Is the Future of Indian Democracy Secure?
With an electorate bigger than the total population of Europe and United States of America, India’s democratic journey has no parallel. Organising fairly credible elections of phenomenal scale stretching for more than seven decades in a large country with widespread poverty and mass illiteracy has baffled theorists of democracy. Except for the national emergency in 1975-77, wherein democracy was suspended for 18 months, India has admirably maintained its democratic journey. However, developments in recent years - particularly rising tides of attacks on minorities, growing majoritarianism, sharpening polarisation, culture of intolerance, attacks on independent institutions among others - have considerably impacted the quality of democracy in the country.
The recent decisions of the National Democratic Alliance government led by Narendra Modi to unilaterally end the special constitutional status of the only Muslim-majority state Jammu and Kashmir and passage of controversial citizenship law that discriminates Muslims, leading to country wide protests, have made political observers worry about future of world’s largest democracy. With the main political opposition in completely disarray and media and civil society under vicious attacks, India’s democracy is gradually choking. Can this alarming trend of decline (very well captured by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index) be stemmed?
This seminar is presented by visiting speaker Dr Niranjan Sahoo (Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, Delhi), followed by commentary from Associate Professor Tom Daly (Melbourne School of Government).
Presenters:
Associate Professor Tom Daly
Tom is Deputy Director of the University of Melbourne School of Government, where he spearheads the School's 'Renewing Democracy' research stream, and Director of the global online research platform Democratic Decay & Renewal (DEMDEC). His research focuses primarily on the health of liberal democracy worldwide, and current policy work includes involvement as an expert in the Australian Senate Inquiry into nationhood, national identity and democracy, and membership of the International Coalition for Democratic Renewal.
Dr Niranjan Sahoo
Dr Niranjan Sahoo is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, a leading think tank in New Delhi. With years of expertise in governance and public policy, Dr Sahoo now leads studies and programmes on democracy, electoral reforms, insurgencies and governance among other.A recipient of Ford Asia Fellowship (2009) and a former Sir Ratan Tata Fellow (2010), Dr Sahoo currently serves a member for the Carnegie Rising Democracies Network, Washington, D.C.
Professor Farrah Ahmed
Farrah’s research spans public law, legal theory and family law. Her recent work on constitutional statutes, religious freedom, the doctrine of legitimate expectations, the duty to give reasons, social rights adjudication and religious tribunals has been published in the Cambridge Law Journal, the Modern Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Public Law, and Child and Family Law Quarterly. Her book Religious Freedom under the Personal Law System was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. Farrah is currently a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery grant studying religious dispute resolution processes, and is working on projects on public interest standing, secularism, constitutional conventions, constitutional principles and arbitrariness in public law.
Farrah has taught legal theory, legal methods, constitutional law and administrative law. She has offered electives on human rights, legal responses to multiculturalism and religion, and legal practice in Asia. Farrah is a founding editor of the Indian Law Review and the Admin Law Blog. She also serves as Associate Director (India) of the Asian Law Centre, Melbourne Law School.