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.
Denne historien er fra July 01, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Denne historien er fra July 01, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Caste Census: To Conquer Or Conserve?
The caste census is generating heated debate, but even its most ardent proponents are not able to articulate a plan about how to use the resulting data
THE FATEFUL COMEDY
Actor-director Rajat Kapoor talks about adapting Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov into a Hindi play
Mad Hatter
When a leader takes off his topi and holds it in his hands while appealing for votes, it signals something extraordinary
Circle Within Circles
The caste question in Muslims.
Backward March
The Maratha reservation question may continue to mire the next government in the state
The 69% Exception
Quota within quota: lessons to be learned from Tamil Nadu
United Indifference
The perils of tweaking tribal identities
Two Nations, Two Destinies
The widely differing balance of power between the military and civilian leadership in India and Pakistan has significantly impacted democracy in the two countries
Crème de la Crème
The mainstream society thinks reservations are against right to equality. It’s high time they are seen in the context of right to justice.
Fading Folks
The recent SC ruling on sub-classification within the SC and ST categories temporarily lifted the hopes of tribal communities in Jharkhand