PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL ORDER: East and West

What kind of a political order ensures people’s development and welfare best? Obviously, an order that must have a good government based on benign and salubrious principles not only as its constitutive element but also as its operational dimension. It is only such a political order that is capable of regulating and disciplining public life and relations and preventing politicians and bureaucrats from sliding into corruption. The question of good government thus impinges not only on the opportunities people have for proper development and securing their well-being but also on the issue of precluding the possibility of the government turning arbitrary, exploitative and tyrannous. In other words, it is inextricably linked with the kind of political order that aims at maintaining a well-ordered social universe. Without such an order, good government becomes a matter of accident, and can easily fall prey to transient whims and shifting fashions. This book takes this question for a critical discussion and identifies three different genres of political order, viz., liberal, Platonic and Vedic. The Chinese idea of order has been added for further elucidation.

Thought-provoking and comprehensive, this book will attract a vast readership, ranging from students of political science to professionals like political scientists, politicians and activists.

Ramashray Roy, an eminent political philosopher, earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Later, he founded the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, and has served as its director from 1976 to 1982. He was also the director of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi from 1971 to 1976. He was a fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (1998–2001) and a senior fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. Recipient of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru National Award (1993) initiated by the M.P. Government, he has taught in several universities in the USA and has also remained associated with the United Nations University, Tokyo. He is the author of more than four dozen books in such areas as Indian politics, bureaucracy, development, Gandhian thought, political philosophy, Vedic worldview and samskaras. He has also contributed papers to numerous anthologies and journals in India and abroad.