India's Experiment With Democracy

India's Experiment With Democracy PDF Author: S.Y. Quraishi
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9356993653
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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Book Description
Since the founding of the republic, India has been the largest democracy in the world. In many respects it was considered a model democracy owing to its ideals, such as a non-partisan Election Commission and free dialogue and debate. Its abiding features have been non-discriminatory management of diversity, concern for an equitable and equal society, and a profound reverence towards the country's founding document, the Constitution. Over the years, the tussle between historical reality and theoretical idealism ensured that at times the social contract was disrupted, with conflicts obstructing a complete achievement of democracy. In India's Experiment with Democracy, former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi examines key questions that face India today: What foundational principles must be definitive to our ideas of nationhood, citizenship and democracy? How may we enliven our national discourse with a renewed spirit of inquiry and imaginative erudition, and mid-course correction? Ultimately, the underlying thrust of this book is to posit reasoned argumentation, objective enquiry, secularism, civil liberty and compassion as indispensable features of a democracy.

India's Experiment With Democracy

India's Experiment With Democracy PDF Author: S.Y. Quraishi
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9356993653
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 549

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the founding of the republic, India has been the largest democracy in the world. In many respects it was considered a model democracy owing to its ideals, such as a non-partisan Election Commission and free dialogue and debate. Its abiding features have been non-discriminatory management of diversity, concern for an equitable and equal society, and a profound reverence towards the country's founding document, the Constitution. Over the years, the tussle between historical reality and theoretical idealism ensured that at times the social contract was disrupted, with conflicts obstructing a complete achievement of democracy. In India's Experiment with Democracy, former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi examines key questions that face India today: What foundational principles must be definitive to our ideas of nationhood, citizenship and democracy? How may we enliven our national discourse with a renewed spirit of inquiry and imaginative erudition, and mid-course correction? Ultimately, the underlying thrust of this book is to posit reasoned argumentation, objective enquiry, secularism, civil liberty and compassion as indispensable features of a democracy.

How India Became Democratic

How India Became Democratic PDF Author: Ornit Shani
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107068037
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Uncovers the greatest experiment in democratic history: the creation of the electoral roll and universal adult franchise in India.

India's Founding Moment

India's Founding Moment PDF Author: Madhav Khosla
Publisher:
ISBN: 0674980875
Category : Constitutional history
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
"How did the founders of the most populous democratic nation in the world meet the problem of establishing a democracy after the departure of foreign rule? The justification for British imperial rule had stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. At the heart of India's founding moment, in which constitution-making and democratization occurred simultaneously, lay the question of how to implement democracy in an environment regarded as unqualified for its existence. India's founders met this challenge in direct terms-the people, they acknowledged, had to be educated to create democratic citizens. But the path to education lay not in being ruled by a superior class of men but rather in the very creation of a self-sustaining politics. Universal suffrage was instituted amidst poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. Under the guidance of B. R. Ambedkar, Indian lawmakers crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable of conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian constitution-the longest in the world-came into effect. More than half of the world's constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late-eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries that are characterized by low levels of economic growth and education; are divided by race, religion, and ethnicity; and have democratized at once, rather than gradually. The Indian founding is a natural reference point for such constitutional moments-when democracy, constitutionalism, and modernity occur simultaneously"--

Experiments in Democracy

Experiments in Democracy PDF Author: Benjamin J. Hurlbut
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542917
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Human embryo research touches upon strongly felt moral convictions, and it raises such deep questions about the promise and perils of scientific progress that debate over its development has become a moral and political imperative. From in vitro fertilization to embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and gene editing, Americans have repeatedly struggled with how to define the moral status of the human embryo, whether to limit its experimental uses, and how to contend with sharply divided public moral perspectives on governing science. Experiments in Democracy presents a history of American debates over human embryo research from the late 1960s to the present, exploring their crucial role in shaping norms, practices, and institutions of deliberation governing the ethical challenges of modern bioscience. J. Benjamin Hurlbut details how scientists, bioethicists, policymakers, and other public figures have attempted to answer a question of great consequence: how should the public reason about aspects of science and technology that effect fundamental dimensions of human life? Through a study of one of the most significant science policy controversies in the history of the United States, Experiments in Democracy paints a portrait of the complex relationship between science and democracy, and of U.S. society's evolving approaches to evaluating and governing science's most challenging breakthroughs.

India's Experiment in Democracy

India's Experiment in Democracy PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 10

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Book Description


Modern India

Modern India PDF Author: Craig Jeffrey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198769342
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
India has become one of the world's emerging powers, rivaling China in terms of global influence. Yet many people know relatively little about the economic, social, political, and cultural changes unfolding in India today. To what extent are people benefiting from the economic boom? In what ways is education transforming society? And how is India's culture industry responding to technological change? In this "Very Short Introduction", Craig Jeffrey provides a compelling account of the recent history of India, investigating the contradictions that are plaguing modern India and the manner in which people, especially young people, are actively remaking the country in the twenty first century. -- From publisher's description.

India's Experiment with Local Democracy

India's Experiment with Local Democracy PDF Author: Goutam Dakua
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788186772966
Category : Decentralization in government
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description


The Greater India Experiment

The Greater India Experiment PDF Author: Arkotong Longkumer
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503614239
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
The assertion that even institutions often viewed as abhorrent should be dispassionately understood motivates Arkotong Longkumer's pathbreaking ethnography of the Sangh Parivar, a family of organizations comprising the Hindu right. The Greater India Experiment counters the urge to explain away their ideas and actions as inconsequential by demonstrating their efforts to influence local politics and culture in Northeast India. Longkumer constructs a comprehensive understanding of Hindutva, an idea central to the establishment of a Hindu nation-state, by focusing on the Sangh Parivar's engagement with indigenous peoples in a region that has long resisted the "idea of India." Contextualizing their activities as a Hindutva "experiment" within the broader Indian political and cultural landscape, he ultimately paints a unique picture of the country today.

The Great March of Democracy

The Great March of Democracy PDF Author: Shahabuddin Yaqoob Quraishi
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 9780670092284
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
As India gears for its seventeenth Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the Election Commission of India, guardian of the world's grandest electoral experiment, marks the beginning of its seventieth year. This book celebrates seven decades of India's vibrant democracy and the Election Commission's excellence and rigour, with a remarkable collection of essays written by those who have studied India's unique experiment in electoral democracy, as well as analysts, politicians, social workers, activists, businesspersons and public servants. The essays in this book cover a range of subjects, from the evolution of the Election Commission, the exciting story of the first electoral roll, election laws, the deepening of democratic institutions over the decades to the participation revolution ushered in by the Election Commission's untiring and targeted efforts at voter education. Contemporary issues, such as the corrupting influence of money and the creeping criminalization in politics, have been addressed, as have been the electoral reforms proposed by experts on these subjects. There is a peek into how India's experience with elections has inspired its neighbours Nepal and Bhutan and impacted observers who have had a chance to witness, first-hand, the mammoth exercise held in the largest democracy on the planet. The diversity of perspectives from keen observers of India's democracy makes this volume an enthralling read.

The Burden of Democracy

The Burden of Democracy PDF Author: Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 9387326446
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
After nearly seven decades of its existence, there is a pervasive feeling that India's democracy is in crisis. But what is the nature of this threat? In this essay, republished now with a new foreword from the author, Pratap Bhanu Mehtareminds us what a bold experiment bringing democracy to a largely illiterate and unpropertied India was. He argues that the sphere of politics has truly created opportunities for people to participate in society. Looking at various facts, he also finds that persistent social inequality on the one hand and a mistaken view of the state's proper function and organization on the other have modified and hindered the workings of democracy and its effects in innumerable ways. Posting the quest for self-respect as democracy's deepest aspiration, this essay explores how inequality and the crisis of accountability have together impeded collective action to achieve such an end. To recover this sense of moral well-being and responsibility, Mehta suggests, is the core of the democratic challenge before us. Optimistic, lively and closely argued, The Burden of Democracy offers a new ideological imagination that throws light on our discontents. By returning to the basics of democracy it serves to illuminate our predicament, even while perceiving the broad contours for change.