The Congress Party in Rajasthan: Political Integration and Institution-Building in an Indian State

By Richard Sisson

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520339354

Richard Sisson

Richard Sisson is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Leo Rose is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

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The Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies of the University of California is the unifying organization for faculty members and students interested in South and Southeast Asia Studies, bringing together scholars from numerous disciplines. The Center’s major aims are the development and support of reasearch and the language study. As part of this program the Center sponsors a publication series of books concerned with South and Southeast Asia. Manuscripts are considered from all campuses of the University of California as well as from any other individuals and institutions doing research in these areas.

PUBLICATIONS OF THE CENTER FOR SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES

Angela S. Burger

Opposition in a Dominant-Party System: A Study of the Jan Sangh, the Praja Socialist Party, and the Socialist Party in Uttar Pradesh, India (1969)

Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr.

Nadars of Tamilnad: The Political Culture of a Community in Change (1969)

Eugene F. Irschick

Politics and Social Conflict in South India: The Non-Brahmam Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916-1929 (1969)

Briton Martin, Jr.

New India, 1885: British Official Policy and the Emergence of the Indian National Congress (1969)

James T. Siegel

The Rope of God (1969)

Jyotirindra Das Gupta

Language Conflict and National Development: Group Politics and National Language Policy in India (1970)

Gerald D. Berreman

Hindus of the Himalayas (Second Revised Edition, 1971)

Richard G. Fox

Kin, Clan, Raja, and Rule: State-Hinterland Relations in Preindustrial India (1971)

Robert N. Kearney

Trade Unions and Politics in Ceylon (1971)

David N. Lorenzen

The Kãpãlikas and Kãlâmukhas: Two Lost Saivite Sects (1971)

David G. Marr

Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885-1925 (1971)

Leo E. Rose

Nepal—Strategy for Survival (1971)

Prakash Tandon

Beyond Punjab: A Sequel to Punjabi Century (1971)

Elizabeth Whitcombe

Agrarian Conditions in Northern India. Volume One: The United Provinces under British Rule, 1860-1900 (1971)

THE CONGRESS PARTY IN RAJASTHAN

THIS VOLUME IS SPONSORED BY THE

CENTER FOR SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

THE CONGRESS PARTY IN RAJASTHAN

POLITICAL INTEGRATION AND

INSTITUTION-BUILDING

IN AN INDIAN STATE

Richard Sisson

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley • Los Angeles • London

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS / BERKELEY le LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, LTD. / LONDON, ENGLAND

COPYRIGHT © 1972, BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ISBN: 0-52001808-7

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 70*129607

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF RAJPUTANA

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

TABLES

PREFACE

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION: CONCEPTION AND PURPOSE

Chapter 2 POLITY AND SOCIETY IN THE PRINCELY STATES OF RAJPUTANA

POWER AND AUTHORITY IN THE RAJPUTANA STATES

LAND TENURE AND LATENT CLASS DIVISION

GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHY

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND REGIONAL DISPERSION

Chapter 3 THE ORIGINS OF THE PARTY SYSTEM I: URBAN PROTEST AND POLITICAL CHANGE

THE RISE OF POPULAR MOVEMENTS IN THE URBAN AREAS

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF POLITICAL PROTEST: THE RISE OF ORGANIZATIONAL PERMANENCE

SEGMENTATION IN THE ORGANIZATION OF POLITICAL SUPPORT

THE PRAJA MANDALS AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

Chapter 4 THE ORIGINS OF THE PARTY SYSTEM II: THE ORGANIZATION OF PEASANT MOVEMENTS

THE KISAN MOVEMENT IN JODHPUR: THE DEVELOPMENT OF CASTE COHESION

THE KISAN MOVEMENT IN SHEKHAWATI: PEASANT POPULISM AND POLITICAL AGITATION

THE KISAN SABHAS AND THE URBAN MOVEMENTS: PATTERNS OF AUTONOMY AND ASSOCIATION

Chapter 5 POLITICAL COMMUNITY AND POLITICAL INTEGRATION: THE FOUNDING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE RAJASTHAN CONGRESS

ORGANIZATION AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RAJASTHAN CONGRESS

THE INTEGRATION OF THE RAJPUTANA STATES

FROM POLITICAL MOVEMENT TO GOVERNING PARTY: POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE PROBLEM OF POWER

PARTY ORGANIZATION AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

Chapter 6 INSTITUTIONAL FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY: CHANGING PATTERNS OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATION IN THE CONGRESS ORGANIZATIO

SOCIAL REPRESENTATION IN THE RAJASTHAN CONGRESS

VARIABILITY IN SOCIAL REPRESENTATION: REGION AND TIME

THE POLITICS OF ELITE-CASTE DOMINANCE: CASES FROM THE EASTERN PLAINS

THE CONGRESS AND THE GREEN UPRISING: PEASANT MOBILIZATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL ADAPTATION

Chapter 7 ORGANIZATIONAL MOBILITY AND PARTICIPATION: CIRCULATION AND CONGRUENCY OF PARTY ELITES

REPRESENTATION AND POLITICAL GENERATION

THE CIRCULATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL ELITES

THE CONGRUENCY OF ORGANIZATIONAL ELITES

ORGANIZATION MEN AND LEGISLATIVE ASPIRATION

CONGRUENCY OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND LEGISLATIVE ELITES

Chapter 8 CONFLICT AND COHESION IN THE LEGISLATIVE PARTY: THE MAINTENANCE OF GOVERNING COALITIONS

THE PROBLEM OF MINISTRY FORMATION: PUBLIC ELECTIONS AND FACTIONAL CHANGE

COMPETITION AND COHESION: THE SEARCH FOR ACCOMMODATION

THE MANAGEMENT OF FACTIONAL CONFLICT: THEMES FROM THE SUKHADIA DECADE

Chapter 9 FACTIONAL CONFLICT AND POLITICAL CHANGE: INSTITUTIONAL LINKAGES AND PRIMORDIAL TIES

THE STRUCTURE OF FACTIONAL ALIGNMENTS IN THE PCC: 1946-1965

THE REGIONAL BASIS OF FACTIONAL CHANGE

CASTE AND THE FACTIONAL SYSTEM

FACTIONAL CLEAVAGE AND GENERATIONAL CHANGE

Chapter 10 FACTIONAL CONFLICT AND POLITICAL RECRUITMENT: PARTICIPATION AND VERTICAL LINKAGE IN JODHPUR AND NAGAUR

THE ORIGINS OF THE CONGRESS IN THE JODHPUR REGION

CONDITIONS OF POLITICAL CONFLICT AND THE ORGANIZATION OF PARTY FACTIONS

CASTE AND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION: THE POLITICS OF TICKET ALLOCATION

Chapter 11 CONCLUSION: NOTES AND PROPOSITIONS

FROM COMMUNITY OF PROTEST TO POLITICAL PARTY: PATTERNS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND CHANGE

FACTIONAL CONFLICT AND CHANGE: COMPLEXITY AND COHESION IN THE CONGRESS SYSTEM

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

TABLES

1 Land and Villages Under Khalsa and Jagirdan Tenure 24

2 Administrative Divisions and Districts of Rajasthan 29

3 Population Characteristics of Rajasthan 31

4 Size of Castes in the Rajputana States 33

5 Dispersion of Major Castes by Region 34

6 Regional Dispersion of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled

Tribes in Rajasthan 37

7 Recruitment of Praja Mandal Elites 62

8 Political Generation and Caste Mobilization 63

9 Political Generation and Level of Educational Achievement 66

10 Settlement Operations by 1949 75

11 General Social Composition of the Rajasthan Pradesh

Congress Committee, 1946-1965 132

12 Caste Composition of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, 1946-1965 133

13 Caste Composition of the PCC Executive Committee, 194&-19¹ 5 134

14 Caste of Congress and Top Opposition Candidates in

Rajasthan, 1952-1967 135

15 Representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes

on the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, 1946-1965 144

16 Caste Representation on the PCC and DCCs from the Matsya Region, 1946-1965 150

17 Caste of Congress and Top Opposition Candidates in the

Matsya Region, 1952-1967 151

18 Caste Representation on the PCC and DCCs from the Jaipur Region, 1946-1965 155

19 Caste of Congress and Top Opposition Candidates in the

Jaipur Region, 1952-1967 156

20 Caste Representation on the PCC and DCCs from

Shekhawati, 1946-1965 162

21 Caste of Congress and Top Opposition Candidates in Shekhawati, 1952-1967 163

22 Caste Representation on the PCC and DCCs from Bikaner Division, 1946-1965 166

23 Caste of Congress and Top Opposition Candidates in Bikaner Division, 1952-1967 167

24 Caste Representation on the PCC and DCCs from Jodhpur Division, 1946-1965 170

25 Caste of Congress and Top Opposition Candidates in Jodhpur Division, 1952-1967 171

26 Representation on the PCC by Year of Entry into Politics 184

27 Early Leaders of Protest Movements on the PCC by Year of Entry 184

28 Political Generation of Congress Candidates in the First Four General Elections 186

29 Change in Membership on the Pradesh Congress Committee, 1948-1965 188

30 Members Previously on the Pradesh Congress Committee, >948-19² 5 >9°

31 Members Previously on the PCC Executive, 1949-1965 192

32 PCC Members Serving as Officers or Members of DCC Executive Committees, 1954-1965 194

33 Differences Between Old and New PCC Members Serving as Officers or Members of DCC Executive Committees 194

34 New PCC Members Serving as Officers or Members of DCC Executive Committees Before Election to PCC 195

35 Applicants for Congress Party Tickets for the Second and Third General Elections 196

37 PCC Candidates Elected in the First Three General Elections 199

38 Candidates Elected to the Legislative Assembly, 1952-1962 199

39 PCC Members in the Congress Legislative Party 201

40 Legislative Dispersion of the PCC Executive Committee, >95>->9³ 5 »o«

41 Distribution of Ministers on the Pradesh Congress Committee, 1954-1965 203

42 Regional Distribution of Factional Support in the Rajasthan PCC, 1954-1955 227

43 Regional Distribution of Factional Membership in the Congress Legislative Party, 1954-1955 230

44 Factional Distribution of Congress Legislative Party by Political Generation, 1954-1955 231

45 Regional Distribution of Factional Membership in the Congress Legislative Party, 1958 243

46 Factional Representation on the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, 1946-1965 264

47 Factional Representation on the PCC Executive Committee, 1946-1965 265

48 Representation in the Vyas Factional Coalition by Region, 1946-1965 266

49 Dispersion of PCC Members in Factional Coalitions by Region, 1946-1965 267

50 Representation in the Sukhadia Factional Coalition by Region, 1946-1965 269

51 Representation in the Kumbharam Factional Coalition by

Region, 1946-1965 271

52 Representation in the Vyas Factional Coalition by Caste, 1946-1965 272

53 Representation in the Sukhadia Factional Coalition by Caste, 1946-1965 273

54 Representation in the Kumbharam Factional Coalition by Caste, 1946-1965 274

55 Dispersion of PCC Members in Factional Coalitions by Caste, 1946-1965 275

56 Representation in the Vyas Factional Coalition by Political Generation, 1946-1965 278

57 Representation in the Sukhadia Factional Coalition by Political Generation, 1946-1965 279

58 Representation in the Kumbharam Factional Coalition by Political Generation, 1946-1965 279

59 Dispersion of PCC Members in Political Generations by Factional Coalition, 1946-1965 280

60 Caste Composition of the Nagaur DCC in 1956 291

61 Composition of the Nagaur DCC by Caste and District Level

Faction in 1956 293

62 Caste Composition of the Nagaur DCC Executive Committee, 1952-1964 294

63 Composition of the DCC Executive Committee by Caste and Faction, 1952-1964 295

64 Composition of Representation from Nagaur District on the PCC, 1952-1965 296

xiv TABLES

65 Composition by Caste and Faction of Applicants for the Congress Party Tickets in Nagaur District in the Second

General Elections 301

66 Caste Composition by Constituency of Supporters for Applicants for Congress Party Tickets for the

Second General Elections 303

67 Composition of Support by Caste for Applicants for Congress Party Tickets in Nagaur District for the Second General

Elections 306

1

2

3 PCC Candidates in the First Three General Elections 197

PREFACE

POLITICAL modernization involves an institutional imperative— the capacity and will to create, staff, and manage new institutions and to engage in new forms of organized, collective effort. This appears to be the case regardless of place or time; it is especially true where the creation of political community and order are concerned. This book addresses an aspect of the process of institutionalization—party-building in a culturally rich and complex society caught in the potentially destabilizing process of social mobilization. This study is concerned with institutional development under conditions of fundamental social transformation.

Rajasthan is particularly important for exploring these concerns because of its peculiar historical patterns, social organization, and systems of traditional authority. Prior to 1947 this area was composed of more than twenty semisovereign states and chiefdoms, the sense of community among them being minimal and largely limited to the ruling class. Political authority derived from sacral bases of legitimation, and provision for popular representation was severely limited until after independence. While popular political organizations and movements existed, they were restricted in structure, recruitment, and activity to separate political units. The forces militating against popular movements—traditional authority together with the eminence and power of the former ruling castes— have reached with potency into the contemporary era. The understanding and analysis of the founding, maintenance, and growth of political parties created under these conditions is important beyond the Indian situation.

Field research for this study was conducted in Rajasthan from August 1963 to November 1964. Most primary data were obtained through interviews and through the state, district, and constituency records and files of the Pradesh Congress Committee office in Jaipur. Innumerable party leaders and public officials both past and present gave freely of their time to instruct me in the political history of their state as well as to provide details, ideas, and sensings of the contemporary political process and vignettes of its important actors and their associations. They include leaders and cadres of the preindependence movements in the princely states as well as those who have gained prominence and position during the past two decades. They include members of the Congress as well as members of the opposition, party organization leaders and cadres as well as legislative elites, those whose political world includes Jaipur as well as those whose range is limited either by exigency or choice to rural constituencies and district towns. Much that is of value in this book derives from the openness of their reminiscences. Without their help this study would most certainly not have been possible.

A majority of the information on preindependence movements came from the Praja Mandal files in the Rajasthan State archives. Most helpful in this regard was Mr. Nathuram Khadgawat, the director of the archives and himself a man of scholarship. To Shri Harideo Joshi, past president of the Pradesh Congress Committee, I am grateful for access to selected party documents, minutes, and files, and I am also grateful to members of the PCC staff for their invaluable assistance in helping to reconstruct much of the party’s contemporary past.

I have come into the intellectual debt of many during the adventure of which this is a part, particularly to that of Ralph H. Retz- laff who as tutor not only introduced me to the fascinating and complex world of South Asian politics but also offered sage advice in the execution of research. I have continually benefited from the work and intellectual stimulation of Lawrence L. Shrader, whose initial research in Rajasthan made my own efforts smoother and more productive than they would otherwise have been. From the insightful comment of my friends at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and the University of Rajasthan, particularly Rajni Kothari, Ramashray Roy, and Iqbal Narain, I learned considerably from the beginning to the end of my stay in India. Were it not for the incisive editorial pen of Mrs. Margery Riddle, the burden of the reader would be much greater than it now is. I am grateful to Messrs. Indu Shekhar, Ram Acharya and Raju G. C. Thomas for valuable research assistance. Through all of this, the research, the thinking, the writing, my wife has shown a tolerance and encouragement that is nothing short of enviable.

Finally, research in Rajasthan was supported by a Foreign Area Fellowship as well as partial completion of data analysis and writing. Additional funds for data processing were made available through a grant from the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley, and through assistance from the Computer Center of that university. A grant from the Academic Senate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and from the Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies of the University of California, Berkeley, enabled me to give the manuscript finished form.

THE CONGRESS PARTY IN RAJASTHAN

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: CONCEPTION AND PURPOSE

THE PAST DECADE has witnessed the proliferation of studies concerned with social change, modernization, and development. In a normative sense, studies have frequently entailed teleological assumptions ranging from the imperatives of democratic faith to the logic of authoritarian necessity. Analytical formats have ranged in rather uneven fashion from mobilization models to social action and functional models of varying hues.1 One school of thought, for example, associated primarily with the work of Deutsch and Lerner, has gauged modernity in terms of indices such as literacy, urbanization, and access to mass media, with the level of political development or modernization being conceived as a functional concomitant of the scores a given society would receive on these indices. Another class of efforts, which has drawn heavily on selected aspects of Weber and Durkheim, has conceived modernization in terms of the increasing structural differentiation and functional specificity of roles in a society. Yet another approach, drawing inspiration from the theoretical work of Talcott Parsons, has attempted to conceptualize the differences between tradition and modernity by using a series of pattern variables as criteria. Other approaches have been primarily exercises in historical exegesis albeit under new and fashionable names.

These conceptions, although necessary and useful for establishing common descriptive criteria for comparing widely varying societies and polities, appear inadequate to account for the continuity or collapse of social and political systems and institutions, even in those relatively few countries which would receive a more or less high rating on any of these developmental scales. They do not easily account for such important phenomena as political integration, legitimation, and the creation of authority. Neither are they adequate in their present formulation for analyzing the founding, maintenance, growth, or demise of political institutions —the theoretical concerns that absorb the study at hand.

A somewhat different conception of development may be more useful in our analysis of the Congress party in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The conception that advises our present pursuit posits that development assumes the existence of the norm of voluntary action, a conception of the self as appropriately and actually manipulator and participant in a wide range of social affairs.2 The social incidence of belief in the appropriateness of voluntary action, like most things, is a matter of degree, but crucial to our conception is the progressive expansion of this sentiment and behavioral mode beyond the confines of social and political elites. It involves a qualitative change in terms of cultural emphasis in the larger society and a quantitative change in terms of the scope of social sit nations to which it applies. It thus constitutes a change in psychological orientation as well as it implies the potential for the transformation of social structure.

Associated with the universalization of the norm of voluntary action are the ideas of choice and contract, values which in an important way have distinguished modern from medieval and classical political philosophy. Choice assumes the recognition of alternative images of the self and society and alternative courses of action for the realization of goals as well as the sentiment and capacity to set priorities.3 Contract likewise assumes collective choice and collective action in the achievement of specifically defined goals. It involves conscious and voluntary association for the achievement of goals either in the sense of new social means to preserve or reinstate traditional values or the conceptualization and formulation of new ones. Development in this conception, therefore, asserts the notion of self-conscious change—the possibility of environmental alteration and control through voluntary and collective action.

More important than the existence and the incidence of these orientations toward the self and society, however, is the creation of a civic order and the capacity to create and maintain institutions.4

This applies whether institutional goals be the preservation of existing values and social relations or their displacement by new ones. It also applies to institutions originally deriving their legitimacy from sacral authority as well as to qualitatively new secularized institutions. Traditional institutions remain vital to the extent that they adapt to the assumptions of voluntary action and contract while retaining their precontractual symbols of legitimation.

The founding, maintenance, and growth of new institutions are important in all spheres of social action, but these processes are particularly critical in the political sphere. Political institutions are important in the provision of integrative symbols for the affirmation of political community—whether that community be existent and real or fictive and in process. They are by definition central to the problem of governance—the making of value choices for a society and the exaction of social compliance in the pursuit of those chosen values. The performance of this function, of course, involves the accommodation of those demands and the satisfaction, however partial, of those interests that are a consequence of modernization. This includes attention not only to qualitatively new demands but to the management of social tensions made manifest and intensified by the modernization process. Finally, and most importantly, political institutions are critical in the creation of a civic order through the provision of new forms of public association and cooperation, often with a wider social scope or a focus of political action in a more inclusive public arena than had been true of previous institutions.

This study derives its theoretical inspiration from the above conception of development. Specifically, it entails an analysis of the founding and institutionalization of the Congress party in the Indian state of Rajasthan. By institutionalization is meant the existence and persistence of valued rules, procedures, and patterns of behavior which enable the successful accommodation of new configurations of political claimants and demands in an organization.⁵

It involves the potentiality of change in an organization’s social structure as well as the transformation of its goals. In this conception political development is not a finite time-bound quality or process, but it is continual. It is as applicable to contemporary American politics as it is to the politics of an Indian state.

Central to the study of institutionalization is the analysis of the relationship of the relevant organization to its external environments both in terms of the provision of services or benefits through its performance, whether they be material or symbolic, and the provision of participation in its performance. In the case of political parties the two are sometimes inseparable. Essential to environmental adaptation is the selection and the social salience of organizational goals, that is, the processes of goal ordering and transformation as well as the selection of clienteles and principal beneficiaries. Goal selection and symbol manipulation is a primary function of organizational leadership—it is the process of institutional investment, and implies the quality of political entrepreneurship.

Environmental adaptation also entails institutional representation in the sense of recruitment into the organization as well as effectiveness of participants in the making of organizational decisions and sharing in the distribution of organizational benefits. The social character of recruitment together with the configuration of goals is relevant to organizational identity and autonomy, that is, the extent to which the organization is both attitudinally and structurally distinct from other institutions and social groups. To the extent that the institution is autonomous from solidary social groups and from other organizations, its persistence is less dependent on changes within specific sectors of its environment.

The capacity of a political party to adapt to new and changing political environments is an important aspect of its institutionalization. In a competitive political format this is a critical requirement of parties that aim at fulfilling at least the minimal functions of a political party—the recruitment of leaders to fill strategic decision-making positions in the formal structure of public authority and the transformation of social interest into public law.⁶ This adaptive capacity is particularly crucial, however, in cases where adaptation involves a change from a nationalist or protest movement in a colonial or traditional political order to the competitive requirements of a democratic political format. In societies that have known only minimal popular participation in public politics, adaptability entails the capacity to absorb new political claimants and activists in efforts to accommodate new political demands. In such situations the formation of organizational identity and the creation of autonomy are often concomitant and interactive processes which frequently are disruptive of sustained and directed collective endeavor.

The adaptive capacity of political parties in more traditional societies is also related to their role as qualitatively new social institutions which often serve as a new form of association between more or less primordial social categories. This political role is of crucial importance in societies where there are limited and fragile institutional linkages which bind together different social groups. To the extent that conditions of social segmentation exist within the political community, the capacity of political parties to adapt to a plurality of groups helps perform the function of social integration.

The image of the party as an adaptive and qualitatively new social institution in a traditional society assumes the existence of continual political mobilization and elite recruitment. Political parties, particularly in democratic political systems, are clientele- oriented institutions whose success is ultimately dependent on the attraction of votes. This clientele orientation is itself conducive to increase in political participation, and in cases where one party enjoys hegemony in the political system, new political aspirants first tend to seek access through the dominant party.⁷ Furthermore, parties in modernizing societies are often particularly motivated to stimulate mass mobilization in their attempts to fashion a more participative political culture and a more nationally oriented political community dedicated to the idea and ways of progress. Conflict between parties and also between competing factions within parties has tended to mobilize new political resources and has been conducive to increased demands for political entry and mobility within party organizations. The analysis of the elite structure of political parties is thus an important means of gauging patterns of social representation and the extent to which new recruitment is taking place.⁸

Another analytical focus in the study of institutionalization is the adaptation of organizations to their internal environment, i.e. the problem of conflict management and organizational cohesion . The more complex the organization and the more socially plural, the greater the strain on organizational cohesion. There is, therefore, inherent tension between political mobilization and the pluralization of institutional representation, on the one hand, and the incidence of intra-organizational conflict and the measure of organizational coherence on the other.

Several problems are central to the analysis of the internal environment. One is the process by which accommodation is reached among competing institutional goals both in terms of choice and priority. A second critical problem is the formation and representation of interest groups or factions within the organization and their bases of support, goal orientations, and the conditions of their continuity, fission, and coalition. Such informal organizations are not just potential sources of organizational stress but are also frequently conducive to the satisfaction of participants in the organization and thus contributive to a sense of institutional obligation and to organizational cohesion.* A third concern, and closely related to the second, is the formal provision for organizational mobility, and the attitudes of elites—who are the incumbents of strategic positions in the formal structure of authority— at particular times to demands made by non-elites for a greater measure of organizational control.9 10 A corollary concern is the process of intragenerational and intergenerational succession and the impact of these critical tests, when they have occurred, on organizational coherence and adaptability. The capacity to resolve succession problems is indicative of the level of institutionalization . A final problem is the character and distribution of incentives. The incentive structures of institutions vary according to organizational type, and the character and salience of incentives may change significantly over time.¹¹ This is particularly relevant in the case of a nationalist movement turned competitive political party. There may also be variation in the salience of incentives between different classes of organizational participants; and there may be concomitant variation in salience with changes in the availability and attractiveness of alternative organizations.

The problem of conflict management and organizational maintenance are particularly critical in the analysis of political parties. Political parties are characterized by a segmentary organization of political power, with the theoretical exception of totalitarian parties in their purest analytical form.¹² In democratic parties, attempts to widen the scope of participation and popular appeal bring new clusters of interests into the party and this contributes to the diffusion and decentralization of power within the system.¹³

A continually increasing number of units in the field of political support tends to increase the flexibility of alliance possibilities and increases the number of political expectations to be satisfied. The haut elite at a particular point in time is required to be increasingly responsive to new political demands to maintain or expand the powers of the faction or factional coalition which they lead. Furthermore, in the case of the Rajasthan Congress, while the segmentary configuration of political support structures has been conducive to increased responsiveness and bargaining, it has also placed restrictions on the mobilization and concentration of power for the pursuit of collective goals. An important focus of comparative study, therefore, is the determination of the degree of segmentation, the degree of autonomy of political segments, and the authority relationships which prevail between them, as well as the pattern of coalition and linkage which constitutes the web of interactions in the total support structure of the Congress system.

Political parties are also systems of conflict. We proposed above that the party is essentially a conflict-oriented institution. It is subject to competition, however, not only in its bids and appeals for electoral support but also between its component units as well. The segmentary organization of power discussed above is given coherence by the structure of strategic authority positions within the party. Political segments, or factions as we shall refer to them, compete not only for control over positions of public authority but also for control over those intermediate positions which make control over the formal positions of authority in the state more likely. Although a variety of issues may be the focus of conflicting views, competition for control over strategic positions in the formal structure of authority constitutes a central focus of political conflict. Conflict between units within the party are thus conducive to the mobilization of new political resources in efforts to increase the power and control of one’s own faction or group in relation to that of one’s opponents.

The conscious efforts to increase participation in the Congress, whether the result of attempts to aid the party in terms of its external opposition, or to aid a particular segment of the party against its internal opposition, and the concomitant responsiveness of political elites have contributed to the institutionalization of the party. There also exist within the Congress both formal and informal mechanisms for the management of conflict. The party organization has an appellate structure at each successively higher level of political organization reaching to the party high command, which has functioned as the final arbiter of intraparty conflicts. Leaders and factions in wider areas of conflict also serve as foci of appeals for groups in subordinate areas of conflict, and are willing to offer support, access, or protection to subordinate groups in return for support of that group in the larger area of conflict. Factions in wider areas of conflict are not easily repressed since they rest upon independent bases of support. Nor is there widespread desire that they should be since repression, and the risk of exit, could seriously weaken the party itself. Furthermore, the support available from higher party echelons usually comes into play when an important faction in a subordinate level of organization is under threat. Thus the conflict system itself is conducive to the maintenance of channels of access and this in turn is conducive to the persistence of units of the total support structure in the Congress system. This pattern holds true from the base to the apex of the party.

The Congress party in Rajasthan provides a theoretically interesting case for the study of political institutionalization. Until independence this area of India, with the exception of a small enclave, was under the direct rule of native princes, and these traditional states were largely insulated from the social and cultural impact of British India. In this area the rules, attitudes, and sanctions of tradition reach very much into the contemporary era. The absence of cohesive and widespread mass movements challenging the traditional order prior to independence together with the immediate extension of a universal adult franchise in a society where little formal political organization or participation existed previously is in great contrast with those states which formerly constituted British India. The Congress party in Rajasthan was founded as a contract between various protest organizations shortly before independence. The analysis of how party or ganization and representative institutions were founded and how they developed in a situation where they were both rudimentary and young at the time of independence is of particular theoretical interest.

A second important concern is community integration. Prior to 1949 Rajasthan did not constitute a common political unit but had been divided into twenty-two semisovereign princely states and chiefdoms. The postindependence period has witnessed not only the supplanting of traditional structures of political authority and the displacement of rulers whose traditions in some cases extended back unbroken to the tenth century, but has also involved the peaceful and successful abolition of a feudal system of land tenure and the co-optation and introduction of a vestigial landed nobility into the new world of democratic politics. It has also witnessed the creation of a new political community from these various regional political cultures.

The Congress party has been the dominant political organization in Rajasthan since independence. It presided over the integration of the Rajputana states into the new political community as well as over jagirdari abolition. In many ways it reflects the role of the Congress party in the larger political system. It has been the single social or political institution that has established a complex network of political linkages between the areas of the twenty- two former states. It has been particularly important in the recruitment of political elites and in mobilizing new social groups into the political process. Furthermore, it has served an educative function. During the preindependence period and the interim between independence and the first General Elections, members of the Congress became accustomed to thinking and working within the rules and procedures which characterize democratic government. Leadership selection and decision making in the state party have provided a forum in which new elites are also educated in these political rules. Through its network of political contacts it has served to educate new political participants in both substantive and procedural matters concerning state politics.

The state is an increasingly important unit in the Indian political system, and state politics has attracted considerable schol- arly effort in the last several years.¹⁴ First of all, it is at the state and district levels that India’s two political cultures meet. The district, which is parochial, is based largely on primordial ties and traditional notions of ascriptive status and authority. The state, which is more participative in character, emphasizes achieved status, a national secular state, and national symbols. As has been demonstrated in several studies of Indian politics, however, it must be emphasized that traditional political culture has not been without its modern characteristics and that India’s modern political culture has not been without its traditional attributes.¹⁵ But the style and mode of political behavior at each of these levels of Indian politics tend to reflect this dichotomy. It is important to determine how these political cultures interact and the impact which each has had upon the other.

Second, the state level has been the object of intense political loyalty and public conflict. The assertion of provincial loyalty during the nationalist movement was made evident in the political turmoil that accompanied the partition of Bengal in 1905, in the Congress party’s commitment to linguistic subnational units in the famed Nagpur Constitution of 1920, and in the subsequent formation of Orissa and Sindh as separate provinces of British India. Provincial loyalties were manifest in the process of constitution drafting after independence, and the linguistic states movements and agitations of the 1950s constituted a severe challenge to the conception and the symbols of national unity. The political potency of these movements has been registered in the progressive reconstitution of states on the basis of linguistic and cultural areas. Furthermore, the most competitive opposition parties in India have been regional in their basis of support and provincial in terms of their political orientation.

Third, the state in the Indian federal system enjoys autonomous rights of political decision making on a number of important subjects as provided by the federal constitution—subjects such as education, agricultural policy and taxation, police, and institutions of local government. State-level public offices are highly prized and have been the focus of intense political competition, and voter turnout for elections to the Vidhan Sabha (State Legislative Assembly) has been higher than for elections to the national Lok Sabha (House of the People). For most political aspirants membership in the