[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985) › c5.40 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.40 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.40 - **Language:** English ### [c5.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.40) Now perfectly “horizontal” distribution, even if all resources would be spent on it, is an impossibility. The very fact of distribution is bound to create inequalities, for even the most perfect set of rules has still to be operated by people who perform the distribution at different stages and levels and are thereby placed in positions of unequal power. In this way, the system would easily slip back into the segmentary “little kingdom” concatenation and modernity would lose its reality content. In the final analysis, the problem is again insoluble, but it can be managed in new ways; the “horizontal” and “vertical” orders must be allowed to interpenetrate. Obviously, a colonial government cannot allow this interpenetration to come about, since it would irredeemably impair its position. When it comes to that point, it can only react by total withdrawal, as indeed happened. The problem can only be managed by a national polity, for only a national polity can take the risks implied by the interpenetration of the “horizontal” and “vertical” orders. Such a polity, prepared slowly over the previous century or so, came into being in the interbellum period in the form of the Indian National Congress. - [Previous: c5.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.39) - [Next: c5.41](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.41) - [Up: c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.40) · Pramāṇa