com
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
314
B. Parekh
view. In some societies, again, collective life is seen as the ruler’s fiefdom or
private property, and he is free to conduct it as he pleases; in others it is a
public activity involving all citizens. In classical Athens a high value was
placed on political participation, seen as the highest expression of human
freedom, and private life, associated with the inherent compulsions of human
life and considered a realm of necessity, signified privation. In modern society the opposite is the case. Privacy is associated with freedom and privilege
and is greatly cherished, whereas political life is assigned a largely instrumental value.
The fact that an activity, a relationship or an area of life is considered
private does not mean that it is exempt from social regulation. Directly or
indirectly it involves or affects others. And even when it does not, society
has norms concerning the proper way to undertake it. In modern Western
society in which privacy is greatly valued, individuals are free to marry
whoever they like, but their spouses must be human beings (not animals), of
a certain age, outside a certain degree of consanguinity, and in most societies of the ‘opposite’ sex. Their sexual preferences are their own business,
but these should not involve children, bestiality and, in most societies,
sodomy. They may believe what they like and live as they please, but their
beliefs should not incite hatred against other groups, and their ways of life
should not cause a nuisance to their neighbours, disturb public peace, violate
norms of decency, or endanger public health. Although regulated by social
conventions and even laws, the relevant human activity or area of life is
private and free from others’ interference because the conventions and laws
are regulative and not prescriptive. They do not dictate choices, only specify
the general conditions all choices should meet. So long as individuals do so,
they may make whatever choices they like without being answerable to
others.
Thanks largely to the spread of the idea of individual autonomy from the
eighteenth century onwards, modern Western society has developed a historically unique manner of defining and distinguishing private and public
spheres. Since it represents important values and provides a necessary backdrop to the discussion of the Indian way of life, a brief sketch of its basic
outline would be useful.
The idea of autonomy implies that individuals see themselves as selfdetermining agents, masters of themselves, and greatly value and indeed
define their dignity in terms of their freedom to run their lives themselves. It
forms the basis of articulating human life into three broad areas, depending
on the kind and degree of autonomy they allow. First, private sphere or an
area of life where individuals are free to organise their personal lives as they
please. Second, civil society or the area where they enter into uncoerced relations with others in pursuit of self-interest, pleasure or common purposes.
Third, the political community or the area of life where individuals are necessarily part of a collective life and are subject to its constraints.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
315
So far as their personal life is concerned, autonomous individuals take
pride in organising it as they please. They make their own choices, marry who
they fancy, follow the career that interests them most, form their own views
and beliefs, decide the size of their family, what tastes and interests to cultivate, and so on. These are private matters for which they are not answerable
to anyone and whose inviolability is protected by social and legal sanctions.
Indeed a culture is developed in which individuals internalise respect not only
for their own but also for others’ autonomy, and refrain from interfering with
choices of even those who are closest to them.
In the nineteenth century, the ideas of autonomy and privacy came to be
associated with the rather different belief that individuals find their fulfilment
and are ‘truly themselves’ only in the world of intimate relations represented
by the family. Unlike the wider world, which was composed of strangers and
governed by rules and thus ‘artificial’, the family represented a home, a place
where one expressed oneself without inhibition and constraints. It was
governed by love and lifelong commitment, and provided an environment in
which to explore and enjoy marital intimacy and nurture children. This belief
further reinforced the importance and inviolability of the private sphere.
Civil society is the realm of associative freedom. It includes freely chosen
activities, relations and groups in which individuals come together to pursue
common purposes. All associations are voluntary, and their members join and
leave them at will. Unlike the family, civil society is not based on kinship but
consent and shared interests. It involves strangers with whom one’s relations
are transactional and episodic as well those to whom one is bound by the ties
of varying degrees of closeness. It is governed by rules and social conventions,
whose observance constitutes the practice of civility or ‘civilised’ way of life.
The political community is a form of civil society but with important
differences. It is compulsory in the sense that one cannot avoid being a
member of it. One may of course leave one’s community, but only by joining
another. It is also coercive in that it enjoys the monopoly of violence and uses
it as the last resort to ensure compliance with its laws. It has the power of life
and death over its members and may require them to fight in its wars and
impose capital punishment. The principle of individual autonomy, however,
requires that the political community should become a voluntary association
as much as possible. Its authority should be derived from the consent of its
citizens. It should protect the privacy of the family and the associative freedom of the civil society, and pursue only those purposes that its citizens
approve. The political community is not the private property of its ruler but a
res publica, a public institution serving public good in a publicly accountable
manner. Its affairs are their affairs and they have a right to debate, discuss,
form and communicate their views on how these should be conducted. As a
public activity, governing the country should be transparent, based on
publicly accessible information, responsive to public opinion, and conducted
in the full light of publicity.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
316
B. Parekh
The political community understood in this way is underpinned by several
interrelated beliefs and practices. It involves freedom of expression, including
that of the press. It also involves equal citizenship. Autonomous individuals
are equal in their moral status and demand equal rights. They possess the
requisite basic capacity to participate in its affairs, and have an equal stake in
them. Since the state speaks in the name of them all and implicates them in
its decisions, each of them has the right to ensure that he or she is happy with
these. Democracy in the sense of equal citizenship and universal franchise is
entailed by the idea of individual autonomy, and over time and after a considerable struggle it became an integral feature of the modern Western political
community.
Since governing the political community is a public activity, it entails a
new, public, identity that is governed by its own appropriate norms and insulated against the intrusion of other identities. Citizenship is a public status,
and citizens are public persons who are expected to pursue public good and
display public spirit. They should vote and form their opinions on the basis
of what best promotes the good of the community rather than what best serves
their personal interests. And they should discuss public affairs in terms of
public considerations and public reason, not their private beliefs and intuitions. This is just as and even more true of public officials. They occupy
public offices, which are positions of trust, are intended to achieve clearly
stated public purposes and are governed by rules and procedures. They are
therefore expected to rise above their personal interests, social affiliations and
familial ties, and take decisions on the basis of an impartial assessment of all
relevant interests.
The modern Western way of structuring human life outlined above is not
without its critics. So far as the inviolability of the private sphere is
concerned, feminists argue that it privatises and privileges a vital area of
human life, places women at the mercy of the dominant male, and protects
and intensifies gender inequality. Republican writers concentrate on children,
and argue that as the nursery of future citizens, the family should be viewed
not as a private but as a semi-public institution and brought under greater
public control. Socialist writers argue that the privatised family breeds
partiality and selfishness, constitutes a bastion of privilege, and needs to be
suitably redefined and reconstituted. Nationalists think that it cuts off the
family from the nation, and fails to foster such virtues as love of the nation
and the willingness to subordinate personal and familial interests and loyalties to those of the country.
These writers also question the current structure of the political community. For feminists it defines public life in terms of and privileges masculine
concerns and sensibilities, and has a patriarchal bias. For republicans it is
individualistic, takes an instrumental view of political life, does not provide
adequate formal and informal spaces for participation, and fails to foster
civic and political virtues. For socialists the modern political community is
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
317
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
atomistic, impersonal, abstract, tied to narrow class interests, and needs to
embody the ethos of fraternity and solidarity. Nationalists think that it is
heavily biased towards individual rights, ‘mechanical’ in its operations, too
impersonal in its ethos to engage the hearts of its citizens, and needs to be
reorganised along familial lines. While these and related criticisms have led
to some modification in the structures of private and public spheres and
made their boundary less rigid, the basic belief that they are autonomous,
separate and governed by different norms continues to command widespread
consensus.
India
The traditional Indian way of structuring human life is significantly different
from its modern Western counterpart. This is largely because like the premodern West, Indians do not place much value on individual autonomy. Although
the latter has begun to enter Indian life and exercises varying degrees of influence on different sections of society and in different areas, its reach remains
rather limited and its impact uneven. The tension it has created and the way
in which it modifies and is in turn modified by the traditional ways of life and
thought provides an important clue to contemporary Indian society.
In the traditional Indian view which continues to underpin much of Indian
life, the individual is embedded in a web of social relations. These include the
caste, the extended kinship network, and above all the family, defined broadly
to include parents, siblings, wife and children. The individual grows up in the
midst of these relations, feels different degrees of attachment and loyalty to
those involved, and inherits all manner of moral and prudential obligations to
them. The obligations arise from several sources such as the ties of kinship,
common interests, past favours done to oneself or one parents, and the
expected or hoped for future help. When one falls on bad times, those most
likely to help are one’s kinsmen or members and welfare associations of one’s
caste. This is particularly so because the welfare services provided by the state
were and remain exiguous, bureaucratic and often corrupt. At a different
level, one would need to find a spouse for one’s siblings or children, and that
again depends on whether one is a caste member of good standing. A member
of one’s family might fall ill and need long-term care or solace and support,
and that too comes most readily from the kinship network and the caste.
The family is at the heart of the Indian life. The individual feels an integral
part of it, and is bound to his parents and to a lesser extent his brothers and
sisters by the deepest ties of love and commitment. They also generally make
great sacrifices to bring him up and to give him as good a start in life as their
resources allow, thereby placing him in their debt. Thanks to all this, the individual does not see his life as his to do what he likes with it. It is made possible
by others and is tied to theirs by the deepest bonds. They have therefore
claims on him which he is not at liberty to disregard. His decisions concerning
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
318
B. Parekh
marriage, career, residence, pattern of life, etc. are all expected to be guided
by the interests of the family. And since one’s parents know one as well as
one does oneself, and additionally have greater experience and wisdom and
one’s long-term interest at their heart, their advice in these matters is sought
and often followed.
Marriage is a relation not between two individuals but two families, and
signifies not a new relationship but the addition of a new female member to
the existing family. Since she brings with her a different attitude to life, has
her premarital attachments and can threaten the stability of the family, parents
and even siblings take great care, and use all kinds of incentives and threats,
to ensure that the husband-wife relationship does not become autonomous
and self-contained. When children appear on the scene, their grandparents
exercise considerable influence over and sometimes even take control of their
upbringing, often with the approval of the parents. In many Indian families
children grow up attached as much to their grandparents and even their uncles
and aunts as to their parents. And adults are expected to make no moral
distinction between their own children and those of their siblings and to pay
equal regard to their interests.
Personal autonomy and privacy are not much valued in Indian society.
There is nothing private from members of one’s family, and there is no desire
to clearly mark off one’s life from theirs and claim exclusive control over it.
While there is little privacy within the family, the privacy of the family is
greatly valued. What goes on within the family may not be disclosed to
outsiders, and those who do so incur its wrath. Outsiders also generally
respect the privacy of the family and take no undue interest in its internal
affairs. Adulterous affairs within a family, for example, might be noticed by
outsiders, but are generally not talked about and made a matter of gossip.
Thanks to the strong sense of propriety and respect for the privacy of the
family, the usual ‘kiss and tell’ stories by divorced spouses or jilted
mistresses are relatively rare in India, and those breaking the norm are looked
down upon and even ostracised.
Even the private lives of well known public leaders are rarely a subject of
public curiosity. And when stories about these do the social round, they rarely
form part of public discussion. Even private conversations about their lives
are generally restrained and tinged with a sense of guilt at breaking an important cultural norm. Pandit Nehru’s relations with Edwina Mountbatten were
known, but rarely pried into or discussed. Mahatma Gandhi’s complex
emotional involvement with Sarladevi Chaudharani, whom he once called his
‘spiritual wife’, were known in some circles, but no one thought it proper to
talk or write about it. It needed his grandson to mention it in his biography of
him, and even he was widely criticised for doing so, not because he had dented
the halo surrounding the national icon, for Gandhi is too great a man to be
damaged by such stories, but because it was not a matter of public interest and
pandered to prurient curiosity.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
319
It is this that partly explains the Indian tendency to avoid autobiography
or biography and, if it is written, to exclude personal details of a private
nature. Gandhi again provides a good example of this. When urged to write
his autobiography, he balked at the thought of making public his family
details, such as the way his father treated his wife and children, his weaknesses and indiscretions, the family disagreements and disputes, and so on.
These were private matters. Some of these were told to him or done in the
belief that they would be kept confidential, and to make them public was not
only improper but a breach of trust. When Gandhi eventually wrote his autobiography, he largely concentrated on the public or publicly relevant private
details of his life.
Since Indian social life is articulated in terms of the family, kinship
network and the caste and greatly values their solidarity, much of social
morality centres on these relations. Obligations to those involved in them are
clearly specified, socially enforced, and often internalised. The individual
defines her self-respect and judges her moral worth on the basis of her conscientious discharge of these obligations. The world beyond these relations,
however, is composed of strangers with whom one stands in no recognisable
relationship. It is governed by moral and cultural norms that are vague, thin,
without strong social sanctions, poorly internalised and violated with ease,
and hence it is seen as cold, impersonal and marked by fear and distrust. Since
their social morality is heavily kinship-centred, Indians have had considerable difficulty conceptualising and finding a respectable space for that
governing other kinds of relations. And since this is where the public sphere
is located, public morality, including the basic norms of civil and political
life, remains relatively weak in India.
Take something as simple as streets and public parks. Since they lie
outside the family home, they are seen as a no-man’s land, an empty space,
almost a wilderness. While the Indian home is clean and tidy, streets and even
parks are unacceptably dirty. Streets are used as garbage heaps, and rubbish
and leftover food is thrown around in parks. Even the front of the house is
sometimes turned into as a garbage heap. Since public spaces are not seen as
theirs, Indians generally take no care of them and expect the civic authority
to do so. And if it does not, as is generally the case, things are left as they are.
It is striking that few Indians protest against dirty streets and lack of pavements and zebra crossings, almost as if they cannot see how things can be
otherwise (Kakar and Kakar 2007, p. 21).
A similar attitude is at work in relation to one’s neighbourhood and even
the building in which one lives. A three-storeyed apartment building needs a
lift. Rather than build it themselves because it adds to the cost of the house,
builders sometimes leave a space for it, expecting the apartment owners to
decide whether to have one, when and of what kind. This is often a source of
conflict. Those on the ground floor will not pay their share of the cost of the
lift because they do not need it. Some on the upper floors might be single or
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
320
B. Parekh
young couples and prefer to climb up the steps. The cost of the lift has to be
divided among the remaining few, who either resent their disproportionate
share or cannot afford it. The building is left with a large eyesore in the
middle, which is either left as it is or turned into a huge garbage heap with
its rarely collected contents. If those on the upper floors needed the lift and
decided to install one, they will keep it locked and deny its use to others,
who then make their lives miserable or the lift unworkable in all too familiar
ways.
Hardly any of those involved think that the lift is a public good even
though they might not use it themselves and that their apartments are not
located on an island but are part of a building whose upkeep is in their
common interest. Nor is it appreciated that the huge gap left by the unbuilt
lift is an eyesore and a public nuisance. Even the long-term calculation that
the lift adds to the future value of one’s apartment or might become necessary
in one’s old age or when one has children is dismissed as too hypothetical to
be relevant. Since the idea of a public good presupposes that one views the
relevant facility from a wider communal point of view, it does not arise or
motivate people when there is no sense of community outside a kinship
network. It is striking that when the apartment owners belong to an extended
family or when the building is the property of a caste, the kind of problem
raised by the lift generally does not arise.
This attitude also informs the conduct of political life where several structural factors inherent in Indian society come into play and aggravate the situation. As the modern view of political life sketched earlier rightly
emphasises, the political community is marked by several distinguishing
features and can only be sustained by respecting its appropriate norms.
Members of a political community see themselves as citizens and conduct
their common affairs on the basis of what promotes the common or public
good. Qua citizens or bearers of a shared political identity, its members are
and recognise each other as equals. They conduct their affairs by means of
debate and discussion in which arguments and reasons alone count. The force
of an argument depends on its intrinsic merit and not on the status of the individual making it. Arguments are depersonalised, detached from those making
them, and their refutation in no way diminishes the dignity or the social status
of the individual involved.
The political community, further, is held together by common subscription to and respect for its shared institutions. Institutions involve offices,
which carry appropriate forms of authority and are governed by a clearly
stated body of rules and procedures. The office is depersonalised or separated
from its incumbent, and the latter, who acquires his authority from his office
not from his personal qualities and power, may not use it for purposes and in
a manner disallowed by it. Finally, like any other form of common life, the
political community presupposes that citizens will observe its norms, that
none of them will be a free rider, and that, if some were, they will invite
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
321
appropriate sanctions. In other words the political community requires a basic
trust between citizens and in public institutions.
Some of these constitutive features of political life are weak or poorly
developed in India. Thanks, among other things, to India’s centuries old caste
system, Indian self-consciousness is informed by a deep sense of status or
hierarchy. As Sudhir and Katharina Kakar, two keen and comparative students
of Indian society, remark, ‘Irrespective of his educational status and more than
in any other culture in the world, an Indian is a homo hierarchicus’ (see Kakar
and Kakar 2007, p. 8; for a fuller discussion, see Parekh 1999, ch. 2, especially
pp. 45 ff.). Individuals judge their self-worth and define their self-respect in
terms of their place in a hierarchy and their distance from others. One is nobody
unless one is somebody, and one is somebody only if one is above someone.
Even the erstwhile untouchables have their own hierarchy, and their own
untouchables! This is also evident in the way individuals are introduced to
strangers, beginning with a eulogy and emphasising their status. And calling
cards often list almost all their bearers’ degrees and past and present official
positions!
In an hierarchical society one dominates those below and debases oneself
before those above. Just as one expects the former to recognise their inferiority, one feels it one’s duty to recognise one’s own in relation to the latter. As
in other hierarchical societies, status difference in India infects one’s very
humanity and extends to all areas of life. Those of an inferior status are
expected to demonstrate their inferiority in all their relations. They may not
sit when their superiors are standing, should yield them their seats on a train
or a bus, do their errands for them, render them appropriate personal services,
and dare not disagree with them. Not surprisingly, individuals cannot take
even their basic dignity and self-respect for granted unless these are underpinned by an appropriate social status.1
The idea of basic human equality is not unfamiliar to India. Throughout
its history it has thrown up egalitarian movements, but these remained
marginal and did not alter the wider social structure. The decisive change
came with arrival of modernity which led to considerable moral and social
churning and culminated in India’s democracy at independence. Unlike
almost all other democracies, which introduced legal and political equality in
stages, India granted it to all its citizens more or less in one go. This was a
remarkable experiment in a society where over half the population was
below the poverty line, nearly two-thirds illiterate, and economic and social
inequalities were deep and firmly entrenched. Legal and political equality
has generated its own momentum and is leading to profound changes in
many areas of life. It also, however, faces considerable resistance from the
traditional ways of thought and life, and its transformative potential is emasculated. Equality remains largely confined to the legal and political spheres,
and has not yet significantly transformed the structure and quality of normal
relations between different social groups. It has not yet decisively changed
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
322
B. Parekh
the hierarchical view of life either, and undermined or even significantly
weakened the obsession with status. Subordinate groups use the language of
equality to push their claims against their superiors, but resist the similar
demands of those below them. This ideological incoherence generates deep
moral unease and even bad faith, and makes it difficult for them to unite
around the shared vision of a minimally egalitarian society.
The hierarchical view of life remains so deep that as the caste system is
weakening, wealth and political power have begun to take its place as the
bases of a new system of hierarchy. Unlike caste-based superiority, which is
ascriptive and cannot be taken away, that based on wealth and political power
is fragile and can be lost when fortunes turn. Not surprisingly, it breeds deep
anxiety and insecurity about one’s status, and leads to an intensely aggressive
and desperate concern not only to hold on to such wealth or power as one
already has but also to keep adding to it.
Wealth and political power are sources of inequality in all societies. In
India they are also sources of status or overall superiority with the result that
the ensuing inequality takes a particularly ugly form Since wealth and political power are taken to make one a superior person, that superiority needs to
manifest itself, and be acknowledged by others, in all areas of life. Wealth is
not only enjoyed but flaunted through such things as massive and extravagant
marriage receptions, a large number of attendants to herald one’s arrival,
exemption from norms that bind others, ability to humiliate others with impunity, and so on. Political power takes even uglier forms, largely because it is
more precarious, especially in a democracy, and less a result of one’s own
efforts. Those in power surround themselves by a crowd of hangers-on, and
the greater their official status the greater is their retinue. They demand and
generally get police escorts and security guards even when they do not need
these, because their purpose is not so much to protect as to affirm and
proclaim the superior status of the persons involved. More importantly they
refuse to be subject to the rules they rigorously impose on others. A security
officer at an airport or a public function who dares to ask a superior-looking
person for his identity card, invitation or security pass is sure to lose his job.2
If a corrupt politician ever gets caught and is convicted, a rare event in 60
years of independent India, he is not subject to the same regime as the other
inmates. He demands and often receives privileges they dare not ask for, and
turns the prison into a virtual home when he is in jail.
The pervasive sense of hierarchy affects Indian political life at all levels.
In every organisation, including political parties and government departments, information and decision-making are centralised. Those lower down
are afraid to take decisions lest they make mistakes or wrongly double-guess
their superior’s intentions, and feel paralysed without guidance from above.
The organisation is personalised, belongs to those at the top, and others do not
identify with it, see it as theirs, and build up a sense of collective solidarity.
This discourages collaborative or team work, and hinders institution-building.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
323
Those at the top are not used to criticism, and those at the bottom to making
it. If critical remarks are made, they tend to be taken personally and construed
as a challenge and even as a slight. Losing an argument is sometimes equated
with losing status, and hence as a form of humiliation. This inhibits rigorous
discussion of policy and critical feedback, and tends to result in hasty and
poorly thought-out decisions.
Great hierarchies and inequalities make it difficult for people to identify
with each other and develop common interests and a sense of mutual concern.
It is hardly surprising that the sense of social justice remains undeveloped in
India. The acute and heartbreaking poverty in which a quarter of the country
lives is seen as an embarrassment rather than a matter of national shame, and
provokes little moral outrage except among a small enlightened section of the
professional classes. The poor have no organised voice, and their problems
appear on the public agenda only when articulated in the language of and
taken up by castes. Since backward castes and marginalised social groups
have little faith in the state’s ability to deliver on long-term programmes, they
concentrate on their short-term interests, especially their share of the jobs
offered by the policy of positive discrimination. As a result there is no political pressure to deal with health, education, public sanitation and other
general matters that affect the well-being of all and need urgent attention.
Although the Indian public expenditure in these areas is one of the lowest in
the world, there has been little organised pressure to increase it.
One would normally expect political parties in India to develop and
campaign for comprehensive programmes of social and economic development, since they derive their support from coalitions of particular castes or
religious groups and the charismatic appeal of their leaders. However, they
see no need and feel no pressure to do so. They avoid internal institutional
structures lest these should be used to hold their leaders accountable to the
rank and file, or to bind them to a particular policy and restrict their freedom
to form self-serving alliances with other political parties. Political parties
rarely convene annual conferences where big issues can be publicly debated
and sensible policies formulated. Some even dispense with election manifestos. And when they do publish them, even their leaders have frequently been
caught out knowing nothing about their content. Not surprisingly elections are
not about ideologies but empty slogans such as garibi hatao (remove poverty)
and garvase kaho hum Hindu hai (say with pride that we are Hindus).
The Indian media are by and large fairly robust, and do a good job in holding the government accountable, airing public grievances, and giving the
country’s public life verve and vitality. They are not, however, very good at
debating great public issues and political programmes, and in any case they
are hardly the place to conduct a vigorous national debate on alternative visions
of the country. That role belongs to political parties and Parliament. Barring
those on the left, the former are heavily personalised and are little more than
power-seeking instruments. And although Parliament has sometimes been a
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
324
B. Parekh
scene of great debates, it is often too fractious and rowdy to allow serious
reflection on the country’s problems. Not surprisingly many important decisions are taken behind its back and bounced on the country. Even such great
changes as the programme of liberalisation that began in the 1990s and has
continued since, and the fundamental shift in foreign policy that began in 2001
and is symbolised by the proposed US–India deal on civil nuclear fuel, were
not the products of extensive national or parliamentary debates and careful
long-term planning. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that India today lacks
institutionalised public spaces where a sense of national purpose can be
articulated.3
Since Indian social morality is heavily centred on kinship, civil and political life lacks clearly established norms and remains vulnerable to the
constant intrusion of kinship based demands. Occupants of public offices are
subjected to all kinds of pressure from their family, relatives and caste
members. The son, the wife and even the son-in-law and daughter-in-law
expect to succeed their father, husband and in-laws as political leaders.
Distant relations come seeking jobs or promotion. Caste members want
public funds or land for a building. Kinsmen want to be adopted as candidates
in local, state level and parliamentary elections. Greatly surprised when asked
why he had appointed his son to an important job, a well-known politician
retorted, ‘Who then? Your son?’ His reply reflects a fairy widespread attitude
and makes good sense within his moral framework.
A similar attitude to public office travels lower down. If seats in the executive class on an Air India flight are empty, officials sometimes upgrade their
family members, friends and relatives from economy class. Their reasoning
is fairly simple, and in their view fully justified. The seats are empty and do
not belong to passengers. They, the officials, are in charge of the flight, and
hence at liberty to dispose of these seats as they see fit. And by enabling their
family members to travel in greater comfort, they are promoting their good
and discharging their obligations to them without harming anyone. The idea
that this is a misuse of their authority, that their office requires them to ensure
and their authority only extends to ensuring that passengers travel in the class
they have paid for, is not entertained. Nor is the obvious fact that filling the
executive class in this way damages the long-term interests of the airline,
whose executive class passengers abandon it in favour of another where their
higher fare ensures them comfortable travel in a less crowded and less noisy
cabin. The attitude shown by the airline officials is even more pronounced
among cabinet ministers. Air India is a national carrier and is supposed to
‘belong’ to the government whose ministers may therefore use it as they
please. When travelling abroad with their usual large retinues, the most senior
among them sometimes demand seats at a very short notice, and legitimate
passengers get off-loaded.4 Ministers turn up late for the flight, which then
gets delayed, sometimes by hours. Similar things happen on the trains. When
ministers visit places, roads are supposed to belong to them and closed off to
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
325
normal traffic. These and similar forms of behaviour are their ways of
showing that they are superior people and exempt from the rules and discipline that bind others.
When confronted with kinship based claims, some public leaders and
officials think that these outweigh or are morally as weighty as the duty of
impartiality entailed by their office, and either yield to them or work out some
kind of compromise. Others who rightly uphold the public norms governing
their office sometimes pay a heavy price. They are seen as sticklers for rules,
rigid, unduly fastidious, uncaring, lacking a commitment to their family and
relations. Their disappointed caste members might loosen or even sever their
ties with them, and deny their sons and daughters marriage partners. Their
family and kinsmen might become cool, sulk and refuse to extend such help
as they need in difficult times. One needs to be a moral hero to resist such pressures, and not all public figures and officials can or should be expected to be
one. It is not enough to expect public figures and officials to observe the norms
of public morality; social structure and public culture should not make it excessively difficult and socially costly for them to do so. Unless the traditional hold
of the family and kinship networks is loosened, and the demands based on them
are widely seen as illegitimate, public life in India remains morally fragile.
As I argued earlier, no common or shared good is possible without trust,
especially one as complex and impersonal as the good of the political community. If citizens thought that a sizeable number of them were free riders, they
would see no reason to respect the law, pay the taxes, and in general to bear
their share of the inevitable burden of common life. Trust develops when
people feel confident that others will observe the relevant norms, ideally
because they have internalised them, and that those transgressing them will
be subjected to appropriate sanctions. In India both these conditions generally
obtain within the family and the caste, and hence there is considerable trust
among their members. People make great sacrifices for each other in the
confident expectation that these will be reciprocated, and make informal loans
of huge sums of money in the firm knowledge that these will be returned.
The basic conditions of trust are poorly developed outside the kinship
network, and as a result there is much distrust and even cynicism in Indian
public life. Norms of public morality are not widely internalised and woven
into the individual’s sense of self-worth and self-respect. Their violations are
accepted as a normal part of political life, do not provoke a moral outrage, and
carry few social sanctions. In such a situation the state has a vital role to play
in fostering trust. It can lay down appropriate norms of public life, honour
those who exemplify them to the highest degree, and visit those transgressing
them with the full rigor of the law. This has not happened in India to the
extent that it should have. Leaders of independent India were acutely aware
of the problem and began very well.5 Drawing on the Indian tradition of rajdharma and Western norms of public morality, they laid down high standards
of public life, set excellent personal examples, and saw to it that their
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
326
B. Parekh
violations were appropriately punished. Their task was made easier by the
moral idealism of the independence movement, the determination of
the Indian people to make a new historical start, the social homogeneity of the
political class, and its relative insulation from the pressures of caste and
kinship networks.
As the older generation disappeared or failed to keep up the momentum,
and the democratic process brought in new social groups with their urgent
economic and other concerns, the public sphere began to lose its coherence.
Many of these groups were rightly bitter and felt that, since the upper castes
had traditionally used the machinery of government to pursue their interests,
it was now their turn to do the same. They were also rightly impatient, could
not trust the state to look after their interests, and aimed at quick, short-term
gains. Since they had no habit of working together, each group concentrated
on looking after itself, and predictably relied on the solidarity of kinship and
caste. If political institutions and norms stood in their way, they were to be
jettisoned. For their part the upper castes and vested interests are frightened
of losing control of the state and do the same.
The result is a drastic deterioration of India’s public life. Norms governing it are vague and subordinated to group interests, and the institutions of
the state are notoriously ineffective in enforcing them. In spite of widespread
criticism, criminals are elected to Parliament and state legislatures, currently
forming nearly a sixth of their membership. Those known to have grossly
misused their authority or violated basic norms of public life escape prosecution or secure acquittal by corrupt means and political blackmail. No norms
regulate, and no sanctions follow, the conduct of politicians offering their
loyalty to the highest bidder, or joining parties and espousing policies they
had explicitly disavowed during their election campaigns. It is hardly
surprising that citizens’ trust in political figures and institutions is extremely
low. And when someone of Dr Manmohan Singh’s exemplary integrity and
honesty becomes Prime Minister, he is hailed as a saviour and forgiven his
other limitations.
The general lack of trust means that few believe a word of what most
public figures say. This is of course a universal phenomenon, but it has
reached disturbing proportions in India. Politicians say things they do not
believe; indeed many of them do not believe in anything. Their actions are not
indicative of their convictions, for the actions are often politically motivated
and the convictions are fluid or offered to the highest bidder. Promises given
by political parties and governments are frequently broken and rarely trusted.
When political speech gets devalued in this way and to this degree, the very
lifeblood of political life is drained away. The lack of trust also extends to the
conduct of public figures and officials. Few Indians trust their impartiality or
expect them to judge the demands of the general public on their merit. Their
only hope therefore is to find ways of exerting ‘influence’ on decision-makers
by finding appropriate ‘connections’, using corrupt means, or both.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
327
Conclusion
In the light of our discussion, India faces two problems in relation to the structure of its private and public spheres.6 So far as the former is concerned, the
modern idea of individual autonomy is beginning to take roots and to generate
demands for greater personal freedom in organising one’s life. Indians
however continue to place high value on the family and kinship networks and
the obligations that these entail. They are rightly anxious that autonomy
should not lead to narrow and aggressive individualism and a social climate
of loneliness, abandonment and insecurity, as it has done in much of the West.
Their problem, therefore, which is in no way unique to India, is how to reconcile individual autonomy with the rich world of social relations.
India’s public sphere is in a perilous state and faces even more acute problems. Its regeneration requires a culture of equality and an end to the deeply
ingrained hierarchical consciousness. It requires widespread recognition that
common life in different areas, such as a shared building, streets and parks,
civic associations and above all the political community, has its own norms
and constraints, and cannot be sustained if its members take a purely instrumental and narrowly self-centred view of it. Regeneration of the public
sphere also necessitates a greater emphasis than hitherto on the shared identity of citizenship. Unlike most of the modern West, India recognises the role
of social, ethnic, religious and other identities in the public sphere, partly
because of the compulsions of its social structure, partly to ensure peace and
stability, and partly because many Indians think that these identities enrich
and have a rightful place in public life. India has, however, swung to the other
extreme. It has allowed these identities to colonise public life, and ignored the
vital importance of shared citizenship without which they lack a coordinating
and regulative principle.7
In its challenging task of restructuring its private and public spheres and
establishing a proper relation between the two, India has much to learn from
the West. However since its history, traditions, social structure and moral
aspirations are different, it cannot copy the West and needs to develop its own
distinct model. As of now the direction of its development remains confused
and unclear.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to my good friends Professor Noël O’Sullivan for several long
discussions on the subject, and Professor Thomas Pantham for his helpful comments
on this paper.
Notes
1. Mehta (2003). The book is a powerful Tocquevillian critique of India’s deeply
unequal social structure.
Downloaded by [O P Jindal Global University] at 21:38 12 August 2014
328
B. Parekh
2. Commenting on his inability to prevent the gross misuse of the practice of putting
a red or a blue light on the roof of the car to evade normal traffic regulations, the
head of police for New Delhi remarked that his police were too ‘junior in social
status to the occupants of the car’ to have the confidence to stop them (cited in
Luce 2006, p. 203).
3. See Mehta (2003), p. 129. See also p. 134 where he argues that ‘Indian democracy
is extraordinarily nondeliberative, especially about policy implications that have
a long-run impact.’
4. Edward Luce cites an interesting example. Although he and his two friends had
bought expensive tickets to watch a cricket match between India and England,
they were denied entry to the ground along with thousands of other ticket-holders,
many of whom had travelled long distances. This was so because the President of
the Delhi Cricket Club, who was also India’s law minister, had printed and sent
out thousands of complimentary tickets for VIPs. Since the ground was big
enough only to hold the latter, most of the others were turned away, with mounted
police charging an angry crowd (Luce 2006, p. 204).
5. For some amusing examples and a game theory-based analysis of Indian behaviour, see Raghunathan (2006).
6. For a fuller discussion see Parekh (2006). See also the articles by Mahajan,
Beteille, Omvedt and Jain in Mahajan and Reifeld (2003).
7. For a useful discussion of this as well as the cultural context of the private - public
distinction in India, see Madan (2006), chap. 13.
Note on contributor
Bhikhu Parekh is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Westminster
and Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull. He is a Fellow
of the British Academy, President of the Academy for Social Sciences, and a Labour
member of the House of Lords. He is the author of several books, his latest being A
new politics of identity (2008).
References
Kakar, S. and Kakar, K., 2007. The Indians: Portrait of a people. London: Penguin.
Luce, Edward, 2006. In spite of the gods: The strange rise of modern India. London:
Little Brown.
Madan, T.N., 2006. Images of the world: Essays on religion, secularism and culture.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Mahajan, G. and Reifeld, H., eds, 2003. The public and the private: Issues of democratic citizenship. New Delhi: Sage.
Mehta, P.B., 2003. The burden of democracy. New Delhi: Penguin.
Parekh, Bhikhu, 1999. Colonialism, tradition and reform. New Delhi: Sage.
Parekh, Bhikhu, 2006. Limits of the Indian political imagination. In: V.R. Mehta and
Thomas Pantham, eds. Political ideas in modern India: Thematic explorations.
New Delhi: Sage.
Raghunathan, V., 2006. Games Indians play: Why we are the way we are. New
Delhi: Penguin.
