Who
Wants Democracy?- Book Review
By Sarbeswar Sahoo
01 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
India has long baffled theorists
of democracy. How has democracy been enduring in India despite of inhospitable
conditions and broken promises? Who gives legitimacy for its functioning
in the face of political crisis and growing deinstitutionalization?
Has it been successful in dealing with the problems of the common people?
Writing from a subaltern perspective, Javeed Alam in his slender volume
on Who Wants Democracy? presents a concise yet comprehensive overview
of the complex dynamics of democracy in India since independence. According
to him, the beginning of democracy in India was a result of the tryst
between the elites and the masses. The masses were promised of welfare
and improvement of conditions and in return delegated the elites the
power to rule. But, democracy in India is no longer an act of faith
granted from above, its very life and survival now depends on the politics
of the oppressed and exploited or what Partha Chatterjee (2004) calls
‘the politics of the governed’. It has been internalized
and morally approved in the subaltern political consciousness.
The increasing participation
of the vulnerable populations and their struggle for equality and inclusion
has redefined the boundaries of democratic politics in India. Comparing
the 1996 and 1971 election data, Alam identifies the democratic surge
among the downtrodden. The subaltern politics driven by the weak and
the powerless has constrained the bourgeois hegemony conspicuous in
their declining electoral participation. Though he is right in arguing
that the marginal section is increasingly participating in the electoral
politics, his assumption of the declining hegemony of the elites, which
he draws from the percentage of voting, is not worth convincing. Moving
further, Alam’s argument on the growing acceptance of democracy
is not because it has addressed the basic livelihood issues of the poor,
but because it has provided the common people a democratic space to
fight for dignity, equality, rights and entitlements seems limited.
If we see the empirical situation, it is true that more and more people
from vulnerable sections are asserting their rights, but it has not
spread beyond certain social groups and geographical locations.
Alam makes a very powerful
argument in recognizing the role of neo-middle class among the oppressed.
He argues that this newly emergent middle class (p. 51) plays significant
role in unifying the lower caste-based communities as blocs to compete
for power in democratic contestations, and transform their existence
from ‘collective unfreedom’ (p. 46) towards equality, inclusion
and recognition. Through the weapons of social justice and empowerment,
the neo-middle class has been able to break through into the dominant
structures long monopolized by the previlegensia (p. 81) and have been
able to sketch out the self-definition of identity and politics of the
oppressed communities. Thus, the struggle of the vulnerable communities
was a struggle for freedom and equality, rights and entitlements or
a fight for ‘full citizenship’ (p.71).
Explaining the making of
the Indian nation, Alam argues that the dominant secular Nehruvian model
is now threatened by the communal politics and regional assertion. The
monolithic conception of nation derived either from the secular or from
the Hindutva has been rejected by the linguistic cultural regions and
multiple ways being Indian is taking shape over a period of time. Alam’s
arguments on democracy and the making of Indian nation seem shallow
and lack the understanding of long historical trajectory. It does not
explain the idea that India as a nation was conceived and constructed
in opposition to the British. And the independence movement was a movement
for nation-building and at the same time a struggle for self-rule.
It is widely believed that
democracy needs civil society to survive and thrive. Exploring the role
of NGOs, media and their role in the rising new social movements, Alam
tries to address the issue of whether civil society is necessarily a
precondition for the success of democracy. He sees civil society as
a fragmented sphere where the vulnerable sections lack the civility
and politeness; and the elites who are educated and capable of exercising
their rights constitute the core members of the civil society and set
the rule for the functioning of democracy in India without the support
of a very large part of the civil society. This line of reasoning stands
contrary to his central thesis that democracy in India no more depends
on the good wills of the elites. In comparison to the western experience,
Indian democracy reveals various paradoxes with its persistent poverty,
mass illiteracy and ascriptive loyalties, and highlights the growing
democratic commitments on the part of the poor. Alam argues, despite
of its dependence on traditional and particularistic social structure,
common people’s search for freedom, equality, recognition and
agency has given legitimacy for Indian democracy to continue. Thus,
to conclude and quote, ‘democracy is getting transcribed under
the impact of Indian particularities’ (p. 138, emphasis original).
Despite of some weaknesses,
the book’s greatest accomplishment is that it is a concerted and
comprehensive attempt to explore the adaptation of modern universal
value like democracy in a traditional and particularist society like
India. Combining logical presentation with thought provoking and coherent
theoretical arguments, Alam establishes a connecting thread between
chapters. The lucid analysis of the functioning of democracy makes it
a comprehensive companion to understand the basic philosophical values
of democracy in India.
Reference
Chatterjee, Partha (2004)
The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most
of the World, New York: Columbia University Press
Alam, Javeed (2004) Who Wants
Democracy?, New Delhi: Orient Longman, xix + 143 pp., Rs. 175
Sarbeswar Sahoo is a PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology,
National University of Singapore; [email protected]
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