The Resistance has Just Begun
Outlook|July 01, 2024
The 2024 election turned out to be a battle between vested interests and unorganised masses
Harish Khare
The Resistance has Just Begun

SEVEN decades ago, the eminent American political scientist, Professor Seymour Martin Lipset, published a seminal research paper, ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy’ in the authoritative American Political Science Review in 1959. His thesis was that advanced levels of literacy, industrialisation and urbanisation were required for democracy to succeed. It became an influential argument in those contentious days of the Cold War, and provided the Western policy elite a rationalisation for Washington’s support and patronage for military regimes in various continents.

Indian voters had neither heard of nor cared for Lipset. They definitely proved the Harvard professor repeatedly wrong, but most emphatically in 1977. Nonetheless, the voters reserved their most resounding refutation for the Lipset thesis till 2024 as for the first time, democracy as an ideology triumphed over fancy notions of strong-leader-led-autocracy.

The last 10 years have seen a very determined ideological assault on the idea of democracy, anchored in constitutional legitimacy. A tiny elite—a dozen favoured business houses, a band of technocratic bureaucrats, and a corrupt and corrupting media mafia—had enlisted the upper castes and upper classes in a Project Limited Democracy to install an anti-people policy regime. The 2024 vote came down to whether the masses wanted to lend their imprimatur to an all-powerful, unaccountable, and omnipresent State, which provides a shield to the power-hungry elite to carry on its greedy business.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 01, 2024 من Outlook.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 01, 2024 من Outlook.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من OUTLOOK مشاهدة الكل
Trump's White House 'Waapsi'
Outlook

Trump's White House 'Waapsi'

Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election may very well mean an end to democracy in the near future

time-read
6 mins  |
November 21, 2024
IMT Ghaziabad hosted its Annual Convocation Ceremony for the Class of 2024
Outlook

IMT Ghaziabad hosted its Annual Convocation Ceremony for the Class of 2024

Shri Suresh Narayanan, Chairman Managing Director of Nestlé India Limited, congratulated and motivated graduates at IMT Ghaziabad's Convocation 2024

time-read
2 mins  |
November 21, 2024
Identity and 'Infiltrators'
Outlook

Identity and 'Infiltrators'

The Jharkhand Assembly election has emerged as a high-stakes political contest, with the battle for power intensifying between key players in the state.

time-read
1 min  |
November 21, 2024
Beyond Deadlines
Outlook

Beyond Deadlines

Bibek Debroy could engage with even those who were not aligned with his politics or economics

time-read
2 mins  |
November 21, 2024
Portraying Absence
Outlook

Portraying Absence

Exhibits at a group art show in Kolkata examine existence in the absence

time-read
4 mins  |
November 21, 2024
Of Rivers, Jungles and Mountains
Outlook

Of Rivers, Jungles and Mountains

In Adivasi poetry, everything breathes, everything is alive and nothing is inferior to humans

time-read
5 mins  |
November 21, 2024
Hemant Versus Himanta
Outlook

Hemant Versus Himanta

Himanta Biswa Sarma brings his hate bandwagon to Jharkhand to rattle Hemant Soren’s tribal identity politics

time-read
5 mins  |
November 21, 2024
A Smouldering Wasteland
Outlook

A Smouldering Wasteland

As Jharkhand goes to the polls, people living in and around Jharia coalfield have just one request for the administration—a life free from smoke, fear and danger for their children

time-read
1 min  |
November 21, 2024
Search for a Narrative
Outlook

Search for a Narrative

By demanding a separate Sarna Code for the tribals, Hemant Soren has offered the larger issue of tribal identity before the voters

time-read
5 mins  |
November 21, 2024
The Historic Bonhomie
Outlook

The Historic Bonhomie

While the BJP Is trying to invoke the trope of Bangladeshi infiltrators”, the ground reality paints a different picture pertaining to the historical significance of Muslim-Adivasi camaraderie

time-read
5 mins  |
November 21, 2024