By “politics” I shall refer to the distribution of power and authority within groups larger than the family.

We have seen that members of the petty bourgeoisie were able to maintain their standard of living and pay their taxes only by severely exploiting the semiproletariat and, to a lesser extent, the middle peasants. The main political problems of the petty bourgeoisie were, therefore, how to maintain order among themselves and how to prevent or suppress rebellion by the lower classes. Those of the middle peasants and the semiproletariat were how to maintain order among themselves and how to carry on the struggle for survival, or, if possible, for betterment of their conditions.

The landlords' chief sources of control were religious beliefs and activities. As late as 1952, the religious moment dominated the political and economic moments in village social life. It is therefore necessary to refer to the religious system as it affected the political structure, although a full analysis of religious institutions cannot be undertaken here.

In Brahmanical thought, the whole social order was divinely ordained and sanctioned, its component units being seen as castes and groups of castes. As is well known, the four varnas were symbolically represented as issuing from the head, arms, thighs, and feet of the creator. The castes were seen as proliferating from the varnas, each divinely required to carry out its dharma, or caste duty.