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One decade of BJP rule in Chhattisgarh : A critical
analysis
Submitted to:

Dr. Avinash Samal
(Faculty of Political Science)

By:

Shivanshu bais
B.A.LL.B (Hons.) Student
Semester I, Roll No. 152, Section B

Submitted On – 24-08-2015

Hidayatullah National Law University
Uparwara Post, Abhanpur, New Raipur – 493661 (C.G.)

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Declaration
I Shivanshu bais hereby declare that the project work entitled “One Decade of BJP
rule in Chhattisgarh” submitted to “Hidayatullah National Law University”, is a
record of original work done by me under the guidance of Dr. Avinash Samal.

Shivanshu bais
Roll no.- 152

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind
support and help of many individuals. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.
I am highly indebted to Dr. Avinash samal for putting trust in me and giving me a project
topic as such as this and for having the faith in me to deliver.
It is with his guidance and constant supervision and support in completing the project. I would
like to express my gratitude towards my parents & members of HNLU for their kind cooperation and encouragement which help me in completion of this project.
My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleagues in developing the project and people who
have willingly helped me out with their abilities.

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INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

Introduction.................................................................................... 5-6
Objectives and research methodology........................................... 7
1.

What is a state.................................................................. 8-10

2. State as a necessary evil……………………………. … 11-12
3. Is state necessary………………………………………. 13
3.1 State should be formed…………………………. 14
3.2 Rules for constitution of social facts..................... 15
3.3 Rules for explanation of social facts..................... 17
3.4 Rules for demonstration of social facts .............. 18-19
3.5 Rejection of historical method.............................. 19
4. Conclusion........................................................................ 20
5. References.......................................................................... 21

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OBJECTIVES
1. To know whether the state is necessary evil.
2. To know about various characteristics of state.
3. To demonstrate the features of state.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research is descriptive and analytical in nature. Secondary and electronic resources have
been used extensively to gather data about the topic. Books and other reference as guided by
faculty of political science have been primarily helpful in structuring the project. Websites,
dictionaries and articles have also been referred to. I’ve used empirical methods in making this
project by referring to various books kept in the library. These methods do not include field
work and mainly depend on electronic resources. Footnotes have been provided wherever
needed to acknowledge the sources.

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IS STATE NECESSARY
States are necessary; without states there will only be chaos. This is why Thomas Paine says,
"state” in its best form, is but a necessary evil." Paine in his writings pleads for the rights of
man; he knows that any state will have restrictions imposed on the citizens' exercise of
absolute rights in the interest of order, harmony and peace in society. Even the best of state
will have to do this. Curbing the rights of man, according to Paine, is an evil. But since state
is a necessary evil, they should be tolerable ones.
Which form of state is the most tolerable? In the modem world monarchies have practically
ceased to exist, even in the states where the heads of states are monarchs. Great Britain has a
monarch, but the monarch is only a figure-head, and the country is one of the strongest
democracies in the world. Nepal, a state ruled by a monarch, has also a form of democratic
state. Today people all over the world clamor for democracy; this is most pronounced in
states that have been under single-party (mainly Communist) rule. The modem world sees in
democracy the most tolerable form of government (state). This is because it knows that "no
man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
There are three basic types of states (governments) seen in the world today. These are the
Western-style democracies, the people's democracies, and military dictatorships. The
Western-style democracy may be called 'liberal democracy'; it is found throughout western
Europe, in North America, Australia, New Zealand, India, Israel, etc. People's democracies
are modelled on the former U.S.S.R. government, and constitute single-party rule. Under the
people's democracy, the government is all-powerful and is a form of dictatorship. Military
dictatorships - which are the worst form of government - have come into being in some of the
Third World countries where the fragility of governments could not resist the might of the
military craving for power.
Military coups come about because the armed forces provide the only stable and effective
power base in a crumbling, fragile democracy or single-party rule. The common feature of
good states is that the armed forces, through their leader or leaders, effectively dictate policy.
They may choose to do this invisibly, working behind a screen of civilian forms such as
legislatures and cabinets. This has been the case in Pakistan till recently and in Brazil since

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1964. The armed forces may also choose to rule openly themselves as in Chile and Argentina.
Many military regimes, create a political facade to buttress their rule. Whatever be the
subterfuges adopted by the armed forces to give their government a democratic semblance,
the executive power is wielded by the military; sometimes a military council controls a mixed
military-and-civilian government. The hallmark of a military government, whatever be its
form, is the iron hand with which it rules; that is to say, no opposition to it or free criticism of
its functioning is tolerated; freedom of the citizen is wholly curbed. It is this aspect of the
military rule that makes it intolerable.
Liberal democracy or a civil government is any day preferable to a military government. The
military government may have enlightened economic, political, and social goals. But the very
fact that dissent is not tolerated by it and the freedom of the individual and his rights are
curtailed makes it objectionable and obnoxious. In a civil government there is only limited
control or restraint imposed on the citizen. Government intervention is there only to see that
laws are obeyed, that the poor do not starve, and that children are educated. The individual's
dignity and rights are respected; his beliefs are not interfered with. Dissent is tolerated; the
policy pursued by the civil government alters as the views of citizens change. To ensure all
this there are safeguards in the form of freedom of expression, and association, a freely
elected representative assembly and methods of slowing the decision-making process of the
government until public opinion has reached a settled conclusion. Above all, the actions of
the individual and the government are subject to the scrutiny of an impartial and independent
judiciary.
Some states are dictatorial; civilian states are democratic. A truly civilian government is
democratic and liberal. The world is veering towards the adaption of democracy. This is what
we see today in Europe; Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika are only the off-shoots of the
citizens' craving for liberal democracy.

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RULES FOR OBSERVATION OF SOCIAL FACTS
A general tendency of the human mind which, together with the serious defects of the current
learning, had to be corrected if his plan for the advancement of scientific knowledge was to
succeed. This was the quite natural tendency to take our ideas of things for the things
themselves, and then to construct our "knowledge" of the latter on the foundation of the
largely undisciplined manipulation of the former; and it was to overcome such false notions,
and thus to restore man's lost mastery over the natural world, that Bacon had planned (but
never completed) the Great Instauration.
It was appropriate that Durkheim should refer to Bacon's work in the Rules, for he clearly
conceived of his own project in similar terms. Just as crudely formed concepts of natural
phenomena necessarily precede scientific reflection upon them, and just as alchemy thus
precedes chemistry and astrology precedes astronomy, so men have not awaited the advent of
social science before framing ideas of law, morality, the family, the state, or society itself.
Indeed, the seductive character of our praenotiones of society is even greater than were those
of chemical or astronomical phenomena, for the simple reason that society is the product of
human activity, and thus appears to be the expression of and even equivalent to the ideas we
have of it. Comte's Cours de philosophie positive (1830-1842), for example, focused on the
idea of the progress of humanity, while Spencer's Principles of Sociology (1876-1885)
dismissed Comte's idea only to install his own preconception of "cooperation."
But isn't it possible that social phenomena really are the development and realization of
certain ideas? Even were this the case, Durkheim responded, we do not know a priori what
these ideas are, for social phenomena are presented to us only "from the outside": thus, even
if social facts ultimately do not have the essential features of things, we must begin our
investigations as if they did. I3ut. truer to form, Durkheim immediately reasserted his
conviction of what Peter Berger has aptly called the choséité (literally, "thingness") of social
facts. A "thing" is recognizable as such chiefly because it is intractable to all modification by
mere acts of will, and it is precisely this property of resistance to the action of individual wills
which characterizes social facts. The most basic rule of all sociological method, Durkheim
thus concluded, is to treat social facts as things. 1

1

Durkheim saw such facts as analogous to those "mixed" phenomena of nature studied by "combined" sciences

such as biochemistry.

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From this initial injunction, three additional rules for the observation of social facts
necessarily follow. The first, implied in much of the discussion above, is that one must
systematically discard all preconceptions. Durkheim thus added the method of Cartesian
doubt to Bacon's caveats concerning praenotiones, arguing that the sociologist must deny
himself the use of those concepts formed outside of science and for extra-scientific needs:
"He must free himself from those fallacious notions which hold sway over the mind of the
ordinary person, shaking off, once and for all the yoke of those empirical categories that long
habit often makes tyrannical."
Second, the subject matter of research must only include a group of phenomena defined
beforehand by certain common external characteristics, and all phenomena which correspond
to this definition must be so included. Every scientific investigation, Durkheim insisted, must
begin by defining that specific group of phenomena with which it is concerned; and if this
definition is to be objective, it must refer not to some ideal conception of these phenomena,
but to those properties which are both inherent in the phenomena themselves and externally
visible at the earliest stages of the investigation. Indeed, this had been Durkheim's procedure
in The Division of Labor, where he defined as "crimes" all those acts provoking the externally
ascertainable reaction known as "punishment."
The predictable objection to such a rule was that it attributes to visible but superficial
phenomena an unwarranted significance. When crime is defined by punishment, for example,
is it not then derived from punishment? Durkheim's answer was no, for two reasons. First, the
function of the definition is neither to explain the phenomenon in question nor to express its
essence; rather, it is to establish contact with things, which can only be done through
externalities. It is not punishment that causes crime, but it is through punishment that crime is
revealed to us, and thus punishment must be the starting point of our investigation. Second,
the constant conjunction of crime and punishment suggests that there is an indissoluble link
between the latter and the essential nature of the former, so that, however "superficial,"
punishment is a good place to start the investigation. Finally, when the sociologist undertakes
to investigate any order of social facts, he must strive to consider them from a viewpoint
where they present themselves in isolation from their individual manifestations. Science, as
we have seen, must dismiss those praenotiones formed through common, extra-scientific
experience, and create its concepts anew on the basis of systematically observable data.

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RULES FOR CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL FACTS
According to the second rule in the previous section, a social fact can be labeled "normal" or
"pathological" only in relation to a given social "type" or "species." Durkheim's next stop was
thus to set out rules for the constitution or classification of such species. In particular, he
sought a via media between the historians, for whom each society is unique and
incomparable, and the philosophers, for whom different societies are only various
expressions of the fundamental attributes of "human nature." In other words, Durkheim was
after an intermediate entity which would acknowledge the unity required by scientific
generalization as well as the diversity inherent in the facts.
As the means to this end, Durkheim again endorsed the method advocated in Bacon's Novum
Organum -- namely, to look for decisive or crucial facts which, regardless of their number,
have scientific value or interest. 2 But which facts are most "decisive" or "crucial"? Clearly,
those facts which explain other facts; and in this sense, Durkheim admitted, explanation and
classification are interdependent, and neither can proceed very far in the absence of the other.
But at least we know where to start: societies are made up of parts, and their character must
thus depend on the nature, number, and relations of the parts thus combined. Durkheim thus
set about classifying social types according to the same principle which had guided that
activity in The Division of Labor, and eventually codified it in a rule: We shall begin by
classifying societies according to the degree of organization they manifest, taking as a base
the perfectly simple society or the single-segment society. Within these classes different
varieties will be distinguished, according to whether a complete coalescence of the initial
segments takes place.3

RULES FOR THE EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL FACTS
2

Durkheim rejected the alternative method of detailed monographic comparison as inconsistent with the main

purpose of classification, which is to substitute a limited number of types for an indefinite multiplicity of
individuals (cf. 1895: 110-111).
3

The term "coalescence" refers to the degree of concentration of the component segments, and "complete

coalescence" is achieved where these segments no longer affect the administrative or political organization of
the society (cf. 1895: 115).

P a g e | 11

The titles of the first two books of The Division of Labor, as well as most of the arguments
within them, attest to Durkheim's aversion for any "teleological" confusion of the function of
a social fact with its cause.4 This aversion followed naturally from Durkheim's preemptive
rule of sociological method; for once we recognize that social facts are real things, resistive
forces prevailing over individual wills, it becomes clear that no human need or desire,
however imperious, could be sufficient to such an effect. Indeed, like the vestigial organs of
its biological counterpart, a social fact sometimes exists without serving any vital need or
desire whatsoever, either because it has never done so, or because its utility has passed while
it persists from force of habit.5 Needs and desires may intervene to hasten or retard social
development, but they cannot themselves create any social fact; and even their intervention is
the effect of more fundamental social causes. Therefore when one undertakes to explain a
social phenomenon, the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfills must be
investigated separately. But what was thus denounced as teleological was at least equally
disparaged as psychologistic, for Durkheim regarded these as no more than different
descriptions of the same methodological blunder. Indeed, if society is only a system of means
set up to achieve certain ends, then these ends must surely be individual, for prior to society
only individuals could exist. The origin and development of society would thus be the result
of individual minds, and the laws of sociology no more than corollaries of those of
psychology. The organization of the family would thus be the consequence of the conjugal
and parental emotions; economic institutions, that of the desire for wealth; morality, that of
self-interest informed by the principle of utility; and religion, that of those emotions provoked
by fear of nature or awe at the charismatic personality, or even the religious "instinct" itself.
At the risk of repetition, Durkheim regarded such "explanations" as inadequate to that which
was to be explained -- namely, a group of facts external to the individual which exercises a
coercive power over him: "It is not from within himself that can come the external pressure
which he undergoes; it is therefore not what is happening within himself which can explain
it."

RULES FOR DEMONSTRATION OF SOCIOLOGICAL PROOF AND
REJECTION OF HISTORICAL METHOD

4

5

Here Durkheim sometimes seems to argue with himself. While insisting on the need for functional as well as
causal explanations of social facts, for example, he states that a social fact must generally be useful if it, and
"indeed, the society of which it is a part" are to survive (cf. 1895: 124-125). The most charitable interpretation
lays special emphasis on the words "vital" and "generally."

P a g e | 12

According to Durkheim, we can only compare those cases where both are simultaneously
present (or absent), and ask whether the variations they display in these different
circumstances suggest that one depends upon the other. Where the two phenomena are
produced artificially by the observer, we call this method experimentation; and where
the artificial production of phenomena is impossible, we compare them as they have
been produced naturally, a procedure called indirect experimentation, or the
comparative method. Durkheim was convinced that sociology was limited solely to
the latter method, and this led him to reject both Comte's "historical" method, which
depended on an acceptance of his tendentious "laws" of social progress, and Mill's
suggestion that even "indirect" experimentation is inapplicable to the study of social
phenomena. In particular, Durkheim attacked Mill`s postulate that the same effect can
result from various causes as one which would render the scientific analysis of such
causes utterly intractable. As the first rule for the demonstration of sociological proof,
therefore, Durkheim proposed: To the same effect there always corresponds the
same cause.
Durkheim then proposed three methods by which such serial, systematic variations might be
formed. First, when dealing with very general facts (e.g., suicide) about which we have
extensive statistical data,

6

the sociologist might limit his study to a single, unique

society. But a second method -- i.e., collecting facts from several societies of the same
social type -- makes available a more extensive field of comparison. The sociologist
could now confront the history of one society with another, to see if the same
phenomenon evolves over time in response to the same conditions. But this method is
applicable only to phenomena which have arisen during the existence of the societies in
question, and thus ignores that part of a society's social organization which is inherited
ready-made from earlier societies.

This observation led directly to Durkheim's third method: "to account for a social institution
belonging to a species already determined, we shall compare the different forms which
it assumes, not only among peoples of that species, but in all previous species." This
"genetic" method, Durkheim argued, simultaneously yields both an analysis and a
6

Even here, the fact must be widely prevalent throughout the society while simultaneously varying from region

to region; for otherwise, the comparison yields only two parallel curves, one expressing development of the fact
under study and the other its hypothesized cause -- interesting, but hardly proof (cf. 1895: 156).

P a g e | 13

synthesis of the facts under study -- by showing us how each component element of the
phenomenon was successively added to the other, it reveals them in their dissociated
state; and by means of the broad field of comparison, the fundamental conditions on
which the formation and association of these elements depend are determined.
Consequently, one cannot explain a social fact of any complexity save on condition
that one follows its entire development throughout all species. In so far as it ceases to
be purely descriptive and attempts to explain social facts, therefore, comparative
sociology is not a single branch of sociology, but is coextensive with the discipline
itself.

RULES FOR THE EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL FACTS

P a g e | 14

The titles of the first two books of The Division of Labor, as well as most of the arguments
within them, attest to Durkheim's aversion for any "teleological" confusion of the function of
a social fact with its cause.7 This aversion followed naturally from Durkheim's preemptive
rule of sociological method; for once we recognize that social facts are real things, resistive
forces prevailing over individual wills, it becomes clear that no human need or desire,
however imperious, could be sufficient to such an effect. Indeed, like the vestigial organs of
its biological counterpart, a social fact sometimes exists without serving any vital need or
desire whatsoever, either because it has never done so, or because its utility has passed while
it persists from force of habit.8 Needs and desires may intervene to hasten or retard social
development, but they cannot themselves create any social fact; and even their intervention is
the effect of more fundamental social causes. Therefore when one undertakes to explain a
social phenomenon, the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfills must be
investigated separately. But what was thus denounced as teleological was at least equally
disparaged as psychologistic, for Durkheim regarded these as no more than different
descriptions of the same methodological blunder. Indeed, if society is only a system of means
set up to achieve certain ends, then these ends must surely be individual, for prior to society
only individuals could exist. The origin and development of society would thus be the result
of individual minds, and the laws of sociology no more than corollaries of those of
psychology. The organization of the family would thus be the consequence of the conjugal
and parental emotions; economic institutions, that of the desire for wealth; morality, that of
self-interest informed by the principle of utility; and religion, that of those emotions provoked
by fear of nature or awe at the charismatic personality, or even the religious "instinct" itself.
At the risk of repetition, Durkheim regarded such "explanations" as inadequate to that which
was to be explained -- namely, a group of facts external to the individual which exercises a
coercive power over him: "It is not from within himself that can come the external pressure
which he undergoes; it is therefore not what is happening within himself which can explain
it."

7

8

Here Durkheim sometimes seems to argue with himself. While insisting on the need for functional as well as
causal explanations of social facts, for example, he states that a social fact must generally be useful if it, and
"indeed, the society of which it is a part" are to survive (cf. 1895: 124-125). The most charitable interpretation
lays special emphasis on the words "vital" and "generally."

P a g e | 15

CONCLUSION
Conclusion was drawn from the this research project of method that sociology,
in our view, should or even leave aside man and his faculties. On the

P a g e | 16

contrary, it is clear that the general characteristics of human nature play
their part in the work of elaboration from which social life results. But it is
not these which produce it or give it its special from: they only make it
possible. Collective representations emotions and tendencies have not as
their causes certain states of consciousness in individuals but the
conditions under which the body social as a whole exists doubtless these
can be realized only if individual natures are not opposed to them. But
these are simply the indeterminate matter which the social factor fashions
and transforms. Their contribution is made up exclusively of very general
states vague and thus malleable predispositions which of themselves could
not assume the definite and complex forms which characterize social
phenomena if other agents did not intervene.

REFERENCES

P a g e | 17

1. Durkheim, Emile, The Rules of Sociological Method, New York, The Free Press,
1938. Referred to in notes as Rules. HM 24 D962.
2. Durkheim, Emile, The Division of Labor in Society, New York, The Free Press, 1933.
Referred to in notes as Division. HD 51 D98.
3. Émile Durkheim (1982). The Rules of Sociological Method. Simon and Schuster.
pp. 2–. ISBN 978-0-02-907940-9. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
4. W. S. F. Pickering (2001). Emile Durkheim: Critical Assessments of Leading
Sociologists. Taylor & Francis. pp. 232–. ISBN 978-0-415-20562-7. Retrieved 17
March 2011.
5. Ferreol & Noreck. Introduction to Sociology. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. pp. 12–.
ISBN 978-81-203-3940-8. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
6. www.google.co.in/rules of sociological method.
7. www.wikipedia.com/rules of sociological method.

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