Download or read book India After Gandhi The History of the World s Largest Democracy written by Ramachandra Guha and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 871 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ramachandra Guha’s India after Gandhi is a magisterial account of the pains, struggles, humiliations and glories of the world’s largest and least likely democracy. A riveting chronicle of the often brutal conflicts that have rocked a giant nation, and of the extraordinary individuals and institutions who held it together, it established itself as a classic when it was first published in 2007. In the last decade, India has witnessed, among other things, two general elections; the fall of the Congress and the rise of Narendra Modi; a major anti-corruption movement; more violence against women, Dalits, and religious minorities; a wave of prosperity for some but the persistence of poverty for others; comparative peace in Nagaland but greater discontent in Kashmir than ever before. This tenth anniversary edition, updated and expanded, brings the narrative up to the present. Published to coincide with seventy years of the country’s independence, this definitive history of modern India is the work of one of the world’s finest scholars at the height of his powers.
Download or read book India s Founding Moment written by Madhav Khosla and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How did the founders of the most populous democratic nation in the world meet the problem of establishing a democracy after the departure of foreign rule? The justification for British imperial rule had stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. At the heart of India's founding moment, in which constitution-making and democratization occurred simultaneously, lay the question of how to implement democracy in an environment regarded as unqualified for its existence. India's founders met this challenge in direct terms-the people, they acknowledged, had to be educated to create democratic citizens. But the path to education lay not in being ruled by a superior class of men but rather in the very creation of a self-sustaining politics. Universal suffrage was instituted amidst poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. Under the guidance of B. R. Ambedkar, Indian lawmakers crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable of conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian constitution-the longest in the world-came into effect. More than half of the world's constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late-eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries that are characterized by low levels of economic growth and education; are divided by race, religion, and ethnicity; and have democratized at once, rather than gradually. The Indian founding is a natural reference point for such constitutional moments-when democracy, constitutionalism, and modernity occur simultaneously"--
Download or read book Indian Democracy written by Alf Gunvald Nilsen and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than seventy years after its founding, with Narendra Modi's authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, is the dream of Indian democracy still alive and well? India's pluralism has always posed a formidable challenge to its democracy, with many believing that a clash of identities based on region, language, caste, religion, ethnicity, and tribe would bring about its demise. With the meteoric rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the nation's solidity is once again called into question: is Modi's Hindu majoritarianism an anti-democratic attempt to transform India into a monolithic Hindu nation from which minorities and dissidents are forcibly excluded? With examinations of the way that class and caste power shaped the making of India's postcolonial democracy, the role of feminism, the media, and the public sphere in sustaining and challenging democracy, this book interrogates the contradictions at the heart of the Indian democratic project, examining its origins, trajectories, and contestations.
Download or read book Indian Roots of American Democracy written by José Barreiro and published by Akwe Kon Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When Europeans arrived on the continent, the Native people of the northeast, the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois, helped them find their way in the new land, taught them to raise food, and introduced them to the Iroquois rule of law, the Great Law of Peace. This rule, which united five nations and provided a rational basis to both war and diplomacy, differed in significant ways from the system of government familiar to the colonists. Benjamin Franklin and others admired the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and incorporated its symbols and principles into their thinking. Indian Roots of American Democracy examines Iroquois influences on the formation of American government in the 1700s as well as on the development of the women's rights movements in the 1800s."-- Back cover.
Download or read book India s roots of democracy A sociological analysis of rural India s experience in planned development since independence By Carl C Taylor Douglas Ensminger Helen W Johnson Jean Joyce written by Carl Cleveland Taylor and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Modern India written by Judith Margaret Brown and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of this widely used text covers the last two centuries of Indian history, concluding with an epilogue written from the perspective of the 1990s. It thematically and analytically discusses the emergence of India as one of the world's largest democracies and one of the most stable of the states to emerge from the experience of colonialism. The foundations of this rare phenomenon in either Asia or Africa are seen in India's society, the ideas and beliefs of her people, and the institutions of government and politics which have developed on the subcontinent, in a process of interaction between what was indigenous to India and the many external influences brought to bear on the country by economic, political, and ideological contact with the Western world. Modern scholarship has shown how diverse and complex was India's socio-economic and political development; and this theme runs through the study which eschews any simple understanding of India's political development as a clash between "imperialism" and "nationalism", or the making of a new nation. The complexity reflects many of the continuing ambiguities and inequalities in the subcontinent's life and suggests why the structures of the state, and indeed the very nature of the Indian nation, are now being questioned, often with unprecedented public violence. India's dilemmas are not hers alone: they also raise economic, political, and social issues of profound significance throughout the contemporary world.
Download or read book To Kill A Democracy written by Debasish Roy Chowdhury and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Democracy Indian Style written by Anton Pelinka and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "...combines a study of the rise and fall of Bose with a study of the roots of Indian democracy. The treatment of Bose focuses on his ideology, foreign policy, relations with Nazi Germany and Japan, and the myths surrounding his death.... the book will interest biographers and students of Indian history and politics."--Choice "Expertly translated into English, [Democracy Indian Style] knowledgeably explores the workings of the modern East Indian political system by focusing upon the life of one man, Subhas Chandra Bose, and his profound impact upon India's governmental system."--The Bookwatch As a nation India is very old. It had deep roots in its pre-colonial history, but it is also a product of Western-style democracy, which has shaped and even created the nation. Democracy Indian Style focuses on the Indian factors underlying its successful democracy by describing and analyzing the life of Subhas Chandra Bose, who competed with Nehru for the role of Gandhi's heir, and his impact on India before and after Independence. The book is balanced between chapters that explain Bose's life and career and those that describe and analyze the Indian political system. It explains India's stable democracy as a mixture of British and American patterns--Westminster parliamentary rule plus federalism--and a specific set of power-sharing arrangements among religions, linguistic groups, and castes. India fulfills all the criteria the traditional understanding of pluralistic democracy implies. Basic freedoms are guaranteed, despite the temptation during Indira Gandhi's "emergency" rule to follow the path of authoritarian development. Precisely because India, after Pakistan's separation, did not become "Hindustan" but stayed on track as a secular, pluralistic democracy, it became the most prominent challenge to the traditional wisdom of comparative politics. Democracy Indian Style gives one answer to the Indian enigma of how democracy succeeds by describing the working of the Indian constitution, the weaknesses of the party system, and the specifics of Indian elections. The focus on Bose provides the second explanation. The author describes Bose's rise to the leadership of the Indian National Congress in the 1930s, his attempt to combine an economic leftist outlook with an extremely pragmatic foreign policy, his failure to get serious help from Nazi Germany, his success with the Japanese war lords--and his tragic end in August 1945. Democracy Indian Style is a timely exploration of the roots of Indian democracy, and will be of interest to political scientists, historians, and students of India. Anton Pelinka is professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck and director of the Institute of Conflict Research in Vienna. Among his recent publications are Austria, Out of the Shadow of the Past, Politics of the Lesser Evil: Leadership, Democracy and Jaruzelski's Poland (Transaction), and The Haider Phenomenon in Austria, edited with Ruth Wodak (Transaction).
Download or read book How India Became Democratic written by Ornit Shani and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovers the greatest experiment in democratic history: the creation of the electoral roll and universal adult franchise in India.
Download or read book The Promise of Power written by Maya Tudor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under what conditions are some developing countries able to create stable democracies while others have slid into instability and authoritarianism? To address this classic question at the center of policy and academic debates, The Promise of Power investigates a striking puzzle: why, upon the 1947 Partition of British India, was India able to establish a stable democracy while Pakistan created an unstable autocracy? Drawing on interviews, colonial correspondence, and early government records to document the genesis of two of the twentieth century's most celebrated independence movements, Maya Tudor refutes the prevailing notion that a country's democratization prospects can be directly attributed to its levels of economic development or inequality. Instead, she demonstrates that the differential strengths of India's and Pakistan's independence movements directly account for their divergent democratization trajectories. She also establishes that these movements were initially constructed to pursue historically conditioned class interests. By illuminating the source of this enduring contrast, The Promise of Power offers a broad theory of democracy's origins that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, democratization, state-building, and South Asian political history.
Download or read book The Success of India s Democracy written by Atul Kohli and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-06 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading scholars consider how democracy has taken root in India despite poverty, illiteracy and ethnic diversity.
Download or read book Grass Roots Democracy in India and China written by Manoranjan Mohanty and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2007-01-12 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In both India and China, economic reforms have generated challenges for local institutions. This book studies the political experiences in India and China from an interdisciplinary perspective. It examines the process of democratisation, highlighting the demands for participation and the power structures interjecting them.
Download or read book The Roots of Democracy written by Tatu Vanhanen and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Democracy in India written by Lancy Lobo and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deliberates on various dimensions of the challenges confronting parliamentary democracy in India, and provides a platform for debates emanating from the depths of society, new critiques of the manner in which democracy has functioned, and the strengths and weaknesses of Indian democracy. It deals with the theory and practice of democratic governance, the role of the judiciary in strengthening the legislative and executive functions of the state, the role of the media as the fourth estate, the rise of social movements and civil society, the critical role of economic development in sustaining democracy, and the role of democracy in containing ethnic conflicts. It also includes two essays on democracy at the grassroots analysing electoral behaviour and the gender perspective, and presents alternatives that have been offered by civil society activists, academicians, and researchers, who together form an intellectual comity.
Download or read book Emergency Chronicles written by Gyan Prakash and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of an explosive turning point in the history of modern India On the night of June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, suspending constitutional rights and rounding up her political opponents in midnight raids across the country. In the twenty-one harrowing months that followed, her regime unleashed a brutal campaign of coercion and intimidation, arresting and torturing people by the tens of thousands, razing slums, and imposing compulsory sterilization on the poor. Emergency Chronicles provides the first comprehensive account of this understudied episode in India’s modern history. Gyan Prakash strips away the comfortable myth that the Emergency was an isolated event brought on solely by Gandhi’s desire to cling to power, arguing that it was as much the product of Indian democracy’s troubled relationship with popular politics. Drawing on archival records, private papers and letters, published sources, film and literary materials, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, Prakash traces the Emergency’s origins to the moment of India’s independence in 1947, revealing how the unfulfilled promise of democratic transformation upset the fine balance between state power and civil rights. He vividly depicts the unfolding of a political crisis that culminated in widespread popular unrest, which Gandhi sought to crush by paradoxically using the law to suspend lawful rights. Her failure to preserve the existing political order had lasting and unforeseen repercussions, opening the door for caste politics and Hindu nationalism. Placing the Emergency within the broader global history of democracy, this gripping book offers invaluable lessons for us today as the world once again confronts the dangers of rising authoritarianism and populist nationalism.
Download or read book The Vernacularisation of Democracy written by Lucia Michelutti and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is an ethnographic exploration of how ‘democracy’ takes social and cultural roots in India and in the process shapes the nature of popular politics. It centres on a historically marginalised caste who in recent years has become one of the most assertive and politically powerful communities in North India: the Yadavs. The Vernacularisation of Democracy is a vivid account of how Indian popular democracy works on the ground. Challenging conventional theories of democratisation the book shows how the political upsurge of 'the lower orders' is situated within a wider process of the vernacularisation of democratic politics, referring to the ways in which values and practices of democracy become embedded in particular cultural and social practices, and in the process become entrenched in the consciousness of ordinary people. During the 1990s, Indian democracy witnessed an upsurge in the political participation of lower castes/communities and the emergence of political leaders from humble social backgrounds who present themselves as promoters of social justice for underprivileged communities. Drawing on a large body of archival and ethnographic material the author shows how the analysis of local idioms of caste, kinship, kingship, popular religion, ‘the past’ and politics (‘the vernacular’) inform popular perceptions of the political world and of how the democratic process shapes in turn ‘the vernacular’. This line of enquiry provides a novel framework to understand the unique experience of Indian democracy as well as democratic politics and its meaning in other contemporary post-colonial states. Using as a case study the political ethnography of a powerful northern Indian caste (the Yadavs) and combining ethnographic material with colonial and post-colonial history the book examines the unique experience of Indian popular democracy and provides a framework to analyse popular politics in other parts of the world. The book fills
Download or read book India s Democracy written by Atul Kohli and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nine contributors analyze state-society relations in India. A new epilogue covers the Rajiv Gandhi period, leading up to the important elections of December 1989. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
