Professor Ashutosh Varshney at Democracy Dialogues on 15th October, 2023

 

Democracy Dialogues Lecture Series (Online )
Organised by New Socialist Initiative

25th Lecture

Theme: India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory

                           Speaker:  Professor Ashutosh Varshney ( Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University )

Date and Time:   15 October  2023  at 6PM (IST)

Join Zoom Meeting @

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86513111767?pwd=QVpiNFFjZ29EcXlOVkdGeEYvUlNFZz09

Meeting ID: 865 1311 1767

Passcode:  413295

It will also be live streamed at:

facebook.com/newsocialistinitiative.com 

Professor Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University, will be delivering the 25th Democracy Dialogues Lecture on 15th October, 2023, Sunday, at 6 PM India Time

He will be speaking on India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory

Speaker : Professor Ashutosh Varshney,
Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University

Time :Sunday, 15th October, 6 pm (IST)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87325505838...

Meeting ID: 873 2550 5838
Passcode: 198688

Also live streamed at: facebook.com/newsocialistinitiative.com

--------------------------------------------

Theme :

India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory

Summary

India celebrated 75 years of its independence last year with a lot of enthusiasm.

Celebrations did not hide the fact it is also one of the leading countries which is passing through what is popularly known as 'democratic backsliding'.

A country which, like many others, is using democratic processes to secure undemocratic outcomes, where freely contested elections are being deployed for the purpose of expressing, cultivating, or enhancing majoritarian prejudices—to target minorities and turn them into lesser citizens.

In this scenario, there is an urgent need to unpack this journey of democratic India further , there is a need to make a distinction between India as an electoral democracy and India as a liberal democracy.

Background Reading for the talk :

# India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory ( Attached with this mail)

#. How India's Ruling Party Erodes Democracy

Ashutosh Varshney

Journal of Democracy, Volume 33, Number 4, October 2022, pp. 104-118 (Article)

https://static1.squarespace.com/.../project_muse_866645.pdf

Speaker

Prof Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also directs the Center for Contemporary South Asia. Previously, he taught at Harvard (1989-98) and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2001-2008).

His books include Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy (2013), Collective Violence in Indonesia (2009), Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Yale 2002), India in the Era of Economic Reforms (1999), and Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India (Cambridge 1995)

(Democracy Dialogue lecture Video) The Erosion Of Liberal Democracy in India: An Analysis By Professor Pranab Bardhan

 

Prof Pranab Bardhan,  Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, delivred the 24th Democracy Dialogues Lecture on August 27, 2023.

Topic : The Erosion Of Liberal Democracy in India: An Analysis

A Brief Outline of the theme shared by Prof. Bardhan

I'll start with the global context of the turn of politics to right-wing extremism in much of the world.

One of the major factors behind this is the weakening of trade unions and of labour movements in general, which in earlier days used to act as a major force of resistance.

I shall then look into the weakening of labour movements in India and the pathetic failure of the Left political organizations. I shall analyze the deficiencies in their economic policies, mobilization strategies and governance failures even in areas where they used to be influential. Just blaming the semi-fascist Right is not good enough.

I shall end with a general discussion of how in prevailing Indian ideologies (including that of the Left) liberal democracy has often been under-valued.

 Background Reading for the Talk : 

 (a) For some global context on the turn to the Right, Prof Pranab Bardhan's book  A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries (Harvard University Press publication, with a cheaper Indian edition distributed by Harper Collins India)

(b) Prof Bardhan's article in New Left Review, July-August 2022, titled "The 'New India': a Political-Economic Diagnosis"

 Speaker :

Pranab Bardhan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

He was educated at Presidency College, Kolkata and Cambridge University, England. He had been at the faculty of MIT, Indian Statistical Institute and Delhi School of Economics before joining Berkeley. 

He has done theoretical and field studies research on rural institutions in poor countries, on political economy of development policies, and on international trade. 

He was Chief Editor of the Journal of Development Economics for 1985-2003. 

He is the author of 17 books and editor of 14 other books, and author of more than 150 journal articles including in leading Economics journals 

His latest book titled A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries was  published by Harvard University Press in late 2022.

His memoir titled Charaiveti: An Academic's Global Journey is being published by Harper Collins India in late 2023.

His memoir in Bengali (titled Smriti-kanduyan, 'Memory-Sratching') has been serialized in Kolkata's leading literary magazine, Desh, and the book came out in January 2014.

He has also contributed essays to popular outlets and some of these popular pieces have now been collected in his latest books, Globalization, Democracy and Corruption and Indian Polity and Economy:A Mirror to Difficult Times (Frontpage Publications). A collection of his Bengali essays has been published by Ananda Publishers in Kolkata in 2020.