POLITICS IN INDIA

Abstract

Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. Politics is thus inextricably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation. From one viewpoint, the presence of opponent suppositions, distinctive needs, contending needs and restricting interests ensures contradiction about the guidelines under which individuals live. Then again, individuals perceive that, so as to impact these principles or guarantee that they are maintained, they should work with others. The word ‘politics’ is derived from polis, meaning literally city-state. Ancient Greek society was divided into a collection of independent city-states, each of which possessed its own system of government. The largest and most influential of these city-states was Athens, often portrayed as the cradle of democratic government. This definition was acceptable because it conceived the study of the polis covering not only the principles of governance but also ethical norms of conduct and social vision. The modern form of this definition is therefore ‘what concerns the state’. This view of politics is clearly evident in the everyday use of the term: people are said to be ‘in politics’ when they hold public office, or to be ‘entering politics’ when they seek to do so. Politics may be treated as an ‘essentially contested’ concept, in the sense that the term has a number of acceptable or legitimate meanings. Contrary to this, these different views may simply consist of contrasting conceptions of the same, if necessarily vague, concept. The concept of ‘what is politics?’ is worth pursuing because it exposes some of the deepest intellectual and ideological disagreements in the academic study of the subject. The different views of politics are: