Political and Cultural Expressions of Indian Democracy
Abstracts
SESSION 1: ELECTIONS / GOVERNANCE
Amrita Basu,
Amherst Collegee
Mukulika Banerjee,
London School of Economics
Free and fair elections are perhaps the predominant criteria for a polity’s classification as democratic. India has long been celebrated for the relative regularity and peace that have characterized the country’s elections at both the national and state levels. Yet elections themselves, beyond simply the results they produce and the governments they impact, remain surprisingly understudied as socio-political phenomena in their own right. This panel seeks to address such concerns by taking elections as a central object of analysis, and providing theoretical and methodological suggestions for how future scholarship might seek to understand the ways elections both reflect, and are constituted by the societies in which they take place.
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SESSION 2: CAPABILITY / OPPORTUNITY
Rukmini Banerji,
PRATHAM, New Delhi
Leena Abraham,
TISS, Mumbai
In recent elections, the ability of political leaders and parties to provide for capability-building resources such as electricity, water and roads, proved a key factor, among others, for the outcome of elections reinforcing the idea that India’s twin goals of democracy and development are compatible. However, persistent and deepening social and economic inequalities indicate yet another reality of the Indian democracy: the inadequate practice of building capacity of citizens by providing access to rights and resources such as job security, universal and equal access to education and health. In this panel scholars will speak to this gap by addressing questions such as: (1) what do the historical trend and current pattern of education and health distribution reveal about the Indian democratic principles? (2) Should the democratic ideals be judged by these patterns? (3) Are these trends and patterns less alarming simply because they exist in a democratic country that assumes accountability to its citizens? (4) Is a project on democracy necessary to achieve these capabilities?
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SESSION 3: CIVIL SOCIETY / POLITICAL SOCIETY
Craig Jeffrey,
Oxford University, UK
Neema Kudva,
Cornell University
The concept of ‘civil society’ is by now as contested as it is celebrated in discourses on democracy. Rather than debate the worthiness of the concept, this panel utilizes how the concept might be utilized as well as problematized through the study of specific local political communities in India. The panel thus hopes to inductively build up a concept of civil society through the delineation of grassroots experiences of local organizations in urban and rural India, rather than deductively imposing an abstract concept on these realities. In doing so, it hopes to catalyze an inter-disciplinary dialogue on the degree to which civil society is institutionalized into political praxis, and the ways in which its meanings might change across specific local contexts.
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Flavia Agnes,
MAJLIS, Mumbai
Maya Unnithan,
University of Sussex, UK
That gender relations are central to the enduring project of achieving development and democracy in India is evidenced in several landmark governmental resolutions, declarations, and provisions on gender equality and empowerment. These have helped to narrow the differences between men and women in terms of their access to values resource such as employment, education, and health. However, despite the opportunities and female-headed governments, the alarming rate of violence against women, the sex ratio favoring men, and high rate of mortality of girl children indicate that gender identity continues to prove a constraint for women in India. The aim of this panel is to raise conceptual and empirical debates on the relationship between gender equality and democracy. It will address questions such as what are the opportunities and constraints of women’s representations in public-elected offices? Can democracy transform power relations between women and men? Alternatively, how can gender equality transform the face of democracy? Can a country’s democratic credentials be judged by its record on gender equality?
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Ananya Roy,
University of California, Berkeley
Juned Shaikh,
University of Washington
India is becoming increasingly urbanized as people leave villages and migrate to its burgeoning cities for economic opportunity. The growth of India’s cities affects the development of democracy. Recognizing that democracy functions differently in rural and urban spaces, this panel explores the development of democracy in the urban Indian landscape. It investigates the unique challenges of developing democracy in India’s cities.