Indian Politics: Haunted by Spectre of Post-democracy?
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0019556117726843 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
63(4) 631–648
© 2017 IIPA
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0019556117726843
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ipa
1 Associate Professor, Post Graduate Department of Political Science, R N College, Hajipur (Vaishali),
Bihar, India.
Corresponding author:
Ravindra Kumar Verma, Shiva Path, New Purendrapur, Patna, Bihar 800001, India.
E-mail: rkverma395@gmail.com
Indian Politics:
Haunted by Spectre
of Post-democracy?
Ravindra Kumar Verma1
Abstract
The dawn of 21st century has witnessed some new features of democratic politics
that seem to be shifting away from what we call democratic. The impact of
globalisation has created such a nexus among elites of politics–corporates–media
that has made political regimes to ignore the democratic norms and well-being
of common masses and overemphasise economic growth and corporate-friendly
policy priorities. Besides, the approach of the political actors (parties and politicians),
in the process of power-seeking, has shown unconventional trends. These features
do not resemble either dictatorship or totalitarianism; rather they depict trends
of aristocratic mode of decision-making by using democratic framework and
institutions. Such trends have been termed as ‘post-democracy’ by recent
Western scholarship.
Indian politics is not an exception. These trends have created an imbalance
between interest of social classes and corporative interests which has prompted
political regimes to take tough decisions, in despotic ways. Though the present
article does not posit that Indian democracy is on the brink, it attempts to underline
the post-democratic features visible in Indian politics through examination of
(a) party politics in terms of democratic framework, ideology, policy initiations
and reforms, electioneering, etc.; (b) politicians–corporates–media nexus; and
(c) modes and trends of politicians in communicating and relating with the
electorate.
Keywords
Democratic consolidation, post-democracy, party politics, corporations, media
632 Indian Journal of Public Administration 63(4)
Introduction
Post-globalisation period has witnessed changes in the functioning of democracy
in the entire world in general and in India in particular. Democratic politics has
been shifting gradually from substantial to symbolic democracy and encompass-
ing despotic trends in its garb, namely using democratic institutions and frames
and even go beyond ‘truth’, ‘facts’ and ‘norms’ in order to woo voters. Not only
this, they create events every now and then through eventful policy announce-
ments to make people hopeful of magical achievements which the journalists have
termed as ‘post-truth politics’, ‘post-fact politics and ‘eventocracy’.1 In India, the
electoral structures and systems have been manifesting such public opinion that
seems to have gone beyond what is called democratic. These trends in electoral
system push the voters into Faustian corner.2 In other words, voters become
destined to accept all odds. The politicians have been offering them the periodic
opportunity to challenge the establishment but limiting their choices by straitjack-
eting this challenge into conduits managed and controlled by establishment itself.
The nexus among politician–corporate–media elites has further been fortified for
acquisition/retention of power that goes beyond democratic norms but is done by
co-opting democratic institutions.
The major factor leading to the changes has been the growing (facilitation)
reole of corporate world in governing process. This is for two reasons—ensuring
prospects of fast economic growth in the country and accruing financial support
to the political actors. This has brought a striking paradigmatic shift in Indian
politics, surfaced in recent past, namely, preferring economic growth over welfare
measures, experts over institutions, oligarchic party framework over demo-
cratic framework, preference for aristocratic over democratic decision-making,
corporate-driven economic growth over social justice, electoral prospects over
values and ideology, personal life over issues in propaganda, high profile propa-
ganda over policy options, information technology over democratic processes,
dynasticism over lower-level party functionaries and so on. These paradigmatic
shifts in functioning of democracy need to be underlined and analysed in order
to understand the changed complexions of Indian politics. Indian politics seems
to have been haunted by spectres of post-democracy. As such the present article
is a modest attempt to trace the ‘post-democracy’ features in Indian politics.
The attempt is based on two basic questions—how democracy is turning into for-
malism from substantive? And why the delicate balance between democracy and
capitalism is becoming skewed such that capitalism seems to hogging primacy?
However, the issues raised in the present article are not quite new. Some
similar inferences have been drawn earlier by Atul Kohli (1991, 2006) and many
other contributors in the context of success of Indian democracy amidst odds
even in terms of development and inclusiveness. The challenges of governabil-
ity have also been traced out. These studies have also indicated the trends of
aristocratic decision-making by political regimes. The emerging queer character-
istics of Indian democracy have been marked by the studies of Centre for Study
of Developing Societies (CSDS 2015). Intention of political leaders for foreign
investment resulting into links with corporate world has been marked by Rudolph
and Rudolph (2008). Besides, a grassroots-level study by Geffrey Witsoe (2013)
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