80 SOCIAL SCIENTIST ^
troubling to fit in social justice, which only hinders the extraction of economic surplus from the people to enrich the state. Y^
Kothari's future perspective is a perfect example of the technocratic structure that the Indian ruling class is trying to build to further its way along the crisis-ridden path of capitalist development. His focus on the relation between institutions and the systems5 performance, is not to measure the success or failure of the system, which, though important, does not conform to his unfolding dialectic (very reminiscent of Hegel). He has already come to the conclusion that the present is the highest stage of development. Therefore, the unfolding dialectics' only purpose is to remove the responsibility of failure from the rulers to the ruled.
One has to revert once again, to his Indian model. There has been a crystallisation of a dominant political centre, through the colonial impact and the emergence of an elite that sought to legitimise itself systematically (parliamentary democracy). Some of the 'imaginative' democratic techniques used by the centre have been the ruthless toppling of non-congress governments, particularly in Kerala and West Bengal ;
horse-trading in MP's and financial blackmail to bring states into line with central policies.
On the other side of the coin is the often misused term ^federalism', which supposedly recognises Indian diversity. The dominant centre, under this concept, grants autonomy to the regions, in the form of the ^establishment' within which these groups must find a place. Such a distinction is made (p 421) between centralisation based on domination and the concept of centralism or hegemony. Social mobilisation, therefore, implies arriving at a consensus by respecting rival claims at electoral and other levels, within the limitations of 'allowable dissent'. For the articulation of such a policy the political elite must initiate a shift from urban to rural centres to control the caste federations, co-operative societies and panchayats.
The Indian political culture has been described by him as 'non-aggregative' which is a timeless concept, as against the most scientific and cumulative, which apparently the new elite has achieved. Practice proves otherwise. The coalition-making process indulged in by the Congress has been issue-based and subject to the crisis situation facing the ruling party at the times.
It follows from this that the elite does not derive its legitimacy from an amorphous 'mass base'. By implication governments supported by the masses always lead to authoritarian rule. The masses are therefore, only to be used as a reserve of the ruling class in strengthening its position vis-a-vis other contenders.
For India, therefore, Kothari postulates an 'increamental' revolu- ^ tion, an assimilative, quantitative concept, where time and patience are " the key factors, as against the scientific concept of qualitative change which is dismissed as being 'ideology-based.' The quantitative model is conservative and contradictory for it tries to assimilate the new into the