"In the name of politics": sovereignty, democracy, and the multitude in India
- 2005
- p.3293-301.
- 23 Jul
The histories of sovereignty and democracy in India have taken a route different from the trajectory adopted by some western countries. In India, colonial sovereignty was often reduced to domination, yet `internal wars' waged on the basis of religious, caste or even linguistic divisions, continued. Post-colonial India remains thus, a social body perpetually traversed by relations of war. As this article argues, neither colonial rule, nationalism nor even democracy in India has seen the production of a sovereignty necessary for the construction of a `society' amenable to disciplinary power and its politics. Indian democracy thus furnishes an interesting case where the political task of creating the typically modern mix of `sovereignty' (rights) and disciplinary domination arises not before but after the coming of universal adult franchise and a democratic polity. - Reproduced.
India - Politics and government Politics and government