The Roots and Varieties of Political Conservatism in India

Abstract

A country that has not gone through a revolution, India has been the crucible of several reform movements as early as the nineteenth century. But none of them intended to break with the past. They even sometimes prepared the ground for revivalism. In parallel, Hindu traditionalism developed in reaction to social and cultural change. In the twentieth century, these schools of thought found political expressions in the Congress party where they inhibited the fights against the caste system and land reform. These trends continued after 1947, in reaction to Nehruvian views, till conservative Congressmen created the Swatantra party and then the Congress (O).