DIVERSITY, DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT

India’s historical and social origins of democracy differ sharply from the West. With its unique political culture, especially that which prevailed in post-independence era, paving the way for a type of democracy that vastly differs from those propounded by Western theorists and practiced in other Western countries.

How democracy works for India is ample proof that it is indeed difficult to compare or match it with canonical cases forwarded by Western thinkers as proof or examples of democracy. It is important to emphasize here what is unique to Indian democracy – a democracy with multiple layers of nationality constituting both a pan-Indian nationalism and assertive regional nationalism within the same citizenry. The present volume on Diversity, Democracy and Development aims to highlight such salient features of Indian democracy.

The volume contains contributions from renowned scholars of India and the West and will be useful for both students and teachers and scholars of sociology, political science and history. It is a compilation of articles on contemporary issues broadly related to different countries, including those of Asia, Europe and South America. Thus, the present volume will indeed serve as a valuable source of knowledge for aspiring scholars who would like to gain both a historical perspective about the origin and evolution of democracy in Asia and Europe and the current geopolitics, especially with nation-state boundaries becoming more fluid in this age of Internet-driven instant communication technology and social networking.

B.K. Nagla was professor of sociology at M.D. University, Rohtak. He has worked and published in the areas of Political Sociology, Sociology of Professions, Sociology of Deviance and Crime and Studies on Underprivileged. He was also professor on Babu Jagjivan Chair at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. At present, he is Managing Editor of Bhartiya Samajshastra Sameeksha, the journal of Indian Sociological Society.