Companion To Indian Democracy

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the contemporary experiences of democracy in India. It explores the modes by which democracy as an idea, and as a practice, is interpreted, enforced, and lived in India’s current political climate. The book employs ‘case studies’ as a methodological vantage point to evolve an innovative conceptual framework for the study of democracy in India. The chapters unpack a diverse range of themes such as democracy and Dalits; agriculture, new sociality and communal violence in rural areas; changing nature of political communication in India; role of anti-nuclear movements in democracies; issues of subaltern citizen’s voice, impaired governance and the development paradigm; free speech and segregation in the public sphere; and, the surveillance state and Indian democracy. These thematic explorations are arranged in an engaging sequence to offer a multifaceted narrative of Indian democracy especially in relation to the recent debates on citizenship and constitutionalism. A key critical intervention on contemporary politics in South Asia, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of political studies, political science, political sociology, comparative government and politics, sociology, social anthropology, public administration, public policy, and South Asia studies. It will also be of immense interest to policymakers, journalists, think tanks, bureaucrats, and organizations working in the area.

The most comprehensive overview of Indian politics to date, the companion incorporates the best social science knowledge available on the developments in Indian politics and provides an analytical perspective of how such issues are best understood.

This volume presents articles on democracy and politics in India from the pre-independence days to the present. It covers a range of issues, such as democracy prefigured, democracy and the state, democracy and civil society, and democracy and development.

India's democracy often receives extreme responses of exaggerated appreciation or enlarged criticism. It is necessary that public debates on democracy in India are based on a more informed analysis. This short introduction will help the reader to put the various debated issues in perspective and arrive at a critical appreciation of the endeavour called democracy. The book takes the reader through a tour of key issues of contestations and mobilization that have occupied the terrain of democratic politics in India. Calling India's democracy 'work in progress', this short tract draws attention to the central paradoxes of Indian democracy. While taking a long term view of democracy, the book is alive to the more contemporary challenges as well. Readers may agree or disagree, but they cannot ignore the central argument that while India's democracy wades through many paradoxes, it faces the challenge of distortion if majoritarian tendencies become pervasive and if the core feature of diversity is weakened. This book is a timely warning about the possibilities and distortions that democracy in India contains.

Focusing on politics and society in India, this book explores new areas enmeshed in the complex social, economic and political processes in the country. Linking the structural characteristics with the broader sociological context, the book emphasizes the strong influence of sociological issues on politics, such as social milieu shaping and the articulation of the political in day-to-day events. Political events are connected with the ever-changing social, economic and political processes in order to provide an analytical framework to explain ‘peculiarities’ of Indian politics. Bidyut Chakrabarty argues that three major ideological influences of colonialism, nationalism and democracy have provided the foundational values of Indian politics. Structured thematically and chronologically, this work is a useful resource for students of political science, sociology and South Asian studies.

The Routledge Companion to Northeast India is a trans-disciplinary and comprehensive compendium of a vital yet under-researched region in South Asia. It provides a unique guide to prevailing themes, theories, arguments, and history of Northeast India by discussing its life-forms – human and not – languages, landscapes, and lifeways in all its diversity and difference. The companion contains authoritative entries from leading specialists from and on the region and offers clear, concise, and illuminating explanations of key themes and ideas. A hands-on, practical, and comprehensive guide to Northeast India, this companion fills a significant gap in the literature and will be an invaluable teaching, learning, and research resource for scholars and students of Northeast India Studies, South Asian and Southeast Asian societies, culture, politics, humanities, and the social sciences in general.

These essays explore important themes and contemporary legacies of Alexis de Tocqueville's classic work Democracy in America.

Re-examines the long and complex history of democracy and broadens the traditional view of this history by complementing it with examples from unexplored or under-examined quarters.