Tamil Eelam Issue in Indian Politics

————————————————- Politics From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For the political magazine, see  The Politic. For other uses, see  Politics (disambiguation). Politics  (from  Greek  politikos  Ã¢â‚¬Å"of, for, or relating to citizens†) is the  art  or  science  of influencing people on a civic, or individual level, when there are more than 2 people involved. Modern political discourse focuses on democracy and the relationship between people and politics. It is thought of as the way we â€Å"choose government officials and make decisions about public policy†. [1] * | ———————————————— [edit]Etymology European Parliament The word  politics  comes from the  Greek  word   (politika), modeled on  Aristotle's â€Å"affairs of the city†, the name of his book on governing and governments, which was rendered in English in the mid-15th century as Latinized â€Å"Polettiques†. [2]  Thus it became â€Å"politics† in  Middle English  c. 1520s (see the  Concise Oxford Dictionary). The singular  politic  first attested in English 1430 and comes from  Middle French  politique, in turn from  Latin  politicus,[3]  which is the  latinisation  of the Greek politikos), meaning amongst others â€Å"of, for, or relating to citizens†, â€Å"civil†, â€Å"civic†, â€Å"belonging to the state†,[4]  in turn from (polites), â€Å"citizen†[5]  and that from (polis), â€Å"city†. [6] ————————————————- [edit]History The history of politics is reflected in the origin and development, and economics of the institutions of  go vernment. [edit]The state Main article:  State (polity) Sun Tzu The origin of the  state  is to be found in the development of the  art of warfare.Historically speaking, all political communities of the modern type owe their existence to successful warfare. [7] Kings, emperors and other types of monarchs in many countries including China and Japan, were considered divine. Of the institutions that ruled states, that ofkingship  stood at the forefront until the French Revolution put an end to the â€Å"divine right of kings†. Nevertheless, the monarchy is among the longest-lasting political institutions, dating as early as 2100 BC in Sumeria[8]  to the 21st Century AD British Monarchy.Kingship becomes an institution through heredity. The king often, even in  absolute monarchies, ruled his kingdom with the aid of an elite group of advisors, a  Council  without which he could not maintain power. As these advisors, and others outside the monarchy negotiated for p ower,  constitutional monarchies  emerged, which may be considered the germ of  constitutional government. [citation needed]  Long before the council became a bulwark of democracy, it rendered invaluable aid to the institution of kingship by:[citation needed] 1.Preserving the institution of kingship through heredity. 2. Preserving the traditions of the social order. 3. Being able to withstand criticism as an impersonal authority. 4. Being able to manage a greater deal of knowledge and action than a single individual such as the king. The greatest of the king's subordinates, the  earls,  archdukes  and  dukes  in England and Scotland, the  dukes  and  counts  in the Continent, always sat as a right on the Council. A conqueror wages war upon the vanquished for vengeance or for plunder but an established kingdom exacts  tribute.One of the functions of the Council is to keep the coffers of the king full. Another is the satisfaction of  military service  a nd the establishment of  lordships  by the king to satisfy the task of collecting taxes and soldiers. [9] [edit]The state and property Property  is the right vested on the individual or a group of people to enjoy the benefits of an object be it material or intellectual. A right is a power enforced by public trust. Sometimes it happens that the exercise of a right is opposed to public trust.Nevertheless, a right is really an institution brought around by public trust, past, present or future. The growth of knowledge is the key to the history of property as an institution. The more man becomes knowledgeable of an object be it physical or intellectual, the more it is appropriated. The appearance of the State brought about the final stage in the evolution of property from wildlife to husbandry. In the presence of the State, man can hold landed property. The State began granting lordships and ended up conferring property and with it came  inheritance.With landed property came ren t and in the exchange of goods, profit, so that in modern times, the â€Å"lord of the land† of long ago becomes the landlord. If it is wrongly assumed that the value of land is always the same, then there is of course no evolution of property whatever. However, the price of land goes up with every increase in population benefitting the landlord. The landlordism of large land owners has been the most rewarded of all political services. In industry, the position of the landlord is less important but in towns which have grown out of an industry, the fortunate landlord has reaped an enormous profit.Towards the latter part of the Middle Ages in Europe, both the State – the State would use the instrument of  confiscation  for the first time to satisfy a debt – and the Church – the Church succeeded in acquiring immense quantities of land – were allied against the village community to displace the small landlord and they were successful to the extent that today, the village has become the ideal of the  individualist, a place in which every man â€Å"does what he wills with his own. † The State has been the most important factor in the evolution of the institution of property be it public or private. 10] [edit]The state and the justice system As a primarily military institution, the State is concerned with the  allegiance  of its subjects viewing disloyalty and  espionage  as well as other sorts of  conspiracies  as detrimental to its national security. Thus arises the law of  treason. Criminal acts in general, breaking the peace and treason make up the whole, or at least part of  criminal law  enforced by the State as distinguished from  the law enforced by private individuals or by the state on behalf of private individuals.State justice has taken the place of clan, feudal, merchant and ecclesiastical justice due to its strength, skill and simplicity. One very striking evidence of the superiority of the royal courts over the feudal and popular courts in the matter of official skill is the fact that, until comparatively late in history, the royal courts alone kept written records of their proceedings. The  trial by jury  was adopted by the Royal Courts, securing it's popularity and making it a bulwark of liberty.By the time of the  Protestant Reformation, with the separation of Church and State, in the most progressive countries, the State succeeded in dealing with the business of administering justice. [11] [edit]The state The making of laws was unknown to primitive societies. That most persistent of all patriarchal societies, the  Jewish, retains to a certain extent its tribal law in the  Gentile  cities of the West. This tribal law is the rudimentary idea of law as it presented itself to people in the patriarchal stage of society, it was  custom  or  observance  sanctioned by the approval and practice of ancestors. citation needed] The state of affairs wh ich existed in the 10th century, when every town had its own laws and nations like France, Germany, Spain and other countries had no national law until the end of the 18th century, was brought to an end by three great agencies that helped to create the modern system of law and legislation:[citation needed] 1. Records:  From the early Middle Ages in Europe there come what are called folk-laws and they appear exactly at the time when the patriarchal is becoming the State.They are due almost universally to one cause: the desire of the king to know the custom of his subjects. These are not legislation in the sense of law-making but statements or declarations of custom. They are drawn from a knowledge of the custom of the people. Unwritten custom changes imperceptibly but not the written. It is always possible to point to the exact text and show what it says. Nevertheless, the written text can change by addition with every new edition. 2.Law Courts:  By taking some general rule which seemed to be common to all the communities and ignoring the differences, English common law was modeled after such a practice so that the law became common in all the districts of the kingdom. The reason why in the rest of Europe, there was no common law till centuries later is because the State in those countries did not get hold of the administration of justice when England did. One of the shrewdest moves by which the English judges pushed their plan of making a common law was by limiting the verdict of the jury in every ase toquestions of fact. At first the jury used to give answers both on law and fact; and being a purely local body, they followed local custom. A famous division came to pass: the province of the judge and the province of the jury. 3. Fictions:  Records and Law Courts were valuable in helping the people adapt to law-making but like Fictions, they were slow and imperfect. Though slowly, Fictions work because it is a well known fact that people will accept a cha nge in the form of a fiction while they would resist it to the end if the fact is out in the open.British parliament Finally there is the enactment of laws or legislation. When progress and development is rapid, the faster method of  political representation  is adopted. This method does not originate in primitive society but in the State need for money and its use of an assembly to raise the same. From the town assembly, a national assembly and the progress of commerce sprang  Parliament  all over Europe around the end of the 12th century but not entirely representative or homogeneous for the nobility and the clergy.The clergy had amassed a fortune in land, about one-fifth of all Christendom but at the time, in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Church was following a policy of isolation; they adopted the rule of  celibacy  and cut themselves from domestic life; they refused to plead in a secular court; they refused to pay taxes to the State on the grounds that they had a lready paid it to the  Pope. Since the main object of the king in holding a national assembly was to collect money, the Church could not be left out and so they came to Parliament.The Church did not like it but in most cases they had to come. [citation needed] The medieval Parliament was complete when it represented all the states in the realm: nobles, clergy, peasants and craftsmen but it was not a popular institution mainly because it meant  taxation. Only by the strongest pressure of the Crown were Parliaments maintained during the first century of their existence and the best proof of this assertion lies in the fact that in those countries where the Crown was weak, Parliament ceased to exist.The notion that parliaments were the result of a democratic movement cannot be supported by historical facts. Originally, the representative side of Parliament was solely concerned with money; representation in Parliament was a liability rather than a privilege. It is not uncommon that a n institution created for one purpose begins to serve another. People who were asked to contribute with large sums of money began to  petition. Pretty soon, sessions in Parliament would turn into bargaining tables, the king granting petitions in exchange for money.However, there were two kinds of petitions, one private and the other public and it was from this last that laws were adopted or  legislation  originated. The king as head of State could give orders to preserve territorial integrity but not until these royal enactments were combined with public petition that successful legislation ever took place. Even to the present day, this has always been the basis of all successful legislation: public custom is adopted and enforced by the State. citation needed] In the early days of political representation, the  majority  did not necessarily carry the day and there was very little need for contested  elections  but by the beginning of the 15th century, a seat in Parliam ent was something to be cherished. Historically speaking, the dogma of the equality of man is the result of the adoption of the purely practical machinery of the majority but the adoption of the majority principle is also responsible for another institution of modern times: the  party system.The party system is an elaborate piece of machinery that pits at least two political candidates against each other for the vote of an electorate; its advantage being equal representation interesting a large number of people in politics; it provides effective criticism of the government in power and it affords an outlet for the ambition of a large number of wealthy and educated people guaranteeing a consistent policy in government. citation needed] These three institutions: political representation, majority rule and the party system are the basic components of modern political machinery; they are applicable to both central and local governments and are becoming by their adaptability ends in th emselves rather than a machinery to achieve some purpose. [12] [edit]The state and the executive system The administration is one of the most difficult aspects of government.In the enactment and enforcement of laws, the victory of the State is complete but not so in regards to administration the reason being that it is easy to see the advantage of the enactment and enforcement of laws but not the administration of domestic, religious and business affairs which should be kept to a minimum by government. [citation needed] The  German Chancellery(Bundeskanzleramt) in  Berlin Originally, the state was a military institution. For many years, it was just a territory ruled by a king who was surrounded by a small elite group of warriors and court officials and it was basically rule by force over a larger mass of people.Slowly, however, the people gained political representation for none can really be said to be a member of the State without the right of having a voice in the direction o f policy making. One of the basic functions of the State in regards to administration is maintaining peace and internal order; it has no other excuse for interfering in the lives of its citizens. To maintain law and order the State develops means ofcommunication. Historically, the â€Å"king's highway† was laid down and maintained for the convenience of the royal armies not as an incentive to  commerce.In almost all countries, the State maintains the control of the means of communication and special freedoms such as those delineated in the  First Amendment to the United States Constitution  are rather limited. The State's original function of maintaining law and order within its borders gave rise to  police  administration which is a branch of the dispensation of  Justice  but on its preventive side, police jurisdiction has a special character of its own, which distinguishes it from ordinary judicial work.In thecurfew, the State shows early in history the import ance of preventing disorder. In early days, next to maintaining law and order, the State was concerned with the raising of  revenue. It was then useful to the State to establish a  standard  of  weights and measures  so that value could be generally accepted and finally the State acquired a  monopoly  of  coinage. The regulation of labor by the State as one of its functions dates from the 15th century, when  the Black Plague  killed around half of the European population. citation needed] The invariable policy of the State has always been to break down all intermediate authorities and to deal directly with the individual. This was the policy until  Adam Smith's  The Wealth of Nations  was published promoting a strong public reaction against State interference. By its own action, the State raised the issue of the poor or the State relief of the  indigent. The State, of course, did not create poverty but by destroying the chief agencies which dealt with t s uch as the village, the church and the  guilds, it practically assumed full responsibility for the poor without exercising any power over it. The Great Poor Law Report of 1834 showed that  communism  was widespread in the rural areas of England. In newly developed countries such as the  colonies  of the  British Empire, the State has refused to take responsibility for the poor and the relief of poverty, although the poor classes lean heavily towards State socialism. citation needed] Taking into account the arguably significant powers of the State, it is only natural that in times of great crisis such as an overwhelming calamity the people should invoke general State aid. [citation needed] Political representation has helped to shape State administration. When the voice of the individual can be heard, the danger of arbitrary interference by the State is greatly reduced. To that extent is the increase of State activity popular.There are no hard and fast rules to limit Stat e administration but it is a fallacy to believe that the State is the nation and what the State does is necessarily for the good of the nation. In the first place, even in modern times, the State and the nation are never identical. Even where â€Å"universal suffrage† prevails, the fact remains that an extension of State administration means an increased interference of some by others, limiting freedom of action. Even if it is admitted that State and nation are one and the same, it is sometimes difficult to admit that State administration is necessarily good.Finally, the modern indiscriminate advocacy of State administration conceals the fallacy that State officials must necessarily prove more effective in their action than  private enterprise. Herein lies the basic difference between  Public  and  Business Administration; the first deals with the  public weal  while the second deals basically in  profit  but both require a great deal of  education  and  ethical conduct  to avoid the mishaps inherent in the relationship not only relating to  business  and  labour  but also the State and the people administrating its  government. 13] [edit]The varieties of political experience The swearing of the oath of ratification of the treaty of Munster in 1648  (1648) by  Gerard ter Borch. According to Aristotle, States are classified into  monarchies,  aristocracies,  timocracies,  democracies,  oligarchies, and  tyrannies. Due to an increase in knowledge of the history of politics, this classification has been abandoned. Generally speaking, no form of government could be considered the absolute best, as it would have to be the perfect form under all circumstances, for all people and in all ways.As an institution created by the human nature togovern society, it is vulnerable to  abuse by people for their own gain, no matter what form of government a state utillises, thus posing that there is no ‘best' form of government. All States are varieties of a single type, the sovereign State. All the  Great Powers  of the modern world rule on the principle of  sovereignty. Sovereign power may be vested on an individual as in an  autocratic government  or it may be vested on a group as in a constitutional government.Constitutions  are written documents that specify and limit the powers of the different branches of government. Although a Constitution is a written document, there is also an unwritten Constitution. The unwritten constitution is continually being written by the Legislative branch of government; this is just one of those cases in which the nature of the circumstances determines the form of government that is most appropriate. Nevertheless, the written constitution is essential.England did set the fashion of written constitutions during the  Civil War  but after the  Restoration  abandoned them to be taken up later by the  American Colonies  after their  ema ncipation  and then  France  after the  Revolution  and the rest of Europe including the European colonies. [citation needed] There are two forms of government, one a strong central government as in France and the other a local government such as the ancient divisions in England that is comparatively weaker but less bureaucratic.These two forms helped to shape the  federal government, first in Switzerland, then in the United States in 1776, in Canada in 1867 and in Germany in 1870 and in the 20th century,  Australia. The Federal States introduced the new principle of agreement or  contract. Compared to a  federation, a  confederation's singular weakness is that it lacks  judicial power. [citation needed]  In the  American Civil War, the contention of the Confederate States that a State could  secede  from the Union was untenable because of the power enjoyed by the Federal government in the executive, legislative and judiciary branches. citation needed] According to professor  A. V. Dicey  in  An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, the essential features of a federal constitution are: a) A written supreme constitution in order to prevent disputes between the jurisdictions of the Federal and State authorities; b) A distribution of power between the Federal and State governments and c) A Supreme Court vested with the power to interpret the Constitution and enforce the law of the land remaining independent of both the executive and legislative branches. 14] [edit]Political party Main article:  political party A  political party  is a  political organization  that typically seeks to attain and maintain political power within  government, usually by participating in  electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions. Parties often espouse an expressed  ideology  or vision bolstered by a written  platform  with specific goals, forming a  coalition  among disparate interests . [citation needed] [edit]World politics The  United Nations  building in  New York CityThe 20th century witnessed the outcome of two world wars and not only the rise and fall of the  Third Reich  but also the rise and fall of  communism. The development of the  Atomic bomb  gave the United States a more rapid end to its conflict in Japan in  World War II. Later, the development of the  Hydrogen bombbecame the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. The  United Nations  has served as a forum for peace in a world threatened by nuclear war. â€Å"The invention of nuclear and space weapons has made war unacceptable as an instrument for achieving political ends. [15]  Although an all-out final nuclear holocaust is out of the question for man, â€Å"nuclear blackmail† comes into question not only on the issue of world peace but also on the issue of national sovereignty. [16]  On a Sunday in 1962, the world stood still at the brink of nuclear war during th e October  Cuban missile crisis  from the implementation of  U. S. vs  U. S. S. R. nuclear blackmail policy. ————————————————- [edit]As an academic disciplinePolitical science, the study of politics, examines the acquisition and application of  power. [17]  Political scientist  Harold Lasswell  defined politics as â€Å"who gets what, when, and how†. [18]  Related areas of study include  political philosophy, which seeks a rationale for politics and an ethic of public behaviour,  political economy, which attempts to develop understandings of the relationships between politics and the economy and the governance of the two, and  public administration, which examines the practices of governance. citation needed]  The philosopher  Charles Blattberg, who has defined politics as â€Å"responding to conflict with dialogue,† offers an acco unt which distinguishes political philosophies from political ideologies. [19] The first academic chair devoted to politics in the United States was the chair of history and political science at  Columbia University, first occupied by Prussian emigre  Francis Lieber  in 1857. [20] ————————————————- [edit]SpectraPolitical views differ on average across nations. A recreation of the Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map of the World based on the  World Values Survey. Main article:  Political spectrum Several different  political spectrums  have been proposed. [edit]Left-right politics Main article:  Left–right politics Recently in history, political analysts and politicians divide politics into  left wing  and  right wing  politics, often also using the idea of center politics as a middle path of policy between the right and left.This classificat ion is comparatively recent (it was not used by  Aristotle  or  Hobbes, for instance), and dates from theFrench Revolution  era, when those members of the  National Assembly  who supported the  republic, the common people and a  secular society  sat on the left and supporters of the  monarchy,  aristocratic  privilege and the Church sat on the right. [21] The meanings behind the labels have become more complicated over the years. A particularly influential event was the publication of the  Communist Manifesto  by  Karl Marx  and  Frederick Engels  in 1848.The  Manifesto  suggested a course of action for a  proletarian  revolution to overthrow thebourgeois  society and abolish private property, in the belief that this would lead to a  classless  and  stateless  society. [citation needed] The meaning of left-wing and right-wing varies considerably between different countries and at different times, but generally speaking, it can be said that the right wing often values  tradition  and  social stratification  while the left wing often values  reform  and  egalitarianism, with the center seeking a balance between the two such as with  social democracy  or  regulated capitalism. 22] According to  Norberto Bobbio, one of the major exponents of this distinction, the Left believes in attempting to eradicate social inequality, while the Right regards most social inequality as the result of ineradicable natural inequalities, and sees attempts to enforce social equality as utopian or authoritarian. [23] Some ideologies, notably  Christian Democracy, claim to combine left and right wing politics; according to Geoffrey K.Roberts and Patricia Hogwood, â€Å"In terms of ideology, Christian Democracy has incorporated many of the views held by liberals, conservatives and socialists within a wider framework of moral and Christian principles. â€Å"[24]  Movements which claim or formerly claimed to be above the left-right divide include  Fascist  Terza Posizioneeconomic politics in Italy,  Gaullism  in France,  Peronism  in Argentina, and  National Action Politics  in Mexico. [citation needed] [edit]Authoritarian-libertarian politics Authoritarianism  and  libertarianism  refer to the amount of individual  freedom  each person possesses in that society relative to the state.One author describes authoritarian political systems as those where â€Å"individual  rights  and goals are subjugated to group goals, expectations and conformities†,[25]  while libertarians generally oppose the  state  and hold theindividual  as  sovereign. In their purest form, libertarians are  anarchists, who argue for the total abolition of the state, of  Political parties  and of  other political entities, while the purest authoritarians are, theoretically,  totalitarians  who support state control over all aspects of  society. citation nee ded] For instance,  classical liberalism  (also known as  laissez-faire  liberalism,[26]  or, in much of the world, simply  liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom and  limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual  property rights,  free markets,  natural rights, the protection of  civil liberties, constitutional limitation of government, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of  John Locke,  Adam Smith,  David Hume,  David Ricardo,  Voltaire,  Montesquieu  and others.According to the libertarian  Institute for Humane Studies, â€Å"the libertarian, or ‘classical liberal,' perspective is that individual well-being, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by ‘as much liberty as possible' and ‘as little government as necessary. ‘†[27]  For anarchist political philosopher  L. Susan Brown  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Liberalism and  anarchism   are two political philosophies that are fundamentally concerned with individual  freedom  yet differ from one another in very distinct ways. Anarchism shares with liberalism a radical commitment to individual freedom while rejecting liberalism's competitive property relations. [28] ————————————————- [edit]Political corruption Main article:  Political corruption â€Å"| Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it. | †|   | —  William Pitt the Elder[29]| | Political corruption  is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as  repression  of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption.Neither are illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved with the government. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties. [citation needed] Forms of corruption vary, but include  bribery,  extortion,  cronyism,  nepotism,  patronage,  graft, and  embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate  criminal enterprise  such as  drug trafficking,  money laundering, and  trafficking, it is not restricted to these activities. citation needed]  The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or jurisdiction. For instance, certain political funding practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. In some cases, government officials have broad or poorly defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions. [citation needed] Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually. [30]  A state of unrestrained