India Democracy And Well Being

This book is an attempt to understand the nature of India's political democracy and its implications. Policies of positive discrimination have surely contributed to making India's democratic experiment dynamic, throwing up political leaders from all social groups, and broadening the circle of elite. However, the political mobilisation of the poor has yet not translated into entitlements to basic human well-being. The book argues that securing these entitlements for the poor is the greatest challenge for contemporary India and most central to its quest for global preeminence.

India's health failures remain visible and pronounced despite high rates of economic growth since the 1980s and more than six decades of democratic rule. The authors address the key issues that emerge from the country's health situation, speculating on what it will take for low-income groups to begin claiming for better social services

India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, there is now growing alarm about its democratic health. To Kill a Democracy gets to the heart of the matter. Combining poignant life stories with sharp scholarly insight, it rejects the belief that India was once a beacon of democracy but is now being ruined by the destructive forces of Modi-style populism. The book details the much deeper historical roots of the present-day assaults on civil liberties and democratic institutions. Democracy, the authors also argue, is much more than elections and the separation of powers. It is a whole way of life lived in dignity, and that is why they pay special attention to the decaying social foundations of Indian democracy. In compelling fashion, the book describes daily struggles for survival and explains how lived social injustices and unfreedoms rob Indian elections of their meaning, while at the same time feeding the decadence and iron-fisted rule of its governing institutions. Much more than a book about India, To Kill A Democracy argues that what is happening in the country is globally important, and not just because every third person living in a democracy is an Indian. It shows that when democracies rack and ruin their social foundations, they don't just kill off the spirit and substance of democracy. They lay the foundations for despotism.

The book traces the social and political origins of economic policy in India during its high growth phase after 1991.

Leading scholars consider how democracy has taken root in India despite poverty, illiteracy and ethnic diversity.

India's health failures remain visible and pronounced despite high rates of economic growth since the 1980s and more than six decades of democratic rule. The authors address the key issues that emerge from the country's health situation, speculating on what it will take for low-income groups to begin claiming for better social services

Long infamous for its severe inequality, infant mortality, and clientelist politics, Brazil in the late 20th and early 21st centuries improved the health and well-being of its populace more than any large democracy. Christopher L. Gibson sheds light on the previously poorly understood cause of this shift, arguing that it was due to a subnationally-rooted process driven by civil society actors, namely the Sanitarist Movement. Gibson improves our understanding of the political and social trajectory of Brazil and similar democracies today.