“”Collective action in politics can bring integration and disintegration in society.” Comment.” (2011)
Collective action in politics covers parties, movements, agitations, strikes and riots: people acting together to press claims on power (Charles Tilly). The statement is right that such action is double-edged. Whether it integrates or disintegrates depends on what is contested, along which lines people mobilise, and how the state responds.
Collective action as integrative
- Georg Simmel and Lewis A. Coser (The Functions of Social Conflict, 1956): conflict builds in-group cohesion, creates associations and new norms, and acts as a safety valve for hostility.
- The national movement forged a shared nationhood across caste, language and region.
- Rajni Kothari (Caste in Indian Politics, 1970): the politicisation of caste drew caste groups into democratic competition and secularised them.
- Linguistic states. Potti Sriramulu’s fast (1952) and the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 were first feared as divisive but ended up accommodating diversity within the federation.
- Inclusion of the excluded. Dalit and backward-caste mobilisation brought marginal groups into power. Christophe Jaffrelot calls this India’s Silent Revolution (2003).
- Absorption of dissent. The Assam Movement ended in the Assam Accord (1985), and its student leaders formed a government through elections.
Collective action as disintegrative
- Marxist view. Class struggle deepens polarisation. Karl Marx saw this as the necessary break-up of an unjust order.
- Communal mobilisation. The Ram Janmabhoomi campaign culminated in the 1992 demolition and nationwide riots. Paul R. Brass (The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, 2003) describes “institutionalised riot systems” that political actors keep ready.
- Secessionist and ethnic mobilisation. The Khalistan movement of the 1980s is one case. In Manipur, the state’s Home Minister told the Assembly in September 2026 that 306 people have been killed since May 2023.
- Quota agitations. The Mandal protests of 1990 and the Jat reservation agitation in Haryana (2016) set caste groups against each other.
What decides the outcome
| Factor | Integrative when | Disintegrative when |
|---|---|---|
| Issue (Coser) | Conflict is over interests within a shared consensus | It attacks the basic consensus of the polity |
| Cleavages (Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man, 1960) | Cleavages cut across each other | Religion, region and class coincide |
| Civic life (Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, 2002) | Inter-communal associations exist, as in Calicut | Communities are segregated, as in Aligarh |
| State response (Tilly) | Negotiation and institutional channels | Repression, which often starts the violence |
| Goal | Inclusion and rights | Exclusion or secession |
Assessment
A functionalist reading stresses integration and a conflict reading stresses disintegration, but the two are linked dialectically. The disintegration of an unjust order, such as untouchability or zamindari, can prepare a deeper integration based on citizenship. B. R. Ambedkar‘s warning in the Constituent Assembly (November 1949) against the “grammar of anarchy” marks the other boundary: collective action integrates when it works through constitutional means.
Conclusion
The statement holds. Collective action is neither inherently cohesive nor inherently divisive. In a plural democracy it integrates when it seeks inclusion through institutions across cross-cutting ties, and it disintegrates when it mobilises coinciding identities against one another. Channelling the first and containing the second is the central test of Indian democracy.