“Write short note: Power elite in society and the emergence of new elite in power structure” (2005)
Every society concentrates major decisions in a small group, which C. Wright Mills (The Power Elite, 1956) called the power elite. Its membership does not stay fixed. Economic change, democratic politics and state policy keep producing new elites that enter, and sometimes displace, the old ones. That is the process Vilfredo Pareto called the circulation of elites.
Power elite in society
- Classical view: Gaetano Mosca and Pareto held that an organised minority rules in every society, whether by organisational skill or by superior qualities.
- Mills’s view: power belongs to those at the top of key institutions. In 1950s America these were corporations, the military and the federal executive, bound together by shared social origins and movement of personnel between sectors.
- India after independence: the elite was largely upper-caste and English-educated. It ran the Congress party, which Rajni Kothari called the “Congress system” (1964), together with the higher civil services and established industrial houses.
Emergence of new elites in India
| New elite | Source of rise | Illustration |
|---|---|---|
| Agrarian | Green Revolution surpluses; land reform | Dominant castes (M. N. Srinivas), such as Jats, Yadavs, Kammas and Reddys, turned farm wealth into political power |
| Backward-caste political | Mandal reservations (1990); electoral mobilisation | Christophe Jaffrelot’s India’s Silent Revolution (2003); OBC and upper-caste shares of the Lok Sabha were equal at 26% in 2024 |
| Dalit | Reservation; autonomous parties | Kanshi Ram founded the BSP in 1984, and Mayawati was four times Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh; the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry was set up in 2005 |
| New business | Liberalisation after 1991 | Harish Damodaran (India’s New Capitalists, 2008) traced entrepreneurs from farming castes moving beyond the traditional trading communities |
| Techno-professional | IT, finance, start-ups, global markets | Managers and founders who shape policy through expertise and capital |
| Local | 73rd Amendment (1992) | Women make up about 46% of elected panchayat representatives |
Sanjaya Baru (India’s Power Elite, 2021) argues that a provincial, vernacular elite with business backing has displaced the old Delhi establishment it derided as “Lutyens’ elite”.
Circulation or reproduction?
- Evidence of real change: André Béteille’s Sripuram study (Caste, Class and Power, 1965) showed village power moving from Brahmin landowners to non-Brahmin party leaders, a pattern later repeated at state and national level.
- Evidence of closure:
- New political elites quickly become dynastic: 31% of Lok Sabha members come from political families (Association for Democratic Reforms, 2025).
- Wealth has concentrated, with the top 1% holding 40.1% of it in 2022–23 (World Inequality Lab, 2024).
- 93% of the MPs elected in 2024 are crorepatis.
- Assessment: the elite has become more plural in its social composition without becoming much more open in wealth. New entrants often take on the privileges of the old elite, as Pareto and Robert Michels predicted.
Conclusion
India’s power structure has moved from a narrow post-colonial elite to a competitive set of caste, regional, business and professional elites, which is a real democratisation of who rules. Whether the new elites widen access to power or simply join the old ones at the top will decide how far this circulation deepens democracy.