Democracy and Ethnic Conflict in India: Precolonial Legacies in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

India is one of the few nations to become independent of European imperialism that has maintained a basically stable postimperial history of electoral politics. Historians in Europe and North America often explain the success of Indian electoral politics as a result of the long period-about 150 years-of British rule. Local elections began being held under the imperial government in the 1870s. Observers point as well to the fact that the leadership of the Indian National Congress contained many men such as Gandhi and Nehru who were trained in British or Anglo-Indian legal traditions and who were deeply attached to electoral processes. There are, however, reasons indigenous to the subcontinent for the survival of democratic government in India; in the long-term perspective of political culture, we can see that electoral processes have a firm rooting. This is not to suggest that electoral democracy in India is as thoroughly integrated into political processes as many critics would like. Elections to village government, for example, tend to be endlessly postponed by state governments, and major political parties also tend to postpone elections to party leadership. However, the attachment of ordinary Indians to their right to vote in general elections of state and national assemblies appears to be deep and profound. In an action admired throughout the world, voters