India's Democratic Exceptionalism Exploring the unique survivability of democracy in India despite all odds

India's Democratic Exceptionalism Exploring the unique survivability of democracy in India despite all odds

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  India's Democratic Exceptionalism Exploringthe unique survivability of democracy in India despite all odds Firstly, India, as an exception, experiences democracy for its unique survivability despites all odds except Emergency (1975-77) for nineteenth months India had maintained its democratic institution since 1947. India stll practicing democracy is, and of itself, a unique and theoretical counter intuitive Indias experience of democracy can be characterised are given below 1. India often follows a procedure, not a substantive democracy 2. Lesser of the Deepening of democracy and more of presence of democracy 3. Class cleavages, class coalitions, class conflicts, and India’s dispersed and cross-cutting ethnic identities have collectively contributed to the long-term survival of Indian democracy. Or Class divisions, class alliances, class conflicts, and India’s mixed and cross-cutting ethnic identities have helped Indian democracy survive for such a long time. Centrally focused ethnic structure/identities: Nationwide resonance, as a consequence, conflicts tend to escalate throughout Conflict that has centrally focus – conflict spills all over the nation Example: a. Ethnic violence / civil war in Sri Lanka (Sinhala -Tamil Conflict) b. Malay–Chinese conflict in Malaysia c. East-West Pakistan conflict in pre-1971 Pakistan Sri Lanka is a classic case of Cumulative Cleavages; the Tamils are not only religiously different from the Sinhalese, but also linguistically and racially distinct from the Sinhalese Dispersed and Cross-cutting identities (identities in a dispersed system / ethnic structure) These identity are spread out locally in different parts of a country, Identities tend to be locally based, and many such identities exist, All identities based on cleavages are regionally or locally concentrated (confined to local area) Conflicts stay local so they don’t spread to the whole country Example: a. Most major languages have a geographical homeland, so linguistic conflicts are thus typically confined to a particular area b. Sikh hindu religious cleavage is confined to Punjab and to some other parts of North India c. The Hindu-Muslim cleavages rarely affects the south in a violent way, d. The insurgency in Kashmir remained confined to the Kashmir valley and did not spill over to include all Muslims
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  e. Sons ofthe soil movements in Assam, Mumbai, and Telangana remained region- based or city-based. f. Even the caste system is local or regional in character Cross-cutting identities : cross-cutting identities means people belong to many different social groups at the same time, and these groups overlap in ways that reduce conflict. Multiple identities like- religion, language, region, job, social class, tribe, political party, etc. these identities mix across society. In the case of India, India’s four principal identities- language, religion, caste, and tribe- tend to cut across one another. Depending on the location, The first language of Muslim could be Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Asameese, or Malayalam depending on the location as I said. In this system, the dispersed and Cross-cutting identities we can see a. Violence dies before long, and democracy returns to normalcy b. A dispersed and cross-cutting identity structure may generate many more conflicts, but the intensity of conflict rarely reaches a level constituting an existential threat to the entire nation. As a consequence, India could not easily become a Yugoslavia 4. India’s long history continuous history of pluralism, accommodation, and social diversity is a major reason for the survivability and uniqueness of its democracy. 5. Political leadership: According to Ashutosh Varshney, India's democracy endured because its early leaders and founding fathers, particularly Nehru, had a strong commitment to democratic principles. Despite the challenges, they opted for elections, free speech, and federalism. Strong institutions like the Election Commission and independent judiciary were also established by these leaders. Their democratic outlook laid a foundation that was difficult for succeeding leaders to erase. 6. Economic factor: Ashutosh Varshney says that India's democracy has survived because the country has never had a really bad economic crisis that could have broken it. India's economy was stable because it was growing slowly but steadily and had a mix of businesses. Government welfare programs also helped people who were very poor and stopped people from getting very angry. All of these economic factors worked together to keep democracy safe for a long time. 7. Ashutosh Varshney says that India's long fight for freedom made a strong democratic culture before the country became independent. The Congress-led movement taught people how to peacefully organise, debate, protest, and negotiate. This large number of
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  people taught millionshow to act in a democratic way Democracy had strong social roots even before 1947, which helped it stay alive after independence.