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Venkat, Vidya (2019) 'Despite Free and Fair Elections, Our Idea of the Republic Is at Risk.' Economic and Political Weekly, 54 (3).

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Abstract

On the occasion of India’s 70th Republic Day, it is worth considering how the very foundational idea of a republic, in which supreme power is held by the people, is at risk despite free and fair elections. To arrive at that argument, this article delineates the historical trajectory of India’s Right to Information movement as arising out of the need to address the unfinished agenda of democratisation since independence. It then discusses how the movement has strengthened oppositional politics by expanding the terrain for political participation and has also empowered individual citizens in their struggles to claim their entitlements from the state. By resisting scrutiny under the Right to Information Act and attempting to dilute the law’s empowering potential, political representatives and bureaucrats are subverting democracy itself.

Item Type: Journal Article
Keywords: democracy, right to information, bureaucracy
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > Department of Anthropology & Sociology
ISSN: 00129976
Date Deposited: 28 Jan 2019 09:47
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/30245
Funders: Other

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