This article explores the complicated relationship between Hinduism and Democracy. It argues that modern Hinduism proved receptive to democratic ideals because democracy provided one plausible solution to the riddle of authority that beset Hinduism in the course of attempts to reform it. The article describes the ways in which Hindu nationalism poses a threat to democracy, and the resources Hindus can draw upon to resist this threat.
About the Author
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is president of the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and a member of the global faculty of the New York University School of Law. He has taught at Harvard and Jawaharlal Nehru universities, and is author of The Burden of Democracy (2003).
Once again, a reformist electoral victory has been followed by political setbacks. The key to understanding this paradoxical pattern lies in the unique theocratic constitutional structure of the Islamic Republic.
The secularization hypothesis has failed, and failed spectacularly. We must find a new paradigm to help us understand the complexities of the relationship between religion and democracy.