Ghanshyam Shah - Social Movements in India: A Review of the Literature

T here have been many studies on social movements in India during the last three decades, though compared to many other areas and the incidence of movements, their number is very small. A majority of the studies are recent, published after the mid-1960s. Most of them are by historians, sociologists, political activists or journalists. Political scientists have, by and large, ignored this area till recently. Historians have for long concentrated on political history, which is mainly the history of rulers and of the elite. British historians, in whose footsteps Indian historians, for good or for bad, followed, focused their studies on the activities of the British as the actors on the stage of history with India as a shadowy background (Stokes 1959). Social history came onto the scene very late. And for a long time, it limited its scope to the history of people with the politics left out. It has been largely confined to social policies of the government, educational and cultural history, social reform movements, the growth of the middle class, etc. (Bhattacharya 1982). Recently, social historians have produced very stimulating studies on social movements in general and peasant movements in particular. Sociology is a relatively new discipline. Although the first generation of sociologists maintained a broader horizon, the second generation has confined its focus to the tradition-modernity paradigm. A majority of their studies are related to kinship, caste and village society. Their interest in social movements was largely focused on Sanskritisation and socio-religious reform movements, excluding the political dimension as beyond their scope, until political sociology or the sociology of politics began to take shape in the late 1960s. Political science is still lagging behind. The Indian Journal of Political Science The situation has not changed in the 1980s and 1990s. The first trend report of research in political science commissioned by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in 1971 did not include them as a topic for the review of the literature. During 1969 and 199495 ICSSR sponsored 672 research projects in history, political science, sociology and anthropology. Among these, only 17 (less than 3 per cent) were related to social movements (ICSSR 1990, n.d.).

Even those movements which have a direct political character explicitly directed against the government, not to speak of social movements in general, have largely been considered by Indian political scientists to be beyond the purview of their academic discipline. Political science in India has largely concentrated on political institutions such as the executive, legislature, parties and elections. The study of the politics of the masses, their aspirations and demands, the articulation of their problems and their modus operandi in the assertion of their demands outside the formal institutional framework have been, by and large, ignored by political science academia. However, development policies and welfare programmes, governance, etc. are on the agenda of teaching and research of Indian political science. But the focus is on the objectives and role of the government, and evaluation of the programmes rather than the processes of formulation of the policies. For instance, the policy of land reform is taught without analysing the struggles which forced the state and political parties to undertake the policy. Mrs Indira Gandhi's garibi hatao policy is not analysed in the context of the numerous struggles of the rural and urban poor in the 1960s. It is often forgotten that the functioning of the state cannot be fully understood without an understanding of the politics of the masses. Perception, beliefs, aspirations and the views of the subaltern classes can help us to define and redefine our concepts, and question our textbook-based knowledge.