Book Review Jivanta Sch ttli. Vision and strategy in Indian politics Jawaharlal Nehru’s policy choices and the designing of pol.docx

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1、Jivanta Schttli Vision and strategy in Indian politics: Jawaharlal Nehru policy choicesand the designing of political institutions. Oxford and New York: Routledge 2012.In this new volume in the series Routledge Advances in South Asian Studies,“Jivanta Schttli explores three key developments in newly

2、 independent India: the founding ofthe Planning Commission (1950), the Panchasheela Agreement with China (1954), and theHindu Code bills, seen as a step towards a Uniform Civil Code (1955-56). All threedevelopments are key to understanding the nature of Indian modernity and its transformationfrom a

3、colonial to a postcolonial democracy, and for Schttli9 all three developments owetheir origins to Jawaharlal Nehrus political worldview, which Schttli studies in terms ofboth Nehrus vision and his strategy. New Institutionalism and Historical Institutionalism5are the two main political frameworks th

4、rough which she conducts her examination, but forSchttli, understanding the worldview of Nehru “the individual” is critical to understandingNehru “the political actor. Thus, while she explicitly argues against the separation of the manfrom his times, such a separation is at times implemented in her

5、analysis as a methodologicaltool in order to understand the nature of Nehru5s political action. Schttlis primary sourcesfor excavating this worldview are Nehrus speeches and writings, from which she quotescopiously but judiciously. The book is thus at once a biography and a study of the process ofIn

6、dian modernization in the Nehruvian period.Schttli explains her choice of theoretical structures by presenting the argument thatboth the New Institutionalism and Historical Institutionalism schools of thought allow roomfor an exploration of the processes by which an institution comes into being; bot

7、h frameworksalso assert that the existence of an institution is, itself, not a guarantee of its validity. Schttlipoints out that in the case of India, traditional models of modernity, which tend to beteleological, seem to flter because of the integration of the processes of modernity within anentren

8、ched indigenous tradition that is often extremely hierarchical and feudal and informedby considerations of class, caste, and religion, which modem institutions do not succeed indisplacing. As Schttli argues, Nehru, as the middle ground between the conservative rightand the radical left, and propped

9、up by Mahatma Gandhi, was constrained by his politicalopponents and supporters as well as by the specific organizational policies of his politicalparty, the Indian National Congress (INC), and this, as much as his worldview, shaped thenature of his actions. The three institutions he developed, there

10、fore, were not solely driven byhis unique vision, as is often promoted in Nehruviana, but were instead developed within theconstraints of his political situation. Schttli argues that Nehru evolving worldview in thecontext of Indian modernization is itself a product of the historical circumstances th

11、at Nehruthe political actor was trying to negotiate.To distinguish Nehru on the basis of his worldview vis-a-vis the other dominantleaders of the time risks falling into the trap of psychological individualism, and detracts froma historical methodology. Vision and strategy are not mutually exclusive

12、 categories, asSchttli successfully shows, but are, rather, meshed together in political choice. As such,Schttli presents what she calls the structure of opportunities J meaning that the constraintsthat shaped Nehru were also the very reason for his success and that he was ultimately able toalter su

13、ch conditions in his favor. Nehru,s decisions were affected by the actions of hiscontemporaries (Subhas Chandra Bose before independence and Vallabhbhai Patel andRajendra Prasad after), and Nehru strategically highlighted or compromised on specific issuesin order to gain ascendancy within the party

14、and promote his own vision of progress.Schttlis approach is particularly useful in understanding Nehrus position on the firstof the three institutions she examines: the Planning Commission. As Schttli shows, thePlanning Commission serves to demonstrate both how Nehru consolidated power andVision and

15、 Strategy in Indian Politics149translated his specific vision into policy. The origins of the commission lie in the CongressNational Planning Committee (NPC), established under Subhas Chandra Bose, with Nehru aschairman. The NPC, which saw in industrialization the solution to Indias economicproblems

16、, was nonetheless opposed by Gandhi and Gandhians, and Nehru never openlyopposed Gandhi even though he was in favor of the solution. Thus, while Bose, whoseconflict with Gandhi led to the former disenchantment and eventual departure from theCongress party, did not feel compelled to publically defer to Gandhis opinion, Nehrudepended on Gandhis