Book Review: Jyotirmaya Tripathy and Sudarsan Padmanabhan (eds), The Democratic Predicament: Cultural Diversity in Europe and India
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023016634963 |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Jyotirmaya Tripathy and Sudarsan Padmanabhan (eds), The Democratic Predicament: Cultural Diversity in
Europe and India. New Delhi: Routledge. 2013. 346 pages. `895.
In a time when fundamentalist and conservative forces are on the rise and are highly aggressive in many
parts of the world, this book reopens the debate over the capacity of democracy to manage cultural, racial
and religious differences. One of the major achievements of the twentieth century, according to Amartya
Sen, has been the universal acceptance of the idea of democracy as the legitimate form of government.
However, in the early decades of the twenty-first century we have been witnessing various challenges
to this very ideal. This volume explores, as the editors put it, ‘whether diversity is an already existing
reality which needs to be protected by democracy, or is it democracy which brings diversity into exist-
ence and into mainstream political debates’, and adds that ‘an attempt has been made to problematize the
link between democracy and diversity, by proposing an idea of democracy as a producer of cultural
identity’ (p. xvi).
The editors argue clearly in their Introduction that although differences and diversities did exist
before, these acquire the political power only in a democratic polity. Taking on the theorists of cultural
and group rights, they argue that ‘(d)emocratic polity tries to convert negative attributes associated with
religion, language, ethnicity and race into positive cultural markers’ (p. 8). The book consists of two
parts. In part one of the volumes, entitled ‘Contestation’, the contributors have explored various contra-
dictions of existing theories and practices of democracy. Part two, entitled ‘Consensus’, is an attempt
‘to highlight the immense possibilities for pluralism within democracy’ (p. xviii).
One of the major strengths of this book is that while it engages with the theorizations of democracy
as put forth by communitarians, multiculturalists, their critiques and with post-colonialists and
post-structuralists as well, it is more concerned with the democratic practices in Europe and India, where
since 1980s and 1990s the increase of cultural and religious intolerance and ‘Islamophobia’ have become
a reference point in public political discourse. In the light of the study of such democratic politics
and processes, the contributors of this book argue how issues of identity and integration are being
‘articulated, negotiated and contested’ in a democratic polity.
How a secular, democratic and multicultural state deals with religious minorities by recognizing their
differences and how in turn such recognitions create a problem for the secular nature of the state is
eloquently explored in the context of Europe and particularly in France by Riva Kastoryano in Chapter 1.
Here, while exploring ‘the politics of recognition’ and issues of citizenship, she interrogates and success-
fully shows the limitations of institutional recognition of differences. Subrata K. Mitra, in Chapter 2,
analyzes the multiculturalism as being practiced in post-colonial Indian state, which in his view is a
mixing of salad bowl and melting pot accompanied by the process of hybridization. He considers the
practices of multiculturalism in India as a successful story, not just because of the secular and multi-
cultural nature of ‘nation-state’ in India and its legal structures, but also due to the existence of Hinduism
Studies in Indian Politics
4(1) 128–137
© 2016 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023016634963
http://inp.sagepub.com
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