Pluralism And Democracy In India

Based on presentations at a conference at the University of Chicago Law School in November 2005.

Wendy Doniger and Martha Nussbaum bring together leading scholars from a wide array of disciplines to address a crucial question: How does the world's most populous democracy survive repeated assaults on its pluralistic values? India's stunning linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity has been supported since Independence by a political structure that emphasizes equal rights for all, and protects liberties of religion and speech. But a decent Constitution does not implement itself, and challenges to these core values repeatedly arise-most recently in the form of the Hindu Right movements of the twenty-first century that threatened to destabilize the nation and upend its core values, in the wake of a notorious pogrom in the state of Gujarat in which approximately 2000 Muslim civilians were killed. Focusing on this time of tension and threat, the essays in this volume consider how a pluralistic democracy managed to survive. They examine the role of political parties and movements, including the women's movement, as well as the role of the arts, the press, the media, and a historical legacy of pluralistic thought and critical argument. Featuring essays from eminent scholars in history, religious studies, political science, economics, women's studies, and media studies, Pluralism and Democracy in India offers an urgently needed case study in democratic survival. As Nehru said of India on the eve of Independence: ''These dreams are for India, but they are also for the world.'' The analysis this volume offers illuminates not only the past and future of one nation, but the prospects of democracy for all.

This book offers a multifaceted look at Northeast India and the customs and traditions that underpin its legal framework. The book: charts the transition of traditions from colonial rule to present day, through constitutionalism and the consolidation of autonomous identities, as well as outlines contemporary debates in an increasingly modernising region; explores the theoretical context of legal pluralism and its implications, compares the personal legal systems with that of the mainland, and discusses customary law’s continuing popularity (both pragmatic and ideological) and common law; brings together case studies from across the eight states and focuses on the way individual systems and procedures manifest among various tribes and communities in the voices of tribal and non-tribal scholars; and highlights the resilience and relevance of alternative systems of redressal, including conflict resolution and women’s rights. Part of the prestigious ‘Transition in Northeastern India’ series, this book presents an interesting blend of theory and practice, key case studies and examples to study legal pluralism in multicultural contexts. It will be of great interest to students of law and social sciences, anthropology, political science, peace and conflict studies, besides administrators, judicial officers and lawyers in Northeast India, legal scholars and students of tribal law, and members of customary law courts of various tribal communities in Northeast India.

A collection of essays that situates and furthers contemporary debates around the prospects of democracy in diverse societies within and beyond the West. Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism examines the relationship between the functioning of democracy and the prior existence of religious plurality in three societies outside the West: India, Pakistan, and Turkey. All three societies had on one hand deep religious diversity and on the other long histories as imperial states that responded to religious diversity through their specific pre-modern imperial institutions. Each country has followed a unique historical trajectory with regard to crafting democratic institutions to deal with such extreme diversity. The volume focuses on three core themes: historical trends before the modern state's emergence that had lasting effects; the genealogies of both the state and religion in politics and law; and the problem of violence toward and domination over religious out-groups. Volume editors Karen Barkey, Sudipta Kaviarj, and Vatsal Naresh have gathered a group of leading scholars across political science, sociology, history, and law to examine this multifaceted topic. Together, they illuminate various trajectories of political thought, state policy, and the exercise of social power during and following a transition to democracy. Just as importantly, they ask us to reflexively examine the political categories and models that shape our understanding of what has unfolded in South Asia and Turkey.

The Processes Of Democracy And Development Usually Tend To Generate New Tensions And Fresh Patterns Of Power Continually. In A Participatory Democracy Like Ours Committed To Planned Economic Development And Distributive Social Justice, Interregional And Inter-Communal, And Oftentimes Sectarian Rivalaries And Petry Jealousies For The Loaves And Fishes Of Office And Similar Other Advantages Are Inevitable. Likewise When Regional And Sub-Regional Forces Become More Articulate, Assertive And Sometimes Aggressive And Even Confrontationist, They Are Often Dubbed Anti-National And Their Demands Are Looked Upon As Constituting A Threat To National Unity And Integration By The Powers That Be. In The Context Of The Rise Of Non-Congress And Anti-Centre Forces In Parts Of India, Particularly In The Non-Hindi-States Of The South And Their Demands For Greater State Autonomy, The Editor Of This Book Organized Two All-India Inter-Disciplinary Seminars On (A) Democracy, Pluralism And Nation-Building And (B) Sub-Nationalism And National Integration. This Book Contains Selected Papers Presented At These Seminars And Others Specially Written For This Volume, Provides Theoretical Perspectives On The Problems Of Nation-Building And Focuses Attention On The Consequent Challenges And Encounters Facing The Establishment In Its Struggle To Maintain National Unity And Independence With Simultaneous Promotion Of Regional And Socio-Cultural Wedded To Autonomy Through A Democratic Set-Up Orderly Planned Economic Development And A Loose Federal Structure. An Outstanding Book For Academics And Planners Alike. A Practical Guide To Students And Researchers In Political Science.

The achievements of the democratic constitutional order have long been associated with the sovereign nation-state. Civic nationalist assumptions hold that social solidarity and social plurality are compatible, offering a path to guarantees of individual rights, social justice, and tolerance for minority voices. Yet today, challenges to the liberal-democratic sovereign nation-state are proliferating on all levels, from multinational corporations and international institutions to populist nationalisms and revanchist ethnic and religious movements. Many critics see the nation-state itself as a tool of racial and economic exclusion and repression. What other options are available for managing pluralism, fostering self-government, furthering social justice, and defending equality? In this interdisciplinary volume, a group of prominent international scholars considers alternative political formations to the nation-state and their ability to preserve and expand the achievements of democratic constitutionalism in the twenty-first century. The book considers four different principles of organization—federation, subsidiarity, status group legal pluralism, and transnational corporate autonomy—contrasts them with the unitary and centralized nation-state, and inquires into their capacity to deal with deep societal differences. In essays that examine empire, indigenous struggles, corporate institutions, forms of federalism, and the complexities of political secularism, anthropologists, historians, legal scholars, political scientists, and sociologists remind us that the sovereign nation-state is not inevitable and that multinational and federal states need not privilege a particular group. Forms of Pluralism and Democratic Constitutionalism helps us answer the crucial question of whether any of the alternatives might be better suited to core democratic principles.

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is the most influential Islamist organization in India today. Founded in 1941 by Syed Abul Ala Maududi with the aim of spreading Islamic values in the subcontinent, Jamaat and its young offshoot, the Student Islamic Movement of India or SIMI, have been watched closely by Indian security services since September 11. In particular, SIMI has been accused of being behind terrorist bombings. This book is the first in-depth examination of India's Jamaat-e-Islami and SIMI, exploring political Islam's complex relationship with democracy and providing a rare window into the Islamist trajectory in a Muslim-minority context. Irfan Ahmad conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork at a school in the town of Aligarh, among student activists at Aligarh Muslim University, at a madrasa in Azamgarh, and during Jamaat's participation in elections in 2002. He deftly traces Jamaat's changing position in relation to India's secular democracy and the group's gradual ideological shift toward religious pluralism and tolerance. Ahmad demonstrates how the rise of militant Hindu nationalism since the 1980s--evident in the destruction of the Babri mosque and widespread violence against Muslims--led to SIMI's radicalization, its rejection of pluralism, and its call for jihad. Islamism and Democracy in India argues that when secular democracy is responsive to the traditions and aspirations of its Muslim citizens, Muslims in turn embrace pluralism and democracy. But when democracy becomes majoritarian and exclusionary, Muslims turn radical.