Abstract
This article employs Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital to explain how Indira Gandhi gained legitimacy in Indian politics. It reveals that, in spite of having belonged to the politically illustrious Nehru family, Gandhi suffered numerous indignities as a minister in the immediate post-Nehruvian period because the incumbent political elite at the time, the Syndicate, devalued the symbolic value of her family-name-based-capital of mass popularity. In the meantime, changes in the clientelistic relations between the landed and landless caste groups had created conditions for the failure of the Syndicate’s claim that their capital of popularity among politicians was the symbolic capital of the Indian political field. Aware of social changes taking place in the countryside, Gandhi took advantage of her access to the symbolic power of the state offices to classify the landless caste groups as garib (poor) in order to defeat the Syndicate electorally. Having established her capital of popularity among the masses as the symbolic capital of the Indian political field, she cemented its status by using her control over ruling party leaders’ access to state offices and simultaneously creating a new classification of a competent leader in the ruling party. This study contributes to the existing studies of leadership, especially leadership by women, and the legitimacy-gaining process by revealing the role of contest among the elite over the meaning of symbolic capital in creating or destroying their respective authority.
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Notes
Details of this Congress party meeting are given in the Congress party’s Report of the General Secretaries 1967.
For the 1967 elections, the Syndicate-led Congress party received the largest donation ever made to a political party in India since independence, almost eight million rupees, from industrialists and business owners. For details, see Economic Times 1967 (Bombay), December 5, 1967.
For details on the significant events preceding the 1969 split in the Congress party, the respective strategies of the Congress (R) and the Congress (O) members in the parliament, and their political allies among the opposition parties, see Hardgrave 1970; Bhatia 1974,p p. 219–229; Malhotra 1991 (1989), pp. 114–124.
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I am grateful to David Swartz, two Theory and Society anonymous reviewers, Paul McLean, Ann Mische, Ethel Brooks, Phaedra Daipha, John Martin, King-To Yeung and participants of the Networks, Cultures and Institutions Workshop for their invaluable feedback.
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Singh, S. Unraveling the enigma of Indira Gandhi’s rise in Indian politics: a woman leader’s quest for political legitimacy. Theor Soc 41, 479–504 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9177-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9177-5