The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c16.34

c16.34

In this way, the nexus of land and the rights in it held by various people could be untied, land and people separated, the taxable fields mapped out, and the taxpaying owners isolated. But this does not mean that the modern state succeeded where the old dispensation failed in definitively ordering and integrating society. The modern state breaks down society into separate, clearly bounded entities. But how, after this operation, all the king's men should put Humpty-Dumpty together again is largely left to society and its diffuse modus operandi—sometimes to the considerable discomfort of the state. This obviously creates a new and often explosive tension between the forces dividing society and society's tendency to seep through, overflow, or subvert the dividing lines. This situation is indeed a new one. The interesting point is that both the old and the new dispensation are not, as a matter of principle, geared to social integration and collective identity.