India’s Democracy: Strength and Weaknesses

Speaker: Prof. Ashutosh Varshney, Director, Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, Professor of Political Science, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, USA

Chair:  Ms Yamini Aiyar, President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research
 

The talk is based on two recent papers by Prof. Varshney where he argues that since 1947 India has done better as an electoral democracy, and less well as a liberal democracy. The recent assessment of international agencies about India’s democratic decline should be viewed as claims about the latter, not the former. India’s electoral democracy remains vibrant, buts liberal democracy has weakened. Prof. Varshney will define the two concepts of democracy, electoral and liberal