Book Review: Sharachchandra Lele and Ajit Menon (eds), Democratizing Forest Governance in India
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Author | Kamal Nayan Choubey |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023016634964 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
a possible alternative to international normative theory, where the debate is between the communitarianism
and cosmopolitanism. He has convincingly argued that how nationalism was imperative in post-colonial
imaginations of cosmopolitanism through the writings of James Joyce and Rabindranath Tagore.
Most of the contributors have sufficiently engaged with the communitarian and multiculturalists’
theorizations of cultural and religious diversity and its entanglements with group rights versus indi-
vidual rights and has shown their limitations in managing diversities within a democratic polity. In other
words, they argue that group rights’ theorists have empowered the groups to articulate their identity in a
new way and behave like interest/corporate groups in a democratic set-up, which challenges the very
objective of democracy.
Another major strength of the book is that it also reflects upon many other dimensions of democracy,
that is, its philosophical basis, contemporary relevance and historical expansions. For example, Chapter 7
by Neera Chandhoke is a philosophical exploration about the viability of dialogue in a democratic and
pluralistic society which has multiple conceptions of good. She has also analyzed the Gandhian notion
of dialogue while comparing it with Locke’s notion of toleration. Then, within a normative framework,
she suggests how differences can be sorted out through dialogues and deliberative processes. Some
deeper engagement with these other dimensions of democracy would have certainly increased the scope
of the book. At times it appears that authors of this anthology, barring one or two, are making merely
passing remarks on the theorizations of democracy across the ideological spectrum, that is, from extreme
left to right to post-structuralists to post-colonialists, without sufficiently engaging with many of them.
However, this book is certainly a major contribution in the study of theory and practices of democratic
and multicultural politics and will be extremely useful for those interested in the society and politics of
India and Europe; and also for those who are interested in the future of democracy as an ideal form
of government.
Mithilesh Kumar Jha
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences IIT Guwahatii
E-mail:...
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