Hindu Administrative Institutions c12.s3.108

c12.s3.108

The importance given to the elders of the village or neighbourhood is a piece of strong evidence to demonstrate the existence in larger numbers of neighbourhood associations. Neighbourhood groups, as realized in ancient India, were not party groups where different party interests predominated, but groups of different shapes and colours, of different experiences and ideas. If the essence of democracy consists according to Miss Follet² in an educated and responsible citizenship, evolving common ideas and willing its own social life, it was well realized in Hindu India as evidenced by numerous territorial groups like the *pūga*. There the citizenship was creative in the sense that while it fostered and developed the plant of common life, it discouraged any tendency to unhealthy party feelings.