'Scandinavian University Press / Universitetsforlaget AS'
Abstract
What India does to our understanding of democracy remains under-researched and there is, in particular, a need for in-depth and sociologically sensitive investigations into the meaning and practice of democracy in India. Equally interesting is the reverse question: what has democracy done to India? How has this alien and elite-imposed, and for long elite-controlled system of government altered India? The contributions in this volume attempt to shed light on these questions, and address the meaning and practice of democracy at different levels in India, to help us understand democracy and democratic practice. Our main proposition is that there is no single Indian democracy, but several Indian democracies, that this originally foreign system of government and representation has adapted to and been adapted into a great variety of cultural, political and historical experiences, in which different practices have emerged
