By Šumit Ganguly India's Democratic History Contrary to popular belief, the British had done little to bequeath democracy to India. Instead, democracy emerged in India due to the relentless efforts of Indian nationalists who appropriated liberal democratic ideals and embedded them in the nascent country. The country forged a democratic constitution in 1950, just three... Continue Reading →
By Justin Kempf A review of House of the People: Parliament and the Making of Indian Democracy by Ronojoy Sen House of the People For the past several years most of the popular literature on Indian democracy has focused on its shortcomings. So many books and articles fixate on Narendra Modi, Hindu Nationalism, and threats to... Continue Reading →
Ashutosh Varshney is the Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also directs the Center for Contemporary South Asia. His chapter "India’s Democratic Longevity and Its Troubled Trajectory" appears in the forthcoming book Democracy in Hard Places. Become a Patron! Nehru is... Continue Reading →
Become a Patron! The BJP's Hindu Nationalism Interferes with India's International Relations The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rose to power through an ideology of Hindu Nationalism. Hinduism is an Ancient religion with deep roots in India, however Hindu Nationalism is a more recent invention. It is a political ideology based on religious identity rather than... Continue Reading →
Deb Chowdhry is a journalist who has published in Time, South China Morning Post, and Washington Times. John Keane is a Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney. They are the authors of the recent book To Kill a Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism. Become a Patron! You treat votes as equal. My vote is... Continue Reading →
Become a Patron! Inequality in Democracy It’s not controversial to say democracy is about more than elections. Most scholars recognize democracy depends on liberal rights like free speech and the rights of the accused. Liberal democracy strives to combine civil liberties with political equality. But does democracy also depend on economic equality or at least... Continue Reading →
Bilal Baloch is the Co-Founder and COO of Enquire, formerly GlobalWonks. He is also a non-resident visiting scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of When Ideas Matter: Democracy and Corruption in India. We have core ideas that form a part of our worldview, but... Continue Reading →
Ideas and Political Decisions Political science almost always falls back into discussions of institutions and interests. The human element gets extracted from serious research, because it does not fit well into statistical analysis or spatial models. Instead, ideas and opinions become diminished into political interests. In other words, scholars largely assume ideologies do not evolve... Continue Reading →
