India's Democracy: The Continued Evolution of a Unique Model

Raviprasad Narayanan

《Tamkang Journal of International Affairs》 18卷3期 (2015/01) Pp. 59-98

https://doi.org/10.6185/TJIA.V.18.N3.P59P98

並列摘要

India was in the limelight in May-June 2014 for conducting general elections comprising the world's largest electorate of around 814 million voters. India's parliamentary system of government owes its origins to the British parliamentary model. There are significant departures though and Indian democracy reveals all the attributes of a unique work in progress with innate societal characteristics peculiar to India lending the system resilience not to be ignored. Democracy as an idea and construct does have its haloed origin in the West but has shown its adaptability and accommodation of different regions and cultural milieus with India being the most vivid illustration. A Western transplant to an essentially Eastern culture, democracy has shown a lively template in India not matched by many other examples. India has been a model to many other countries - especially those who went through long stretches of colonial rule - by the sheer vitality displayed by the institutional structures comprising its polity. This article argues that in an academic world largely hostage to political theories from an Occidental perspective, it is lamentable that the term 'democracy' and its performance and constitutive capabilities ignore the Indian experience generally and it only during parliamentary elections in India as was the case in May-June 2014 that the global media and informed commentators pay tributes to the Indian case. This article argues in four sections that Indian democracy while undoubtedly of Western origin has evolved into a trajectory reflecting a unique 'Indian-ness' thereby deviating from the almost linear trajectories of established Western democracies. What are the variables comprising this uniqueness? Aspects of the Indian constitution, the central principle of secularism in governance and instances of institutional mechanisms lending strength to the Indian democratic edifice like the Election Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General are made in this article to explain the mechanics that deepen Indian democracy that make for a lived reality.

並列關鍵字

India's Democracy ； India's Parliamentary System of Government ； Constitution of India ； Secularism ； Narendra Modi

參考文獻

Khilnani, Sunil(1999).The Idea of India.New York:Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

Harish Khare, “A new era begins,” The Hindu (Chennai), Special Supplement, 15 August 1997, p. 11

Shivprasad Swaminathan, “India's benign constitutional revolution,” The Hindu (Chennai) 26 January 2013. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/indias-benign-constitutional-revolution/article4345212.ece (Accessed January 3, 2014).

Raghavan, Vikram(2014).India's Constitutional Historian - Granville Austin (1927-2014).Economic and Political Weekly.18(37),41.

Khan, Yasmin(2007).The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan.New Haven, CT:Yale University Press.