India's Little Political Tradition (original) (raw)
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Winston Churchill felt that the Indian polity was not ripe enough for independence but Mahatma Gandhi pressed for swarajya nevertheless. Some fifty-five years after Atlee freed India off the British colonial yoke, what is the bottom line of the world's largest democracy? Barring the brief aberration that was the internal emergency imposed on it by Indira Gandhi, India, has been cruising on the path of democracy. That is about the physicality of going through electoral motions but what about the cerebral quality of the Indian democratic output? The cheerleaders of the Indian democracy cite the shining examples of its electoral maturity in avenging Indira for her emergency and dumping the Janata Party for its insipid rule. Oh, how the wonderful Indian voters routinely dump the haughty in the dustbins of anti-incumbency and where else on earth does democracy shine ever so bright, and such, tend to shape the grand narrative. Was Winston wrong then? No for doubts arose soon as the electorate tended to vote on caste lines and communal contours only to be cemented as voters, in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination, swayed by emotion, swamped its 8 th Lok Sabha with Congressmen. But the clinching evidence that Churchill was doubly right came a little later.
Mainstream, VOL 62 No 22, June 1, 2024, 2024
This article examines some of the crucial issues in the 2024 Indian parliamentary elections and their theoretical underpinnings. The article is divided into seven sections: Introduction; Key Issues: Constitution, Religious Harmony, Promises and counter-promises; Sanctity of Written Words and Congress Party’s Constitutional Raison-Detre; Communal Occultation and the rise of an Authoritarian Personality; From Authoritarian Personality to Politically Monotheistic Authoritarian State; Invisibilised ‘Muslims’ on the electoral centre stage, ‘electoral umma’ and rabid communalism; and Amethi, family bastion and the statist media.
"Blood will have blood": A Study in Indian Political Ritual
This article considers the significance of the incorporation of blood donation as a widespread feature of commemorative political rituals in India. It places the rituals in the context of the current campaign in India to replace paid with non-remunerated donation, and explains how this campaign has led to the circulation of a store of ethical capital that the ritual organizers endeavor—through these blood-shedding commemorations—to capture for political ends. It is argued that there is nothing purely political about memorial blood donation—that its performance relies upon certain established religious themes in order to achieve political efficacy, and that this works both ways. The article highlights the role of blood donation in facilitating bodily transactions across and between different temporal locations, and finishes with a case study that demonstrates the risk involved in these rituals of remembrance.
Political Parties And Politics In India.Full Paper.Alok Chantia.LKO.pdf
Across the globe every Homo sapien (Biological being) is a cultural being who belongs at least to one nation and nationality under the reign of established government. Democracy is very good system in which every citizen can play its role for his/her nation. Democracy is established with the help of electoral policy which governs elections of a country. India is the biggest democratic country in the world where numerous national and regional parties are surviving with electoral policies. An individual always thinks about his basic rights of food, sex (marriage), protection etc for smooth survival. People of India give majority to that political party for next five years, which agrees to all these parameters in its manifesto , But it is also a fact that parties are getting good results by making comment on social and cultural sentiments of the electorate, though a voter never thinks about the cost of his vote. A voter never demands anything in return for his voter ship. The Voter of India is not aware of Article 21 and other fundamental rights given in the Indian constitution, which talks about health, wealth, safety, health, house, education, road, security. A voter also never challenges the manifesto of any party. The winning party gets all the desires of the electorates fulfilled only at the utopian level, which should otherwise be challenged in the frame of commitment which was made by the party and its member who contested during the election. A party which ignores the basic rights and violates its manifesto commits the violation of human rights of its citizens. To discuss how an individual feels cheated in the name of election and what electoral reforms are required to maintain the dignified life of a national , is the main objective of our paper. " Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them. " ― Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World
Politics and Religion in Contemporary India 151
This paper is concerned with the way energy requirements in the last three decades have seen a response from local communities who wish to express their love and longing for traditional occupations. Agriculture is a multi-faceted representation , and riverine civilisations have epitomised the relation between land, labour and production not just as a relation with technology and culture, but also in terms of the symbols of the sacred. With large scale over utilisation of resources and a lack of vision, the rivers are polluted. People's movements draw on the work of scientists and those working in the Arts, including the Humanities and the Social Sciences to draw attention to the way in which petitions and protests communicate that politics is not merely about imposing 'the good vision from above' but is an interplay between the political, the legal, the socio-religious, the secular and the economic. In a democracy, politics is essentially about dialogue, and the rate of ...