Is Indian democracy a great success, or a massive failure? Some argue that the Indian state has failed to deliver on its promise to the majority of India’s citizens, and that democracy has failed to address longstanding issues of inequality. Others celebrate India as a singular postcolonial success story: a stable, plural democracy which has made strides toward achieving its Nehruvian motto of ‘unity in diversity’.
Debates on the nature of democracy, freedom, citizenship, hierarchy and belonging in India began at the same time that the ‘idea of India’ first took hold among Indian nationalists in the late colonial period. Different definitions of freedom emerged from these debates: one which focused on freedom for individuals from ‘traditional’ social hierarchies within South Asia, and another which understood freedom as a process of formal decolonisation, framing the rights of citizens within a constitutional, democratic nation-state. These two definitions of freedom came into conflict when lower-caste and minority leaders argued, during the interwar period, that independence alone would not bring true freedom to India’s people, and debates over the nature of freedom and citizenship continue to challenge simplistic narratives of political or social change.
This course will explore the period from 1947 to the present day, looking at how linguistic, regional, minority, lower-caste, gender, religious and even separatist movements have contributed to the creation of a federal democracy in India. We’ll begin with regional linguistic and separatist movements in the 1950s and the Nehruvian state and ‘Congress system’, move on to Indira Gandhi’s suspension of democracy during the Emergency, the return of the Naxalite or Maoist movements, and the rise of the Hindu right and new caste, regional and coalition politics in the 1980s and 1990s.
We will conclude with a consideration of the impact of economic liberalisation and globalisation on Indian democracy, and questions about development and freedom in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We’ll look at primary sources and individuals as well as political concepts and movements to better understand how postcolonial India’s experiences with democracy and development have affected the everyday lives of its citizens.
