Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Adivasis, Afghanistan, Armenian Genocide, Arundhati Roy, Authoritarian, Ayodhya, Babri Masjid, BJP, Capitalism, Chhattisgarh, Communalism, Dalits, Developing Countries, Fascism, Free Market, ganga, George Bush, Gujarat, Hindu, Hindutva, India, Jharkhand, Kashmir, L.K. Advani, liberal democracy, Mohammed Afzal, Mumbai Attacks, Muslim, Narendra Modi, Non-Aligned Movement, Orissa, P. CHidambaram, Pakistan, Ram Janmabhoomi, Soviet Union, Totalitarian, West Bengal
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3 July 2009
Source: Outlook India
While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By democracy I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.
So, is there life after democracy?
Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defence of democracy. It’s flawed, we say. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than everything else that’s on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: ‘Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia…is that what you would prefer?’
Whether democracy should be the utopia that all ‘developing’ societies aspire to is a separate question altogether. (I think it should. The early, idealistic phase can be quite heady.) The question about life after democracy is addressed to those of us who already live in democracies, or in countries that pretend to be democracies. It isn’t meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It’s meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy-too much representation, too little democracy-needs some structural adjustment.
The question here, really, is: what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the Free Market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: 2002 Anti-Muslim Pogrom, 9/11, Al-Qaeda, CIA, Deccan Mujahedeen, Gujarat, India, Indian Muslims, Indian Prime Minister, Kashmir, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Manmohan Singh, Narendra Modi, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Terrorist
The Deccan Mujahedeen, which claimed the outrage in an e-mail press release, is certainly a new name probably chosen for this single act. But speculation is rife. A senior Indian naval officer has claimed that the attackers (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Bajrang Dal, Communalism, Congress Party, Gandhi, Gujrati Urban Middle Class, Gujurat Elections, M A Jinnah, Narendra Modi, Propaganda, Rajiv Gandhi, Sangh Parivar, Secularism, Sikh Militancy, V D Savarkar, Vishwa Hindu Parishad
BJP Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, at a rally in Bangalore on 6 May 2008
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( Dated Article – 14 January, 2008 )
Times Of India
Now that the dust has settled over the Gujarat elections, we can afford to defy the pundits and admit that, even if Narendra Modi had lost the last elections, it would not have made much difference to the culture of Gujarat politics. Modi had already done his job. Most of the state’s urban middle class would have remained mired in its inane versions of communalism and parochialism and the VHP and the Bajrang Dal would have continued to set the tone of state politics. Forty years of dedicated propaganda does pay dividends, electorally and socially.
The Hindus and the Muslims of the state — once bonded so conspicuously by language, culture and commerce — have met the demands of both V D Savarkar and M A Jinnah. They now face each other as two hostile (more…)
