Indian Democracy (OISI)

Description

Democracy has often been understood as the right of people and groups to mobilize outside the electoral arena, and to exercise pressure on both governments and parties through electoral choices. Calling India’s democracy a ‘work in progress’, this short introduction draws attention to the central paradoxes of India’s democracy. Indian democracy typically receives extreme responses of exaggerated appreciation or enlarged criticism. It is essential that public debates on democracy are based on analyses that are informed and holistic—something that has been hitherto missing.
Indian Democracy embarks on a journey through a tour of key issues of contestations and mobilization that have occupied the terrain of democratic politics in India. While taking a long-term view of democracy, the book is alive to the more contemporary challenges as well. Warning against tendencies of becoming majoritarian, the book points to contemporary challenges of democracy’s distortions and weakening of diversity. It is an essential read for anyone who wishes to understand the various challenges before Indian democracy and the possibilities for its growth.

About the Author

Suhas Palshikar has taught political science at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. He is also the chief editor of the journal Studies in Indian Politics.

Reviews

‘Palshikar has used his expertise in presenting to us the rich content which looks both conceptually complex as well as empirically close to our everyday sense of democracy.... It is empirically close in the sense the volume unfolds paradox of Indian democracy to our critical consciousness.’
—Gopal Guru, Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
‘This monograph provides a critical evaluation of the functioning of Indian democracy in the backdrop of elections verdicts.... The slim volume highlights inconsistencies and paradoxes that have unfolded in the process of the functioning of democracy in the last six decades.’
—Ghanshyam Shah, senior social scientist, Ahmedabad, India
‘In this book, Suhas Palshikar brings to bear his deep knowledge and astute judgement to clarify and explain India’s democratic experience. He examines the institutions and structures that shaped Indian democracy, the democratic actors and mobilizations that have driven its struggles, and the so-often frustrated aims of those struggles. It’s hard to think of a better guide than Palshikar to what he calls the “paradoxes, diversions, and distortions” of our democracy—as well as to its worldwide significance.’
—Sunil Khilnani, Avantha Professor and Director, King’s India Institute, King’s College London, UK

Table of contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

1 India’s Democracy: Many Assessments
2 The Institutional Context: How Democratic Is It?
3 Regional Mobilizations
4 Democracy in Search of Well-being
5 Politics of Social Justice
6 Towards Majoritarian Democracy
7 Paradoxes, Diversions, and Distortions

Bibliography
Index
About the Author