FEUDALIZATION OF MODERNITY IN INDIA
Most of Indians are still fascinated by their feudal roots and interestingly both modern Indian Polity and modern Indian economy are typically characterised by feudalization .Both capitalist economy and socialist economy in India have this feature. So interestingly we could not have any capitalist society or socialist society or even social democratic society in their classical terms. Rather our entire social system including it's social, cultural, political and economic aspects have never fully modernized nor demodernized. Of course the pull of demodernization on a modern practice or institution hascbeen more powerful than the pull of modernization.
We see, our social traditions seldom adopt radical transformation, our religious faiths and practices find new ways to interfere into personal lives, religion in India has never faced that sort of philosophical challenge as religion in the West faced, our financial system never become updated as per modern principles of capitalist economy, our education system has still heavy load of traditionalism , traditionalism in education is so strong that even top managers of our education often express serious doubts about scientific facts and above all our politics which is all powerful and which decides everything from birth to death and that still heavily draws it's relevence from caste, religion, language, gender, region etc. Thus we see Indian social structure has never shown any tendency to become modern and consequently we have always been on backfoot in competition with any contemporary power of east or west. And there is every sign of continuation of this trend in coming future. So no major improvement in increase of Indian power appears in near future, particularly when we have such powerful forces which have strong fascination for unproved knowledge due to their own ignorance and due to potential gains in politics.
In Europe when feudalism was crumbling , entire range of the thought process was emerging. Society of then Europe was intensely eager for material progress and for this religious principles and practices were being challanged. Those Christians had Calvin like people who could dare to challange deep rooted principles of the European Church which were against the demands of capitalism. Later on they showed same restlessness for scientific progress. Of course it is true that Europe exploited the rest of the world in a very ruthless manner but it is also true that it was Europe where new thoughts could take birth which paved the way for modern society. In contrast to that natural and spontaneous growth of modernity in Europe in India it was externally induced by Britishers and as it was externally induced , it was induced in favour of the Britishers. So introduction of modernity in India was not from the existing structures as was in Europe but it was planted and so the modernity in India had hesitant start and it has remained hesitant till today. No feudal structure could be dismantled as those structures had not given birth to new system and withered away, rather they remained at their place and remained as the competitors of new modern structures. Hence feudalism in India had not given way to modernity , rather it remained and has remained existent side by side with modernity. Consequently both continues to influence each other. Since majority of Indians live in rural and small urban areas they remain more traditional and feudal in their outlook. Majority of Indian middle class has been emerging from these feudal settlements they continue to carry their feudal characteristics even after getting into the fold of middle, upper middle and upper middle classes. And so Indian modernity has been continuing to have feudal features .
Interestingly afterb1990 when Indian market was exposed to global market more Indians started getting opportunity to have direct western exposure but as their feudal roots were in their place even the highly westernized Indian middle class remains feudal at its core in its first and second generation .