Social and political elites

Elite are the most influential and prestigious stratum in a society. The ‘elite’ are those persons who are recognized as outstanding leaders in given field Thus, there are political, religious, scientific, business and artistic elite.

1. Wright Mills has described them as “those who make decisions having major consequences, who are able to realize their will even if other resist, and who have the most of what there is to havemoney, power and prestige”.
2. Parry Geraint has defined elite as “small minorities who play an exceptionally influential part in the affairs of society in specific fields”.
3. Nadel maintains that elite are “those who have an influence over the fate of the society because of their superiority”. The members of an elite group have important influence in shaping the values and attitudes held by their segment of society.

Ram Ahuja has described elite through four features

1. A dominant group which possess distin-ctiveness and exclusiveness,
2. The term does not apply to any one person but refers to a plurality, a collectivity of persons, however small it may be,
3. This identifiable collectivity has certain attributes and skills which give it not only a certain superiority but also power of decision-making and influencing others.
4. Elite is a relative term. A group is identified as an elite group in a particular field in which it is ‘power exerciser, influential, or commands ‘excellence’, but in other groups, these elite may be considered as ‘ordinary’ members.

On this basis, the term ‘political elite’ maybe defined as “a group of high stratum decision-makers in political culture or concrete political structure which monopolizes political power, influences major political policies and occupies all important posts of political command”. If we were to operationalise this term, we could say, political elite include those who are elected/ nominated to central and state legislatures, who occupy important position in national or state-level political parties, individuals who do not hold any formal positions either in the government or in political parties but are still considered as persons of great political prestige and power because they control powers exercisers e.g., Gandhi, Jaya Prakash Narayan.

Elite in Post-Independence India

According to Ram Ahuja growth of political elite can be analyzed in different phases. Political elite can be analyzed by classifying growth of the political elite into five phases:

1. Immediately after independence phase i.e., 1947 to April 1952, in which there was no longer any struggle between the people and the government and in which though the interests of the people and the power elite were one and indivisible (i.e., rebuilding the society),the latter were more preoccupied with the problems of restoration of law and order after partition, refuge resettlement, maintenance of communal peace, and the controversy over the redistribution of territories between various states.
2. Consolidation phase (i.e., April 1952 to March 1962 or MPs, MLAs and party office-holders elected in April 1952 and April 1957 elections), in which the political elite worked for the economic uplift and social development through the Five Year Plans.
3. Chaotic phase i.e., April 1962 to March 1971or individuals elected in April 1962 and March 1967 elections, in which non-congress and coalition governments came into power in several states affecting its interstate and state-centre relations.
4. Authoritarian phase (i.e., March 1971 to November 1989 or individuals elected in March 1971, March 1977, January 1980, December 1984, and November 1989 elections) in which one person was catapulted to the position of supreme national leadership, first Indira Gandhi for 16 years (excluding period from march 1977 to January 1980) and then Rajiv Gandhi for five years and the power-holders came to believe in the personality cult, and in which all plans for change and development of society were centralized.
5. Multiple-party phase i.e., December 1989 till April1999 in which except in Narsimha Rao’s period multiple hands to rule the country on a common programme basis (V.P. Singh ministry for llmonths, Chandra Shekhar ministry for about eight months, Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry for 13 days. United Front governments of Deve Gowda for 11 months and I.K. Gujral for one year and BJP led government of A.B. Vajpayee).
6. In the first phase those were the elite who had a stable economic background were highly educated mostly belonged to the upper castes, and were committed to societal interests. Their socio-political ideology was based on nationalism, liberalism and religio-cultural reforms. This first generation of power-wielders in free India had earned their reputation for courage, vision and action, and acquired their charisma before they stepped into office as inheritors of political power and earned it more through functioning in office.
7. The elite in the second (consolidation) phase, particularly those elected in the 1952 elections, some of whom had only part-time interests in politics. They wanted rewards in the form of a political office for participating in the national struggle for independence.These elite caused a certain amount of disequilibrium in the beginning in their party structures but their pressures for active participation in politics were pitched in such a low key that they were soon integrated in their party systems.
8. Then came the 1957 elections when the long established dominance of the so-called political suffers was broken and political power was placed in the hands of a new breed of elite who were either petty landholders or traders, businessmen, professional persons, small industrialists or social workers. These elite were not as highly politicized as their older counter parts. They thought that since they could trust the integrity of old professional politicians, they need not concern themselves quite so directly with politics.
9. Over the years, yet newer elite further down the social scale appeared in the 1962 elections representing the intermediate and lower castes, middle-class professions, small farmers, industrial workers, or even obscure religious and social sects, to name a few, seeking entry into the political decision-making processes. Though these elite came to seek a greater role in policy formulation, the older elite still retained their influence. There was thus toleration on the part of the new and accommodation on the part of the old elite. Both old and new elite revised their values to fit situations and establish new relationships. This type of interaction between the old and the new elite implies a dilution of the pure force theory group of elite or that the position of the old elite depended upon some sort of bargain. We can thus say that change in the elite structure up to 1967 was slow and ‘peaceful’, not involving any ‘conflict’ in Marxian terminology.
10. In the 1967, 1971, 1977, 1980, 1984, 1989, 1991, 1996 and 1998 elections, emerged the elite amongst whom many were found to have politics as their major source of livelihood According to Ram Ahuja, they believed more in using the ties of kinship, caste and language to smoothen the way through the corridors of power. They were blind to the practicalities of the plans and believed in seeking cooperation of the masses by coining attractive slogans and speaking half-truths.They posed as democrats; even their slogans were democratic but their actions belied their utterances. Democracy as a way of life was foreign to their nature and nurture.
11. According to Ahuja, ideologically, there were four types of elite functioning in 1967-1971,1971-1989, and 1989-1999 phases: traditionalists, rationalists, moderates and synthetics.The second and the third types had two sub-variations,
12. Those who reflected secular but vested national ideology, and
13. Those that professed a neo-secular and vested parochial ideology.
14. Since these elite with different ideologies functioned within the party, the variation in their ideologies led to segmentation of the party which affected the functioning of both the party and its elite at various levels. The new political elite who were brought into power first in December 1989 election and then in May 1996and March 1998 elections got public votes not because of their rationalist liberal ideologies or because their radicalism was greatly appreciated but because people wanted to throw out the government of the day dominated by one political party for about four decades and also the weak political front. United Front government which was based on factions. Even the BJP led government of A.B. Vajpayee which came in power in March 1998 proved unstable because of constant threats from 3 or 4 of its constituent parties.
15. Using this description for comparing the ‘new’ elite with the ‘old’ elite and for identifying the present structure of political elite, we could say,
16. The ‘intellectual committed politics’ of first phase were replaced by ‘mediocre, uncommitted partisan’ elite in the following phases.
17. The last one decade political elite are characterized not only by a plurality of structural background but ideologically also they manifest varied shades.
18. Their political affiliations are guided more by their particularists’ loyalty rather than by their ideological commitment.
19. The old elite wielded power independently, i.e., in their own right as intellectuals, whereas the present day elite are incapable of exercising independent political power.
20. Barring a few activity, most of the present elite do not believe in militating against the status quo. As such, the task of social engineering becomes far more difficult for those few activist revolutionary elite who are really committed to modernization and believe in economic radicalism, political democratization and social growth.
21. Referring to changing elite structure Yogendra Singh has stated that “Among the political elite, there existed a high degree of cultural and status homogeneity before Independence.All of them came from upper castes and had an urban, middle-class background of English education. The top group was exposed to foreign culture and was educated there; hence their self-image in terms of expected roles was also that of a generalist rather than a specialist Following independence, this pattern of elite composition has considerably changed” According to Yogendra Singh,
22. There is increasing influence of rural-based political leaders;
23. There is slight decrease in the influence of leaders drawn from various professions,
24. There is significant increase in the number of persons belonging to the middle class;
25. There is greater articulation of regional and interest-oriented goals in political cultural ideologies, and
26. There is slight breakdown in the exclusiveness or upper castes to the elite position. And what was stated by Yogendra Singh 25 years ago is true even today.

According to Ram Ahuja, in India, the govern-ing’ elite at a higher political culture base (say national level) are recruited not from the ‘non-governing’ elite at the same level but from the governing elite functioning at a lower political cultural base (say state, district or block levels). These elite of lower political base are found holding important posts in state legislatures or state political parties, etc., before becoming office-holders at the higher political base. Once these elite rise from state or district level they never go back to the ok!level but continue to function at the higher political level as long as they remain active in politics.This, however, does not mean that they cease to take interest in politics at the level from which they have moved up in the hierarchy. This means, there is no circulation but only an upward movement of the elite. However, if Pareto’s theory refers to a process in which one member of the elite group is replaced by another within the group of governing elite, we may concede that his theory does explain the political phenomenon of ‘movement of the elite’ in the context of our society also. Bottomore maintains that both conceptions are to be found in Pareto’s work, although the former predominates.

According to Ahuja there are two types of movements (not circulations):

1. Movement from lower to higher strata of governing elite both functioning at macro-level and
2. Movement from sub-category functioning at micro-structural level to sub-category functioning at macrostructural level.

In the former, he found circulation between ‘oligarchic’ (dominant) and ‘subjacent’ (dominated) elite and between ‘radical activists and ‘passive’ activists.Activists functioning at micro-level ultimately joined the ranks of activists at the macro-level with the result that some of the activists already functioning at this level were deprived of their monopoly of power. This elite mobility may be explained in terms of,

1. The rise of new political interests, and
2. The rise of new elite with more manipulating qualities.

Therefore, both individual and structural factors (caste etc.) are important in the social ascent or social
descent of the elite. Schumpeter also believed that both the individual qualities and the social factor are important in the circulation of elite.

The Marxian approach, which is basically non-elitist, views the relations between the elite (privileged class which commands power and wealth) and non-elite (classes which do not possess either of these) as based on conflict, in which effort is made to overthrow the ‘power elite’ to occupy its position. Ram Ahuja in his study revealed that the process of overthrowing the elite in power and succeeding them is not always based on conflict, but that it involves manipulation, toleration, accommodation, compromise and bargain too. It could, therefore, be maintained that we can neither draw from Pareto’s theory of ‘circulation of elite’, nor from Karl Marx’s theory of ‘class struggle’ to understand the changing character of political elite in India. We have to use different approach for analyzing the recruitment and the changing structure of elite in India.

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