Book Review: Commonwealth of Nations: India as a Secular State
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900127 |
| Author | Wilfred Cantwell Smith |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIBWS
105
party
system,
which
is
dangerous
for
the
parliamentary
system,
though
not
necessarily
for
the presidential
type.
Nevertheless, his
defense
of
the
legitimacy
of
articulation
of
demands
by
interest
groups
in
general
and Community
Associations
in
particular
is
a
welcome
antidote
to
the
oft-repeated
denunciation
of
"casteism,
communalism,
and
region-
alism".
The
chapter
on
"Organized Business"
contains
a
neat
defence
of
bribery;
and
later,
there
is
a
defence of
corruption.
The
author's
pre-
scription
seems
to
be,
"equalize
the
opportunities
for
corruption,
rather
than
eliminate
the
practice",
on
the
grounds
that
it
is
endemic
in
the
Indian
social
structure
and
pattern
of
behaviour.
To
end
the
evil
of
student
indiscipline,
he
makes
the
common sense
proposal
to
improve
communication
between
students
and university
authorities.
There
is
also
a
good
summary
of
the
techniques
used
to
influence
public
policy
and of
middle
class
attitudes
in
India's
largest
city.
In
his
concluding
chapter,
Weiner notes
the
main
patterns
in
the
development
of
organized
interests
and
poses
the
crucial
question as
to
whether
or not
they
are
barriers
to
planning
and
democracy.
There
are,
he says,
five
methods
to
reduce
demands
on
government: reducing
the
government's
role
in
settling
disputes;
improving channels
of
communi-
cation
between
interest
groups and
government; increasing
the
power
of
local
authorities;
enlarging the
scope
of
administrative
decision-
making;
and
developing
a
public philosophy
within
interest
groups.
In
a
note
of
caution, he observes,
correctly,
that
in
the
short-run
economic
growth
will have
politically unstabilizing
effects,
for
the
"politics
of
scarcity"
will
heighten tensions and
lead
to
a
proliferation
of
interest
groups making
demands
on
a
relatively smaller quantity
of
consumer
goods.
The
task
of
the transition,
therefore,
is
to
satisfy
legitimate
demands
in
so
far
as
possible
and
to
channel
pressures,
not
to
eliminate
these
elements
of
a "modern"
and
democratic
political
system.
Although
his
mentor's
claims
are
somewhat
pretentious,
Professor
Weiner's
study
is
a
substantial
contribution
to
our
knowledge
of
one
facet
of
Indian
politics.
McGill
University
MIcHAEL
BRECHER
INDIA
As
A
SECULAR
STATE.
By
Donald
Eugene Smith.
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press.
Toronto:
S.
J.
Reginald Sounders.
xix,
518pp.
$12.00)
It
must
be
nice
to
imagine
that
vast
and
profound
social
and
human
problems
have
clear
and
simple
solutions;
and
especially
the
particular
solution
with
which one's
own society
and
one's
own
training
have
made
one
uncritically
familiar.
The
author
of
this
study not
only
believes
in
a
secular
state
as
the
obvious,
and
sure,
and
inevitable
answer
to
India's
social
and moral
development;
he
explicitly
believes
in
"the"
secular
state
(he
uses
the
definite
article
throughout
the
book),
as
an
idea
apparently
clear
and
distinct
in
Cartesian
fashion,
and
apparently
virtuous
and
final
in
Platonic.
He
has
explicitly
learned
this
idea
in
the
United
States,
before
he
ever
set
out
to
visit
India;
he
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