Contrary to popular belief, British colonial legacies do not explain India’s successful transition to democracy in its postindependence era. Rather the democratic underpinnings of the Indian nationalist movement ensured the adoption of a democratic form of government. In subsequent years, India’s democracy has weathered threats and been consolidated. Though Indian democracy is hardly bereft of shortcomings, social forces are likely to contribute to the further deepening of democracy. The country must also make a concerted attempt to bolster the robustness and efficacy of a range of institutions and procedures if it hopes to extend the promise of democracy to its entire population.
About the Author
Šumit Gangulyis a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he directs the Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India Relations and is also Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author (with William Thompson) of Ascending India and Its State Capacity (2017) and the coeditor (with Eswaran Sridharan) of The Oxford Handbook of Indian Politics (2014).
India’s Constitution has long seemed stable, but the rise of an ethnic, absolute, and opaque state is changing the constitutional order in momentous and disturbing ways.
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India has long baffled theorists of democracy. Democratic theory holds that poverty, widespread illiteracy, and a deeply hierarchical social structure are inhospitable conditions for the functioning of democracy. Yet except…
