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Selected papers presented at a panel discussion organized by the Indian Political Science Association on the functioning of Indian parliamentary system.
This book presents a comprehensive overview of India’s electoral democracy and political system. It provides an in-depth analysis of the 2019 parliamentary elections to explore three crucial facts of India’s political life: the legitimacy of political competition as the only basis of power; elections as the only legitimate basis of political competition; and political parties as the only legitimate agency to conduct political competition. The book argues that the vitality and resilience of India’s electoral democracy remain high owing to large mass participation in elections that are competitive and relatively free and fair. The volume includes key theoretical, empirical, and comparative perspectives on parties and elections from experts, and covers all major political parties of India, along with the performance of many representative regional parties. It discusses themes such as elections and party competition in India; ideology, interest, religion, and gender as they affect social mobilisation and political transaction; economic and politial change, and multiparty democracy; the dynamics of the Muslim vote; fluctuating electoral fortunes; and electoral campaigns and role of social media. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of political science, political sociology, election studies, Indian politics, South Asian politics, and South Asian studies. It will also interest those in politics, public policy and governance, civil society organisations, media and journalism, and the general reader.
Social exclusion and inclusion remain issues of fundamental importance to democracy. Both exclusion and inclusion relate to the access to participation in the public realm, public goods and services for certain groups of people who are minorities, marginalized and deprived. Democratization has led to the inclusion of the previously excluded in the political process. While the problems of exclusion remain even in advanced Western countries in respect of the minorities of sorts, and the underprivileged, the problem of deep-rooted social and cultural exclusions is acute in post-colonial countries, including India. This book analyses social exclusions in India, which remain the most solid challenges to Indian democracy and development. Communal clashes, ethnic riots, political secessionist movements and extremist violence take place almost routinely, and are the outward manifestations of the entrenched culture of social exclusion in India. With its interdisciplinary approach, the book looks at the multidimensional problems of social exclusion and inclusion, providing a critical, comprehensive analysis of the problem and of potential solutions. The authors are experts in the fields of historical sociology, anthropology, political theory, social philosophy, economics and indigenous vernacular literature. Overall, the book offers an innovative theoretical perspective of the long-term issues facing contemporary Indian democracy.
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.
China and India have always been seperated not only by the Himalayas, but also by the impenetrable jungle and remote areas that once stretched across Burma. Now this last great frontier will likely vanish - forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by superhighways, insurgencies ended - leaving China and India exposed to each other as never before. This basic shift in geography is as profound as the opening of the Suez Canal and is taking place just as the centre of the world's economy moves to the East. Thant Myint-U has travelled extensively across this vast territory, where high-speed trains and gleaming shopping malls now sit alongside the last remaining forests and impoverished mountain communities. In Where China Meets India he explores the new strategic centrality of Burma, the country of his ancestry, where Asia's two rising giant powers - China and India - appear to be vying for supremacy. Part travelogue, part history, part investigation, Where China Meets India takes us across the fast-changing Asian frontier, giving us a masterful account of the region's long and rich history and its sudden significance for the rest of the world. Thant Myint-U is the author of The River of Lost Footsteps and has written articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Statesman. He has worked alongside Kofi Annan at the UN's Department of Political Affairs and currently works as a special consultant to the Burmese government.
In Pakistan at the Crossroads, top international scholars assess Pakistan's politics and economics and the challenges faced by its civil and military leaders domestically and diplomatically. Contributors examine the state's handling of internal threats, tensions between civilians and the military, strategies of political parties, police and law enforcement reform, trends in judicial activism, the rise of border conflicts, economic challenges, financial entanglements with foreign powers, and diplomatic relations with India, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the United States. In addition to ethnic strife in Baluchistan and Karachi, terrorist violence in Pakistan in response to the American-led military intervention in Afghanistan and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas by means of drones, as well as to Pakistani army operations in the Pashtun area, has reached an unprecedented level. There is a growing consensus among state leaders that the nation's main security threats may come not from India but from its spiraling internal conflicts, though this realization may not sufficiently dissuade the Pakistani army from targeting the country's largest neighbor. This volume is therefore critical to grasping the sophisticated interplay of internal and external forces complicating the country's recent trajectory.
Why India's problems won't be solved by rapid economic growth alone When India became independent in 1947 after two centuries of colonial rule, it immediately adopted a firmly democratic political system, with multiple parties, freedom of speech, and extensive political rights. The famines of the British era disappeared, and steady economic growth replaced the economic stagnation of the Raj. The growth of the Indian economy quickened further over the last three decades and became the second fastest among large economies. Despite a recent dip, it is still one of the highest in the world. Maintaining rapid as well as environmentally sustainable growth remains an important and achievable goal for India. In An Uncertain Glory, two of India's leading economists argue that the country's main problems lie in the lack of attention paid to the essential needs of the people, especially of the poor, and often of women. There have been major failures both to foster participatory growth and to make good use of the public resources generated by economic growth to enhance people's living conditions. There is also a continued inadequacy of social services such as schooling and medical care as well as of physical services such as safe water, electricity, drainage, transportation, and sanitation. In the long run, even the feasibility of high economic growth is threatened by the underdevelopment of social and physical infrastructure and the neglect of human capabilities, in contrast with the Asian approach of simultaneous pursuit of economic growth and human development, as pioneered by Japan, South Korea, and China. In a democratic system, which India has great reason to value, addressing these failures requires not only significant policy rethinking by the government, but also a clearer public understanding of the abysmal extent of social and economic deprivations in the country. The deep inequalities in Indian society tend to constrict public discussion, confining it largely to the lives and concerns of the relatively affluent. Drèze and Sen present a powerful analysis of these deprivations and inequalities as well as the possibility of change through democratic practice.
An essential history of India's economic growth since 1947, including the legal reforms that have shaped the country in the shadow of colonial rule. Economists have long lamented how the inefficiency of India's legal system undermines the country’s economic capacity. How has this come to be? The prevailing explanation is that the postcolonial legal system is understaffed and under-resourced, making adjudication and contract enforcement slow and costly. Taking this as given, Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy examines the contents and historical antecedents of these laws, including how they have stifled economic development. Economists Roy and Swamy argue that legal evolution in independent India has been shaped by three factors: the desire to reduce inequality and poverty; the suspicion that market activity, both domestic and international, can be detrimental to these goals; and the strengthening of Indian democracy over time, giving voice to a growing fraction of society, including the poor. Weaving the story of India's heralded economic transformation with its social and political history, Roy and Swamy show how inadequate legal infrastructure has been a key impediment to the country's economic growth during the last century. A stirring and authoritative history of a nation rife with contradictions, Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand India's current crossroads—and the factors that may keep its dreams unrealized.
In spring of 1960, Japan’s government passed Anpo, a revision of the postwar treaty that allows the United States to maintain a military presence in Japan. This move triggered the largest popular backlash in the nation’s modern history. These protests, Nick Kapur argues in Japan at the Crossroads, changed the evolution of Japan’s politics and culture, along with its global role. The yearlong protests of 1960 reached a climax in June, when thousands of activists stormed Japan’s National Legislature, precipitating a battle with police and yakuza thugs. Hundreds were injured and a young woman was killed. With the nation’s cohesion at stake, the Japanese government acted quickly to quell tensions and limit the recurrence of violent demonstrations. A visit by President Eisenhower was canceled and the Japanese prime minister resigned. But the rupture had long-lasting consequences that went far beyond politics and diplomacy. Kapur traces the currents of reaction and revolution that propelled Japanese democracy, labor relations, social movements, the arts, and literature in complex, often contradictory directions. His analysis helps resolve Japan’s essential paradox as a nation that is both innovative and regressive, flexible and resistant, wildly imaginative yet simultaneously wedded to tradition. As Kapur makes clear, the rest of the world cannot understand contemporary Japan and the distinct impression it has made on global politics, economics, and culture without appreciating the critical role of the “revolutionless” revolution of 1960—turbulent events that released long-buried liberal tensions while bolstering Japan’s conservative status quo.