From Hindu Rashtra to Hindu Raj? A de facto or a de jure ethnic democracy?

Christophe Jaffrelot (1)

1 CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS)

India was long considered a fine example of liberal parliamentary democracy among countries of the South. In addition to a strong legislature and judiciary, as well as a vibrant free press, political pluralism was nourished by federalism and cultural diversity, both linguistic and religious. It is the erosion – even the obliteration – of the country’s religious diversity that this chapter describes. This evolution calls into question India’s secularism, a system for managing relations between state and religion that differs from what is known as laïcité in France, for instance. While in France the state is supposed to have no connection with religion, in India, the republic’s institutions acknowledge that religion has a perfectly legitimate place in the public sphere. What secularism and laïcité have in common, however, is the rejection of the dominance of any one religion in that sphere.

Keywords: India; politics; ethnic democracy; vigilantism

Domains: Political science

Christophe Jaffrelot. From Hindu Rashtra to Hindu Raj? A de facto or a de jure ethnic democracy?. Sten Widmalm (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia, Routledge, pp.127-138, 2022, 9781000486605. ⟨10.4324/9781003042211-13⟩. ⟨hal-03885414⟩