India: Nation and Its People

ebook Castes and Parties In the Making of Democracy

By Inukonda Thirumali

cover image of India: Nation and Its People

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today
Libby_app_icon.svg

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

app-store-button-en.svg play-store-badge-en.svg
LibbyDevices.png

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Loading...

The emergence of democracy as a historical form of government is stemmed from the idea of a nation-state. The Constituent Assembly desired the democracy to ensure the liberty of opinion through fraternity of the individuals, castes and communities to accomplish the equality and justice to make India a nation. India made gigantic developments in the fields of economic growth and in building the institutions and integrating various sections of people into the democratic polity.

This work establishes the transformation of dominant castes into political organs and the nucleus of parties. The caste hierarchy thus turns out to be the foundation and, even, a reason for the success of the electoral democracy. The constitutional objectives set for the governments have however been infringed, thus democracy turned to promote capitalism and authoritarian regimes causing mass unrest. That necessitated the bygone Hindutva to come back and take forward the agendas of caste, capitalism and authoritarianism. Democracy has been passing through a crisis of conflicts – caste and community – at various stages of its evolution. The ordinary people at different stages had taken democratic stands turning the democracy to the right path through protests and voting.

Of late the caste movements for empowerment set terms for democracy to move on. The caste movements, however with sub-caste interests, ignored the conscientiously arrived concept of 'justice'. The constitution specified that might have brought the people, parties and governments together for achieving the set objectives of democracy and the nation-state.

India: Nation and Its People