Manjari Katju teaches political science at the University of Hyderabad. She is the author of Electoral Practice and the Election Commission of India: Politics, Institutions and Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
Simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies will violate the principle of collective responsibility and will crush the federal ethos on which Indian parliamentary democracy is based.
The idea of a nation state based on ethnicity could easily change into a predatory state that flourishes by calling for the extinction of the ‘other’. Such an exclusivist state could turn upon itself…
"In India, a birth-based model of citizenship is being cast off in favour of an ethnic and singular model. The civic all-encompassing idea of the nation and citizenship is giving way to a Hindu…
The structure of a democracy has elements that can enable the rise of a strong political executive. We are now witnessing many elected leaders across the world draw upon ‘people’s will’ &…
The Lok Sabha elections of 2019 are being held in a country that is very different from what it was in 2009 and 2014. What are political parties offering the new electorate? What will the outcome…