Human Rights, Democracy and Governance

4

Democracy

There is a strange paradox about democracy; it is a contested yet normative term. Differences over the definition of democracy continue to exist, but increasingly, less and less people consider democracy per se undesirable. The controversy over the relative merits of what were called ‘the people’s democracy’ and ‘the bourgeois democracy’ in the latter half of the twentieth century, too, has settled in favour of the latter in large parts of the world. And yet, the dilemma persists: what exactly is the form and content of desirable democracy? That question is pertinent not just in other countries of Southasia but also in, supposedly, the largest democracy of the world—India.

The Question of Democracy

It does not need a genius to figure ...