The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c7.s1.5

c7.s1.5

The fallacy of sociologists from Bodin to Buckle, Montesquieu to Maine, and Hegel to Huntington² equipped as this last is with “energy-charts” and “maps of civilization”, as well as of indologists from Max Müller to Vincent Smith has, however, been broadening down “from precedent to precedent”. Fundamentally, it consists in their not recognizing this essential parallelism and pragmatic identity in the development of *Realpolitik* in the East and the West. As a rule, they are obsessed by the postulate of Eur-American “superiority” to, or at any rate, difference from, the oriental races. The shortcomings of Hindu politics are thus assumed by them to be "characteristic" of India.