Normative—Pragmatic Considerations in Political Involvement: The Case of India

Abstract

The work of building a new political society which could sustain liberal political institutions, by altering traditional political relationships and attitudes to political authority, had to proceed at various levels in India. While the seven political legacies that we examined in the last chapter provided a broad range of possible political conduct and choices available to the individual involved in India’s democratic politics, he or she still needed operational guidelines for the possible goals to be pursued and the manner of pursuing them. In other words, the broad examples of demonstrated political conduct set forth by the great leaders needed to be supplemented by an individual’s own shared notion of what was normatively desirable and what was politically possible, given his own level of understanding, interest and willingness to act politically. In this chapter we shall examine certain aspects of such a process of political learning and action.