Indian Democracy

Administrator

Description

An informed attempt to understand the development of democratic polity in India.

The twentieth century has witnessed a tremendous reinforcement of the concept of democracy. In a period of about one hundred years, the virtues of democracy have been greatly extolled and the world has witnessed a process of democratization. In the sixty years since its inception, Indian democracy too has developed indigenous roots and is emerging as a unique example of parliamentary democracy. The important question today is not the survival of Indian democracy, but the nature of India’s democratic politics.

The present volume is an attempt to understand the development of democratic polity in India. It covers a wide range of issues – theoretical concepts, political institutions, federalism, electoral process, individual and group rights and mass media – drawing attention to the significant broadening of Indian democracy. But the benefits of political democracy are yet to reach the masses – political institutions are dominated by the elite, civil society has been politicized and the interventionist state has become an arm of the elite. The solution to these problems lies in further democratization of the political process.

List of Contributors; Introduction: DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN INDIA: CONCEPTS, CHALLENGES AND DEBATES; RECONSTRUCTING DEMOCRATIC CONCERNS IN INDIA; ARE WE READY FOR DEMOCRACY? A FEW OBSERVATIONS; DEMOCRACY AND POVERTY IN INDIA; DEMOCRACY AND FEDERALISM IN INDIA; INDIA’S COALITION FUTURE?; HOW DEMOCRATIC IS OUR PARLIAMENT?; DEMOCRACY’S JANUS FACE; THE NATURE OF THE OPPOSITION IN INDIA’S PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY; RESTYLING DEMOCRACY?; THE POOR WORKING WOMEN; HOW IS DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH ASIA?

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781843318132
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

INDIAN DEMOCRACY PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Anthem South Asian Studies

Other titles in the series

Basile, Elisabetta, Mukhopadhyay, Ishita (eds.) Changing Identity of Rural India: A Socio-historic Analysis(2009) Sabhlok, Sanjeev, Breaking Free of Nehru: Let's Unleash India!(2009) Rajan, S Irudaya, Risseeuw, Carla and Perera, Myrtle (eds.) Institutional Provisions and Care for the aged(2008) Paranjape, makarand (ed.) Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India(2008) Kumar, Ashwani Community Warriors: State, Peasants and Caste Armies in Bihar(2008) Palit, Amitendu and Bhattacharjee, Subhomoy Special Economic Zones in India: Myths and Realities(2008) Roy, Kaushim (ed.) 1857 Uprising: A Tale of an Indian Warrior(2008) Sharma, Anita and Chakrabarti, Sreemati (eds.) Taiwan Today(2007) Gaur, Ishwar Dayal Martyr as Bridegroom: A Folk Representation of Bhagat Singh(2007) Bandyopadhyaya, Jayantanuja Class and Religion in Ancient India(2007) Chakrabarti Radharaman India’s Esternal Relations in a Globalized World Economy(2007) Sinha, Dilip Kumar Natural Disaster Reduction(2007) Fraser, Bashabi (ed.) Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter(2006) CSIRD Towards BIMSTEC-Japan: Comprehensive Economic Cooperation(2006) Banerjee, Sashanka S India’s Secrity Dilemmas: Pakistan and Bangladesh(2006) Chattopadhyaya, Braj Studying Early India(2006) Sen, Satadru Colonial Childhoods(2005) Bates, Crispin and Basu, Shubho (eds.) Rethinking Indian Political Institutions(2005)

INDIAN DEMOCRACY

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Edited by Sharmila Mitra Deb and M Manisha

LONDON NEW YORK DELHI

Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in India 2009 by ANTHEM PRESS C-49 Kalkaji, New Delhi 110019, India 75-76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK 244 Madison Avenue #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© 2009 Sharmila Mitra Deb and M Manisha individual chapters © individual contributors

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reser ved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or other wise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

ISBN 978 81 907570 4 1

Printed at Sadhana Press Pvt. Ltd 200 B B Ganguly Street, Kolkata 700012, West Bengal, India

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

CONTENTS

List of Contributors

Introduction DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN INDIA: CONCEPTS, CHALLENGES AND DEBATES M Manisha

RECONSTRUCTING DEMOCRATIC CONCERNS IN INDIA Rajarama Tolpady

ARE WE READY FOR DEMOCRACY? A FEW OBSERVATIONS Gautam Kumar Basu

DEMOCRACY AND POVERTY IN INDIA Yogendra Yadav

DEMOCRACY AND FEDERALISM IN INDIA: TWO EPISODES AND A SET OF QUESTIONS Peter Ronald deSouza

INDIA’S COALITION FUTURE? Rakhahari Chatterji

HOW DEMOCRATIC IS OUR PARLIAMENT? ELITE REPRESENTATION AND FUNCTIONAL EFFICIENCY OF LOK SABHA M Manisha

DEMOCRACY’S JANUS FACE: A REVIEW OF ELECTIONS IN POST-INDEPENDENCE INDIA* Samir Kumar Das

THE NATURE OF THE OPPOSITION IN INDIA’S PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY Sanjukta Banerji Bhattacharya

vii

xi

1

20

26

39

51

66

90

107

9.

10.

11.

RESTYLING DEMOCRACY? MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND PUBLIC SPACE VIS-À-VIS INDIAN TELEVISION Dipankar Sinha

THE POOR WORKING WOMEN: THE ACHILLES HEEL OF INDIAN DEMOCRACY – A PROFILE OF THE MAIDSERVANT FROM THE BUSTEES OF KOLKATA Sreeparna Das Gupta

HOW IS DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH ASIA? A COMPARISON OF THE ELITE AND THE MASS ATTITUDES K C Suri

129

152

171

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dipankar Sinha, Reader, Department of Political Science, Calcutta University. Gautam Kumar Basu, Professor, Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University. K C Suri, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad. MManisha, Former Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Loreto College, Kolkata. Peter Ronald deSouza,Co-coordinator, Lokniti, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. Rajarama Tolpady, Reader, in Political Science, Mangalore University. Rakhahari Chatterji, Professor, Department of Political Science, Calcutta University. Samir Kumar Das, Professor, Department of Political Science, Calcutta University. Sanjukta Banerji Bhattacharya, Professor, Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University. Sreeparna Dasgupta,Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Loreto College, Kolkata. Yogendra Yadav,Coordinator, Lokniti, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.

PREFACE

Indian Democracy: Problems and Prospectsis the culmination of a UGC sponsored national seminar on ‘The Changing Face of Indian Democracy: Regionalism and Coalition Governments’, organized by the Department of Political Science, Loreto College, Kolkata in September 2006. The papers presented and published here reflect an attempt to trace and analyse the changing nature of Indian democracy in the last 60 years. The contributions of eminent academicians will no doubt enrich the ongoing discourse on Indian democracy. I am grateful to all those who presented papers at the seminar and consented to the publication of the same. Appreciation is also due to the faculty and students of the Department of Political Science for making possible this valuable publication. I sincerely hope that this book will contribute towards a deeper understanding of this evolutionary phenomenon in Indian politics.

Sr. Tina Farias, Principal, Loreto College, Kolkata, July 2008.