Citizen Initiatives and Democratic Engagement

Experiences from India

Sumona DasGupta

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English

Routledge India
21 January 2016

Regional studies; Social groups; Sociology; Politics & government

This book looks at a series of citizen-led campaigns to provide information about and energise the institutions of local self-governance in India following the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts. Staggering in their outreach and magnitude, the campaigns, popularly known as PEVACs (Pre-election Voters’ Awareness Campaigns), reached out to huge swathes of the population, particularly in rural India, through a unique network that incorporated civil-society organisations across the country, the media and the State Election Commission itself. The book journeys through the heat and dust of these extraordinary campaigns, drawing from a repertoire of field reports and interviews to reflect on the significance of this ‘experiment’ on deepening democracy in India. In particular, it analyses the methodology of the campaigns and posits that this itself became an extraordinary exercise in democratic practice, indicating the shape that deliberation and dialogic practices could actually take on the field. As the campaigns moved from district to district, through their street plays, posters, pamphlets, jagrut yatras, candidate–voter dialogues, rehearsals of voting procedures, setting up of information booths, and participatory workshops for newly elected representatives, a new dialogical experiment was born and shaped. By examining these campaigns, this book emphasises the idea that governance is not just the business of central (federal) governments but also of citizens outside the formal institutions of governance, without whose active participation democracy cannot be deepened.

By: Sumona DasGupta
Imprint: Routledge India
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 138mm, Spine: 11mm
Weight: 249g
ISBN: 9781138664951
ISBN 10: 1138664952
Pages: 206
Publication Date: 21 January 2016
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface. Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Vignettes from the Field 3. The 73rd Amendment Act: New Alignments, New Animosities 4. The Pre-election Voters’ Awareness Campaigns: An Analysis 5. PEVACs and the State Election Commission: Building Common Ground 6. Beyond Elections: Sustaining the Democratic Impulse 7. Deepening Democracy: An Overview 8. Conclusions and Reflections for the Future. Bibliography. About the Author. Index

Sumona DasGupta is a political scientist working as an independent researcher and consultant.