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To cite this article: Bhikhu Parekh (2009) Private and public spheres in India,
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 12:2, 313-328, DOI:
10.1080/13698230902892218
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10.1080/13698230902892218
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1369-8230
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Professor
prof.parekh@prof.parekh.karoo.co.uk
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Francis
BhikhuParekh
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of International
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Social and Political Philosophy
In the traditional Indian way of life, the social realm consisting of the
joint family, the kinship network and the caste plays a dominant role, and
colonises both the private and public spheres. This is challenged by the
increasingly influential ideas of personal autonomy, equal citizenship
and a democratically constituted public realm. The tension between the
two provides a clue to much of contemporary Indian political life. India
cannot successfully cope with it without redefining the boundaries
between private and public spheres and developing appropriate norms
for them.
Keywords: autonomy; caste; family; hierarchy; kinship; marriage;
privacy; public good; status; trust
Human activities and relations can be classified in several ways. The privatepublic distinction is one of them. It involves distinguishing them in terms of
the two closely related ideas of who has access to and exercises control over
them. An activity or a relation is private if access to and control over it are
limited to a particular individual or group of individuals. To say that an individuals beliefs, opinions or relations to his wife and children are private is to
say that they are entirely a matter for him, that he is not accountable to others
for them, and that they may not pry into or interfere with them. The term
public refers to what is open or in principle accessible to all and where they
may legitimately participate or take an active interest. Parks and streets are
public in this sense, and so are books, cinemas, modes of transport and political institutions. By the terms private and public sphere, I refer to areas of life
where the activities and relations involved are respectively of a private or
public nature as I have defined these terms.
No area of human life is inherently private or public. Where and how
firmly the line is drawn between them, what activities are placed under each,
and the relative status or importance of the two spheres varies from society to
society. There is nothing inherently private about even the basic biological
functions and sexuality. They are so considered in most modern societies, but
many premodern and even some contemporary societies take a different
*Email: prof.parekh@prof.parekh.karoo.co.uk
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2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13698230902892218
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B. Parekh
view. In some societies, again, collective life is seen as the rulers fiefdom or
private property, and he is free to conduct it as he pleases; in others it is a
public activity involving all citizens. In classical Athens a high value was
placed on political participation, seen as the highest expression of human
freedom, and private life, associated with the inherent compulsions of human
life and considered a realm of necessity, signified privation. In modern society the opposite is the case. Privacy is associated with freedom and privilege
and is greatly cherished, whereas political life is assigned a largely instrumental value.
The fact that an activity, a relationship or an area of life is considered
private does not mean that it is exempt from social regulation. Directly or
indirectly it involves or affects others. And even when it does not, society
has norms concerning the proper way to undertake it. In modern Western
society in which privacy is greatly valued, individuals are free to marry
whoever they like, but their spouses must be human beings (not animals), of
a certain age, outside a certain degree of consanguinity, and in most societies of the opposite sex. Their sexual preferences are their own business,
but these should not involve children, bestiality and, in most societies,
sodomy. They may believe what they like and live as they please, but their
beliefs should not incite hatred against other groups, and their ways of life
should not cause a nuisance to their neighbours, disturb public peace, violate
norms of decency, or endanger public health. Although regulated by social
conventions and even laws, the relevant human activity or area of life is
private and free from others interference because the conventions and laws
are regulative and not prescriptive. They do not dictate choices, only specify
the general conditions all choices should meet. So long as individuals do so,
they may make whatever choices they like without being answerable to
others.
Thanks largely to the spread of the idea of individual autonomy from the
eighteenth century onwards, modern Western society has developed a historically unique manner of defining and distinguishing private and public
spheres. Since it represents important values and provides a necessary backdrop to the discussion of the Indian way of life, a brief sketch of its basic
outline would be useful.
The idea of autonomy implies that individuals see themselves as selfdetermining agents, masters of themselves, and greatly value and indeed
define their dignity in terms of their freedom to run their lives themselves. It
forms the basis of articulating human life into three broad areas, depending
on the kind and degree of autonomy they allow. First, private sphere or an
area of life where individuals are free to organise their personal lives as they
please. Second, civil society or the area where they enter into uncoerced relations with others in pursuit of self-interest, pleasure or common purposes.
Third, the political community or the area of life where individuals are necessarily part of a collective life and are subject to its constraints.
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marriage, career, residence, pattern of life, etc. are all expected to be guided
by the interests of the family. And since ones parents know one as well as
one does oneself, and additionally have greater experience and wisdom and
ones long-term interest at their heart, their advice in these matters is sought
and often followed.
Marriage is a relation not between two individuals but two families, and
signifies not a new relationship but the addition of a new female member to
the existing family. Since she brings with her a different attitude to life, has
her premarital attachments and can threaten the stability of the family, parents
and even siblings take great care, and use all kinds of incentives and threats,
to ensure that the husband-wife relationship does not become autonomous
and self-contained. When children appear on the scene, their grandparents
exercise considerable influence over and sometimes even take control of their
upbringing, often with the approval of the parents. In many Indian families
children grow up attached as much to their grandparents and even their uncles
and aunts as to their parents. And adults are expected to make no moral
distinction between their own children and those of their siblings and to pay
equal regard to their interests.
Personal autonomy and privacy are not much valued in Indian society.
There is nothing private from members of ones family, and there is no desire
to clearly mark off ones life from theirs and claim exclusive control over it.
While there is little privacy within the family, the privacy of the family is
greatly valued. What goes on within the family may not be disclosed to
outsiders, and those who do so incur its wrath. Outsiders also generally
respect the privacy of the family and take no undue interest in its internal
affairs. Adulterous affairs within a family, for example, might be noticed by
outsiders, but are generally not talked about and made a matter of gossip.
Thanks to the strong sense of propriety and respect for the privacy of the
family, the usual kiss and tell stories by divorced spouses or jilted
mistresses are relatively rare in India, and those breaking the norm are looked
down upon and even ostracised.
Even the private lives of well known public leaders are rarely a subject of
public curiosity. And when stories about these do the social round, they rarely
form part of public discussion. Even private conversations about their lives
are generally restrained and tinged with a sense of guilt at breaking an important cultural norm. Pandit Nehrus relations with Edwina Mountbatten were
known, but rarely pried into or discussed. Mahatma Gandhis complex
emotional involvement with Sarladevi Chaudharani, whom he once called his
spiritual wife, were known in some circles, but no one thought it proper to
talk or write about it. It needed his grandson to mention it in his biography of
him, and even he was widely criticised for doing so, not because he had dented
the halo surrounding the national icon, for Gandhi is too great a man to be
damaged by such stories, but because it was not a matter of public interest and
pandered to prurient curiosity.
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young couples and prefer to climb up the steps. The cost of the lift has to be
divided among the remaining few, who either resent their disproportionate
share or cannot afford it. The building is left with a large eyesore in the
middle, which is either left as it is or turned into a huge garbage heap with
its rarely collected contents. If those on the upper floors needed the lift and
decided to install one, they will keep it locked and deny its use to others,
who then make their lives miserable or the lift unworkable in all too familiar
ways.
Hardly any of those involved think that the lift is a public good even
though they might not use it themselves and that their apartments are not
located on an island but are part of a building whose upkeep is in their
common interest. Nor is it appreciated that the huge gap left by the unbuilt
lift is an eyesore and a public nuisance. Even the long-term calculation that
the lift adds to the future value of ones apartment or might become necessary
in ones old age or when one has children is dismissed as too hypothetical to
be relevant. Since the idea of a public good presupposes that one views the
relevant facility from a wider communal point of view, it does not arise or
motivate people when there is no sense of community outside a kinship
network. It is striking that when the apartment owners belong to an extended
family or when the building is the property of a caste, the kind of problem
raised by the lift generally does not arise.
This attitude also informs the conduct of political life where several structural factors inherent in Indian society come into play and aggravate the situation. As the modern view of political life sketched earlier rightly
emphasises, the political community is marked by several distinguishing
features and can only be sustained by respecting its appropriate norms.
Members of a political community see themselves as citizens and conduct
their common affairs on the basis of what promotes the common or public
good. Qua citizens or bearers of a shared political identity, its members are
and recognise each other as equals. They conduct their affairs by means of
debate and discussion in which arguments and reasons alone count. The force
of an argument depends on its intrinsic merit and not on the status of the individual making it. Arguments are depersonalised, detached from those making
them, and their refutation in no way diminishes the dignity or the social status
of the individual involved.
The political community, further, is held together by common subscription to and respect for its shared institutions. Institutions involve offices,
which carry appropriate forms of authority and are governed by a clearly
stated body of rules and procedures. The office is depersonalised or separated
from its incumbent, and the latter, who acquires his authority from his office
not from his personal qualities and power, may not use it for purposes and in
a manner disallowed by it. Finally, like any other form of common life, the
political community presupposes that citizens will observe its norms, that
none of them will be a free rider, and that, if some were, they will invite
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Those at the top are not used to criticism, and those at the bottom to making
it. If critical remarks are made, they tend to be taken personally and construed
as a challenge and even as a slight. Losing an argument is sometimes equated
with losing status, and hence as a form of humiliation. This inhibits rigorous
discussion of policy and critical feedback, and tends to result in hasty and
poorly thought-out decisions.
Great hierarchies and inequalities make it difficult for people to identify
with each other and develop common interests and a sense of mutual concern.
It is hardly surprising that the sense of social justice remains undeveloped in
India. The acute and heartbreaking poverty in which a quarter of the country
lives is seen as an embarrassment rather than a matter of national shame, and
provokes little moral outrage except among a small enlightened section of the
professional classes. The poor have no organised voice, and their problems
appear on the public agenda only when articulated in the language of and
taken up by castes. Since backward castes and marginalised social groups
have little faith in the states ability to deliver on long-term programmes, they
concentrate on their short-term interests, especially their share of the jobs
offered by the policy of positive discrimination. As a result there is no political pressure to deal with health, education, public sanitation and other
general matters that affect the well-being of all and need urgent attention.
Although the Indian public expenditure in these areas is one of the lowest in
the world, there has been little organised pressure to increase it.
One would normally expect political parties in India to develop and
campaign for comprehensive programmes of social and economic development, since they derive their support from coalitions of particular castes or
religious groups and the charismatic appeal of their leaders. However, they
see no need and feel no pressure to do so. They avoid internal institutional
structures lest these should be used to hold their leaders accountable to the
rank and file, or to bind them to a particular policy and restrict their freedom
to form self-serving alliances with other political parties. Political parties
rarely convene annual conferences where big issues can be publicly debated
and sensible policies formulated. Some even dispense with election manifestos. And when they do publish them, even their leaders have frequently been
caught out knowing nothing about their content. Not surprisingly elections are
not about ideologies but empty slogans such as garibi hatao (remove poverty)
and garvase kaho hum Hindu hai (say with pride that we are Hindus).
The Indian media are by and large fairly robust, and do a good job in holding the government accountable, airing public grievances, and giving the
countrys public life verve and vitality. They are not, however, very good at
debating great public issues and political programmes, and in any case they
are hardly the place to conduct a vigorous national debate on alternative visions
of the country. That role belongs to political parties and Parliament. Barring
those on the left, the former are heavily personalised and are little more than
power-seeking instruments. And although Parliament has sometimes been a
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scene of great debates, it is often too fractious and rowdy to allow serious
reflection on the countrys problems. Not surprisingly many important decisions are taken behind its back and bounced on the country. Even such great
changes as the programme of liberalisation that began in the 1990s and has
continued since, and the fundamental shift in foreign policy that began in 2001
and is symbolised by the proposed USIndia deal on civil nuclear fuel, were
not the products of extensive national or parliamentary debates and careful
long-term planning. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that India today lacks
institutionalised public spaces where a sense of national purpose can be
articulated.3
Since Indian social morality is heavily centred on kinship, civil and political life lacks clearly established norms and remains vulnerable to the
constant intrusion of kinship based demands. Occupants of public offices are
subjected to all kinds of pressure from their family, relatives and caste
members. The son, the wife and even the son-in-law and daughter-in-law
expect to succeed their father, husband and in-laws as political leaders.
Distant relations come seeking jobs or promotion. Caste members want
public funds or land for a building. Kinsmen want to be adopted as candidates
in local, state level and parliamentary elections. Greatly surprised when asked
why he had appointed his son to an important job, a well-known politician
retorted, Who then? Your son? His reply reflects a fairy widespread attitude
and makes good sense within his moral framework.
A similar attitude to public office travels lower down. If seats in the executive class on an Air India flight are empty, officials sometimes upgrade their
family members, friends and relatives from economy class. Their reasoning
is fairly simple, and in their view fully justified. The seats are empty and do
not belong to passengers. They, the officials, are in charge of the flight, and
hence at liberty to dispose of these seats as they see fit. And by enabling their
family members to travel in greater comfort, they are promoting their good
and discharging their obligations to them without harming anyone. The idea
that this is a misuse of their authority, that their office requires them to ensure
and their authority only extends to ensuring that passengers travel in the class
they have paid for, is not entertained. Nor is the obvious fact that filling the
executive class in this way damages the long-term interests of the airline,
whose executive class passengers abandon it in favour of another where their
higher fare ensures them comfortable travel in a less crowded and less noisy
cabin. The attitude shown by the airline officials is even more pronounced
among cabinet ministers. Air India is a national carrier and is supposed to
belong to the government whose ministers may therefore use it as they
please. When travelling abroad with their usual large retinues, the most senior
among them sometimes demand seats at a very short notice, and legitimate
passengers get off-loaded.4 Ministers turn up late for the flight, which then
gets delayed, sometimes by hours. Similar things happen on the trains. When
ministers visit places, roads are supposed to belong to them and closed off to
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normal traffic. These and similar forms of behaviour are their ways of
showing that they are superior people and exempt from the rules and discipline that bind others.
When confronted with kinship based claims, some public leaders and
officials think that these outweigh or are morally as weighty as the duty of
impartiality entailed by their office, and either yield to them or work out some
kind of compromise. Others who rightly uphold the public norms governing
their office sometimes pay a heavy price. They are seen as sticklers for rules,
rigid, unduly fastidious, uncaring, lacking a commitment to their family and
relations. Their disappointed caste members might loosen or even sever their
ties with them, and deny their sons and daughters marriage partners. Their
family and kinsmen might become cool, sulk and refuse to extend such help
as they need in difficult times. One needs to be a moral hero to resist such pressures, and not all public figures and officials can or should be expected to be
one. It is not enough to expect public figures and officials to observe the norms
of public morality; social structure and public culture should not make it excessively difficult and socially costly for them to do so. Unless the traditional hold
of the family and kinship networks is loosened, and the demands based on them
are widely seen as illegitimate, public life in India remains morally fragile.
As I argued earlier, no common or shared good is possible without trust,
especially one as complex and impersonal as the good of the political community. If citizens thought that a sizeable number of them were free riders, they
would see no reason to respect the law, pay the taxes, and in general to bear
their share of the inevitable burden of common life. Trust develops when
people feel confident that others will observe the relevant norms, ideally
because they have internalised them, and that those transgressing them will
be subjected to appropriate sanctions. In India both these conditions generally
obtain within the family and the caste, and hence there is considerable trust
among their members. People make great sacrifices for each other in the
confident expectation that these will be reciprocated, and make informal loans
of huge sums of money in the firm knowledge that these will be returned.
The basic conditions of trust are poorly developed outside the kinship
network, and as a result there is much distrust and even cynicism in Indian
public life. Norms of public morality are not widely internalised and woven
into the individuals sense of self-worth and self-respect. Their violations are
accepted as a normal part of political life, do not provoke a moral outrage, and
carry few social sanctions. In such a situation the state has a vital role to play
in fostering trust. It can lay down appropriate norms of public life, honour
those who exemplify them to the highest degree, and visit those transgressing
them with the full rigor of the law. This has not happened in India to the
extent that it should have. Leaders of independent India were acutely aware
of the problem and began very well.5 Drawing on the Indian tradition of rajdharma and Western norms of public morality, they laid down high standards
of public life, set excellent personal examples, and saw to it that their
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violations were appropriately punished. Their task was made easier by the
moral idealism of the independence movement, the determination of
the Indian people to make a new historical start, the social homogeneity of the
political class, and its relative insulation from the pressures of caste and
kinship networks.
As the older generation disappeared or failed to keep up the momentum,
and the democratic process brought in new social groups with their urgent
economic and other concerns, the public sphere began to lose its coherence.
Many of these groups were rightly bitter and felt that, since the upper castes
had traditionally used the machinery of government to pursue their interests,
it was now their turn to do the same. They were also rightly impatient, could
not trust the state to look after their interests, and aimed at quick, short-term
gains. Since they had no habit of working together, each group concentrated
on looking after itself, and predictably relied on the solidarity of kinship and
caste. If political institutions and norms stood in their way, they were to be
jettisoned. For their part the upper castes and vested interests are frightened
of losing control of the state and do the same.
The result is a drastic deterioration of Indias public life. Norms governing it are vague and subordinated to group interests, and the institutions of
the state are notoriously ineffective in enforcing them. In spite of widespread
criticism, criminals are elected to Parliament and state legislatures, currently
forming nearly a sixth of their membership. Those known to have grossly
misused their authority or violated basic norms of public life escape prosecution or secure acquittal by corrupt means and political blackmail. No norms
regulate, and no sanctions follow, the conduct of politicians offering their
loyalty to the highest bidder, or joining parties and espousing policies they
had explicitly disavowed during their election campaigns. It is hardly
surprising that citizens trust in political figures and institutions is extremely
low. And when someone of Dr Manmohan Singhs exemplary integrity and
honesty becomes Prime Minister, he is hailed as a saviour and forgiven his
other limitations.
The general lack of trust means that few believe a word of what most
public figures say. This is of course a universal phenomenon, but it has
reached disturbing proportions in India. Politicians say things they do not
believe; indeed many of them do not believe in anything. Their actions are not
indicative of their convictions, for the actions are often politically motivated
and the convictions are fluid or offered to the highest bidder. Promises given
by political parties and governments are frequently broken and rarely trusted.
When political speech gets devalued in this way and to this degree, the very
lifeblood of political life is drained away. The lack of trust also extends to the
conduct of public figures and officials. Few Indians trust their impartiality or
expect them to judge the demands of the general public on their merit. Their
only hope therefore is to find ways of exerting influence on decision-makers
by finding appropriate connections, using corrupt means, or both.
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Conclusion
In the light of our discussion, India faces two problems in relation to the structure of its private and public spheres.6 So far as the former is concerned, the
modern idea of individual autonomy is beginning to take roots and to generate
demands for greater personal freedom in organising ones life. Indians
however continue to place high value on the family and kinship networks and
the obligations that these entail. They are rightly anxious that autonomy
should not lead to narrow and aggressive individualism and a social climate
of loneliness, abandonment and insecurity, as it has done in much of the West.
Their problem, therefore, which is in no way unique to India, is how to reconcile individual autonomy with the rich world of social relations.
Indias public sphere is in a perilous state and faces even more acute problems. Its regeneration requires a culture of equality and an end to the deeply
ingrained hierarchical consciousness. It requires widespread recognition that
common life in different areas, such as a shared building, streets and parks,
civic associations and above all the political community, has its own norms
and constraints, and cannot be sustained if its members take a purely instrumental and narrowly self-centred view of it. Regeneration of the public
sphere also necessitates a greater emphasis than hitherto on the shared identity of citizenship. Unlike most of the modern West, India recognises the role
of social, ethnic, religious and other identities in the public sphere, partly
because of the compulsions of its social structure, partly to ensure peace and
stability, and partly because many Indians think that these identities enrich
and have a rightful place in public life. India has, however, swung to the other
extreme. It has allowed these identities to colonise public life, and ignored the
vital importance of shared citizenship without which they lack a coordinating
and regulative principle.7
In its challenging task of restructuring its private and public spheres and
establishing a proper relation between the two, India has much to learn from
the West. However since its history, traditions, social structure and moral
aspirations are different, it cannot copy the West and needs to develop its own
distinct model. As of now the direction of its development remains confused
and unclear.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to my good friends Professor Nol OSullivan for several long
discussions on the subject, and Professor Thomas Pantham for his helpful comments
on this paper.
Notes
1. Mehta (2003). The book is a powerful Tocquevillian critique of Indias deeply
unequal social structure.
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2. Commenting on his inability to prevent the gross misuse of the practice of putting
a red or a blue light on the roof of the car to evade normal traffic regulations, the
head of police for New Delhi remarked that his police were too junior in social
status to the occupants of the car to have the confidence to stop them (cited in
Luce 2006, p. 203).
3. See Mehta (2003), p. 129. See also p. 134 where he argues that Indian democracy
is extraordinarily nondeliberative, especially about policy implications that have
a long-run impact.
4. Edward Luce cites an interesting example. Although he and his two friends had
bought expensive tickets to watch a cricket match between India and England,
they were denied entry to the ground along with thousands of other ticket-holders,
many of whom had travelled long distances. This was so because the President of
the Delhi Cricket Club, who was also Indias law minister, had printed and sent
out thousands of complimentary tickets for VIPs. Since the ground was big
enough only to hold the latter, most of the others were turned away, with mounted
police charging an angry crowd (Luce 2006, p. 204).
5. For some amusing examples and a game theory-based analysis of Indian behaviour, see Raghunathan (2006).
6. For a fuller discussion see Parekh (2006). See also the articles by Mahajan,
Beteille, Omvedt and Jain in Mahajan and Reifeld (2003).
7. For a useful discussion of this as well as the cultural context of the private - public
distinction in India, see Madan (2006), chap. 13.
Note on contributor
Bhikhu Parekh is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Westminster
and Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull. He is a Fellow
of the British Academy, President of the Academy for Social Sciences, and a Labour
member of the House of Lords. He is the author of several books, his latest being A
new politics of identity (2008).
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