This book presents numerous discussions of specific aspects of democratic politics, showing how democracy can be projected as a model of deliberate imperfection a model that tolerates various loose ends in the system and how democracy recognizes a multiplicity of possible courses open to the system at any point in time. Against this backdrop, the book carefully analyzes the lifetime work of D.L. Sheth, which, seen as a whole, offers us with a theory of Indian politics.
The selection of fifteen essays has been clustered into five sections that signify the major domains of democratic politics: State, Nation, Democracy; Parapolitics of Democracy; Social Power and Democracy; Representation in Liberal Democracy; and Emerging Challenges of Democracy. These essays give a sense of the transformations and struggles that are underway in India, brought about by the dynamics of democratic politics. Each of the fifteen chapters focuses on one aspect, providing a unique analysis of the deepening of democracy in India.
Introduction: A Political theory of Indian Democracy by Peter Ronald deSouza.- Section I: State, Nation, Democracy.- Chapter 1: Historicizing Indias Nationhood: History as Contemporary Politics.- Chapter 2: State-Nation Building: The Making of Liberal Democracy.- Chapter 3: Crisis of Political Authority.- Section II: Parapolitics of Democracy.- Chapter 4: Civil Society and Non-party Political Formations.- Chapter 5: Transformative Politics of Grassroots Movements.- Chapter 6: Law and Outcasts of Development.- Section III: Social Power and Democracy.- Chapter 7: Secularization of Caste and the Making of the New Middle-Class.- Chapter 8: The Dalit Question in Four Frames.- Chapter 12: The Great Language Debate: Politics of Metropolitan Versus Vernacular India.- lcC