Democracy Dialogues Lecture Series (Online )
Organised by New Socialist Initiative
22th Lecture
Topic: Democracy’s Structural Slippages and the Indian Experiment
Speaker: Professor Harbans Mukhia
Date and Time: 15 January 2023 at 6 PM (IST).
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Professor Harbans Mukhia, Professor (
Retd.) of Medieval History at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU ; an
eminent authority on Medieval India ;
author and editor of many books will be delivering the 22nd Democracy Dialogues
lecture on Sunday, 15th January 2023 at 6 PM (IST). The focus of his lecture
will be Democracy’s Structural Slippages and the Indian Experiment
Topic: Democracy’s Structural Slippages and the
Indian Experiment
Conceptualised as the devolution of
sovereign power from monarchy or oligarchy to the common people, the devolution
was institutionalised through periodic elections with universal adult franchise
that would make governments accountable to the electorate, the people. Perfect
imaginary for the implementation of the concept, for equality was its basic
premise with the individual at its heart. It thus subsumed earlier experiments
in equality which had masses of people as the premise.
However, the imaginary contains
several slippages. First, its progress itself through halting stages created
massive inequalities in the exercise of power. Second, most important, at its
final, universal stage, its equivalence with the electoral process leaves huge
spaces for almost universal ‘minority rule’ legitimized through elections and
therefore unequal distribution of power. At any rate, the difference between
majority and minority is merely mechanical and therefore open to debate.
In India, on one hand, the Constitution introduced the most modern version of democracy through universal adult franchise and multi-party elections; on the other, it was operationalised through the mobilisation of essentially pre-modern identities of caste, community, region etc. which is now at the prime of the exercise of political power – demolishing the very legitimacy of the concept.
Can one imagine a more effectively
egalitarian ideology?
The Speaker
Harbans Mukhia, 83, formerly
Professor of Medieval History and Rector, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi. In early years, his interest focused on medieval Indian historiography,
leading to Doctoral thesis, later published, Historians and Historiography
during the Reign of Akbar , Vikas, New Delhi, 1976.
Teaching a course on Feudalism at JNU
in the 70s and 80s led to research on its theoretical and empirical premises in
a comparative perspective. ‘Was there Feudalism in Indian History?’ originally
Presidential Address, Medieval Section, Indian History Congress, 1979, also
published in The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1981, became the centre of an
international debate from 1985 to 93, published as the journal’s special issue
and then as a book, Feudalism and Non-European Societies , Frank Cass, London,
1985 (co-edited with T J Byres). It was once again revised, edited by him and
published as The Feudalism Debate , Manohar,New Delhi, in 2000.
Founder Editor- The Medieval History
Journal , published by SAGE from New Delhi, London, Los Angeles, Washington DC,
and Singapore.
Other Major Publications:
French Studies in History , Orient
Longman, New Delhi ( in two volumes) 1988-90 Co-edited with Maurice Aymard
Perspectives on Medieval History Vikas, New Delhi, 1993
Religion, Religiosity and Communalism
, co-edited with Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik , Manohar, New Delhi. 1993
The Mughals of India, Blackwell
Publishers, Oxford, in 2004
Exploring India’s Medieval Centuries:
Essays in History, Society, Culture and Technology , Aakar Books, New Delhi,
2010
History of Technology, vol.
II,Medieval India, INSA, New Delhi 2012
Understanding India: Indology and
Beyond ,co-edited with Jaroslav Vacek, Prague, 2012
