The Modernity of Tradition: The Democratic Incarnation of Caste in India

Abstract

Marx's century-old socio-political analysis of peasant nations and of India's traditional village and caste society, because it captures so much of contemporary social and political analysis, provides a convenient framework for critical discussion and evaluation of the relationship between traditional society and modern politics in India. Peasant nations such as mid-nineteenth century France, Marx observed in the The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, are formed “by simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sackful of potatoes.” Objectively, peasants form a class; the mode of life, interests and culture which flow from their productive circumstances separate peasants from other classes and place their class in opposition to other classes. But subjectively and practically, peasants form a vast mass, “the members of which live in similar conditions, but without entering into manifold relations with one another.”