Crisis of Liberal Deliberation: Facets of Indian Democracy

The precarity of democratic order in contemporary times needs no underlining. Crisis of Liberal Deliberation addresses this issue from a novel perspective. Through what magic, queries this volume, the Indian democratic state is even surviving as a political formation. For how long will democratic order remain durable despite its myriad loopholes, glaring fault-lines, and thousand histories of disappointment? Curiously, as more democratic states come under the sway of violence, the demand for democracy has become more intense among people. Unveiling this apparent paradox from their respective fields of specialization, the contributors of this volume analyse a vast range of facets of contemporary Indian democracy. The result is a glasnost of ideas, views and debates relating to the urgency of this deliberation. Forging these threads in the Introduction, Manas Ray engages with the theoretical underpinnings of the crisis of democratic deliberation. A large spread of topics follows, clubbed under several rubrics including historical legacy, disturbing trends, economic development since liberalization, biopolitcal dimensions such as demography and processes of living and finally, the contesting visions of democracy in the regions.