Entering the Twenty-First Century: Changes in National Politics and Discourse

Abstract

The politics of the two decades during 1989–2009, although highly tumultuous, have produced profound systemic changes. The principles and practices around which the competitive, representational politics evolved for over half a century and got organized in the form of a party system, which regularly and fairly smoothly processed electoral outcomes into government formation, were severely disrupted by the end of the 1980s. At another level, accompanied by changes in the nature of the political competition, the very idea of ‘representation’ changed, at least in political practices, making communities the basic units for organizing politics and framing social and developmental policies. In the process, it transformed our established understanding of secularism, more particularly, the relationship between secularism and democracy.

National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) affiliated to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. For a larger, full-fledged argument, see D.L. Sheth: “Political Communalization of Religions and the Crisis of Secularism” in Surinder S. Jodhka, Gurpreet Mahajan (eds) Religion, Community and Development: Changing Contours of Politics and Policyin India (Routledge India 2010).