Democratic process in a developing society

For the first time in its history western democratic theory has been confronted by a non-western democratic experience which has not only questioned some of its underlying assumptions, but has also cast doubts on the efficacy of some of its conceptual tools. Such a challenge has come from the Indian democratic experiment of the second half of this century. Like most other social and political theories, the theories about democracy are deeply grounded in the political history and tradition of the countries of the West, and with the exception of a few scholars working in the field of comparative government and political development, such a challenge to their universal validity has largely gone unnoticed.

This study makes an attempt to identify the complexities of democratic process in a traditional society such as the Indian. In particular, it examines the nature of constraints on such a process arising from the deeply rooted hierarchy in her social organisa tion, wide economic disparities which give disproportionate political advantage to a few, and the traditional attitude to authority which delays the realisation of responsiveness and accountability of the elected deputies.

The author, with painstaking research spread over a decade, has succeeded in identifying the actual complexities which accompany the growth of political capacity in developing societies. These have been often overlooked by most scholarly works on development. He has also examined these complexities against the background of the main currents of theoretical knowledge and has made valuable suggestions towards the re-examination of the ethnocentric biases in theoretical literature on development,