Contemporary Indian Political Theory: A Critical Analysis

Description

Democracy is an important milestone marking people’s history and present. Quintessentially, people’s democracy or hoi polloidemocracy has two components. The first component informs us that people’s participation in institution issine qua nonof democracy. The second component depicst the realisation of being participants. Thus people’s participation in institutions and the realisation of being participants together constitute democracy. The celebration and adoption of first component and ignorance or omission of second component pave the way for a fragmented (non-inclusive) democracy. Liberal democracy is essentially a fragmented democracy due to the adoption of first component and negation of the second. Therefore, liberal democracy becomes fragmented andhoi oligoidemocracy. In this backdrop, it becomes crucial to examine the Indian democracy not only from the celebrated liberal formula of ‘one person, one vote’ byt also by exhibiting the real components of democracy, which may reflect people’s realisation of being participants. For this purpose, five such issues like freedom, familial politics, globalisation, knowledge and neighbourhood relations have been identified. These are not comprehensive categories whereby absolute microcosm of India would be derived; but these are certainly the means to provide ample scope to know the prevalent condition in India. Indian political theories cannot give enough indication of success or failure of democracy by focusing only on institutional success like success of electoral politics wherefrom people’s participation takes place. To achieve this, the method of realisation of being participants issine qua non.

Dhananjay Raiis at the Centre for Gandhian Thought and Peace Studies, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar.