Peter Ronald deSouza - Companion to Indian Democracy

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the contemporary experiences of democracy in India. It explores the modes by which democracy as an idea, and as a practice, is interpreted, enforced, and lived in Indias current political climate.

The book employs case studies as a methodological vantage point to evolve an innovative conceptual framework for the study of democracy in India. The chapters unpack a diverse range of themes such as democracy and Dalits; agriculture, new sociality and communal violence in rural areas; changing nature of political communication in India; role of anti-nuclear movements in democracies; issues of subaltern citizens voice, impaired governance and the development paradigm; free speech and segregation in the public sphere; and, the surveillance state and Indian democracy. These thematic explorations are arranged in an engaging sequence to offer a multifaceted narrative of Indian democracy especially in relation to the recent debates on citizenship and constitutionalism.

A key critical intervention on contemporary politics in South Asia, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of political studies, political science, political sociology, comparative government and politics, sociology, social anthropology, public administration, public policy, and South Asia studies. It will also be of immense interest to policymakers, journalists, think tanks, bureaucrats, and organizations working in the area.

Peter Ronald deSouza, formerly Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, is D.D. Kosambi Visiting Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at Goa University, India.

Mohd. Sanjeer Alam is Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, India.

Hilal Ahmed is Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, India.

Resilience, Fragility, Ambivalence

Edited by Peter Ronald deSouza Mohd. Sanjeer Alam and Hilal Ahmed

First published 2022

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2022 selection and editorial matter, Peter Ronald deSouza, Mohd. Sanjeer Alam and Hilal Ahmed; individual chapters, the contributors

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ISBN: 978-0-367-74935-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-11348-7 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-21947-7 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003219477

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To Rajni Kothari, founder CSDS

Peter Ronald deSouza, Mohd. Sanjeer Alam, Hilal Ahmed

Peter Ronald deSouza, Mohd. Sanjeer Alam and Hilal Ahmed

Jatinder Singh

Satendra Kumar

Radhika Kumar

Deepa Mariam Varughese

Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha

G. Palanithurai

Gaurav J. Pathania

Pradeep Nayak

Gitika De

Satyajeet Nanda

Ayangbam Shyamkishor

Shilp Shikha Singh

Thahir Jamal Kiliyamannil

Nithin Jacob Thomas

Sukumar Muralidharan

Kalpana Dixit

P. Arun

Hilal Ahmed

1. Peter Ronald deSouza was Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, where he served two terms from 2007 till 2013. He was Professor at Goa University till 2003 and at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) (20032020), and is currently DD Kosambi Visiting Professor at Goa University. His current research interests include (a) exploring conundrums in democracy particularly Indian democracy through the recognition of ambivalence and the acknowledgement of inconvenient facts; (b) examining the colonization of the mind, by the knowledge and governmental practices of the West seen both in its colonial history and its after life; and (c) studying the impact of science on society which began with an interest in the scientific temper movement in India, but has grown to engage with the larger set of issues of science, technology, society and ethics.
2. His recent publications are: In the Hall of Mirrors: Reflections on Indian Democracy by Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, (2018); Democratic Accommodations: Minorities in Contemporary India (with Hilal Ahmed and Sanjeer Alam), Bloomsbury, New Delhi, August 2019. He has edited (with Rukmini Bhaya Nair) Keywords for India, Bloomsbury, London, February 2020; At Home with Democracy: A Political Theory of India, Essays of D.L. Sheth, where he wrote the Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, New Delhi, 2017.

1. Mohd. Sanjeer Alam, a social geographer by training, is Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), India. He studied in Jawaharlal Nehru University where he received his Ph.D. His research interests encompass a variety of themes, including democratic politics, democratization of education and sociospatial inequalities, and social exclusion and affirmative action. He has published extensively on these themes in edited volumes and both national and international journals. His major work is a book titled: Religion, Community, and Education: The Case of Rural Bihar (2012). He has co-edited with K. C. Sivaramakrishnan the volume: Fixing Electoral Boundaries in India: Processes, Outcomes and Implications for Political Representation (2015). Recently, he has co-authored the book Democratic Accommodation: Minorities in Contemporary India (Peter Ronald deSouza and Hilal Ahmed, 2019).

1. Hilal Ahmed is Associate Professor, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), India, and Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, Nantes, France. He works on political Islam, Muslim politics of representation, and politics of symbols in South Asia. His first book Muslim Political Discourse in Postcolonial India: Monuments, Memory, Contestation (2014) explores these thematic concerns to evolve an interdisciplinary approach to study Muslim politics. His recent works, Siyasi Muslims: A story of Political Islam in India (2019) and Democratic Accommodations: Minorities in Contemporary India (With Peter Ronald deSouza and Mohd. Sanjeer Alam, 2019), further elaborate these themes and make a modest attempt to explain the discursively constituted nature of contemporary Muslim political discourse in India. Ahmed is also currently working on a book project on the politics of Muslim political representation in postcolonial India. He is also editing a Hindi Reader of Sudipta Kavirajs writings. Ahmed is the Associate Editor, South Asian Studies, journal of the British Association of South Asian Studies.