Majoritarian Democracy Reassessed

Shuja Shakir

doi:10.32351/rca.v5.145

Authors

Shuja Shakir Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4145-9868

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32351/rca.v5.145

Política de Crossmark DOI: https://doi.org/10.32351/politica-crossmark

Keywords:

majoritarian democracy, ethnicity, community cohesion, religious unity

Abstract

This paper attempts to show that while fear of democracy turning into a ‘majoritarian’ system is rational, it is not always realistic because of the inherent inconsistencies in the idea of ‘community cohesion’. Traditional notion of community, constituted by oneness of race, religion, culture or caste, has been seriously contested by upsurge of ‘salad bowl’ multicultural societies comprising assortment of races, cultures and religions. Even as the trajectories of modern democracies appear to foreground the ethnicisation of its politics, it does not amount to a full-fledged ethnicisation of the communities at large. A thoroughly united community, if there is one, looks real only in the realm of imagination.

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Author Biography

Shuja Shakir, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University

Is Ph.D in Political Science from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. He has been teaching political science since last 30 years and has several research articles to his credit, mostly dealing with the issue of social exclusion. With the focus of his interests on the lives of people living on the fringes of society – Dalit, Muslim, women and the tribal – Dr. Shakir’s forthcoming book, Social Dimensions of Agrarian Distress in Maharashtra, to be published by Francis and Taylor, offers a poignant evidence of how social exclusion of marginal peasantry helps their deprivation come full circle. Dr. Shakir loves to combine his academic interests with his social commitments. He runs an NGO in Aurangabad to support the cause of the downtrodden and deprived groups. He is also a member of the Board of Studies in the University and currently heads the Department of Political Science.

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