Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
invites you to a CSDS Dialogue on Democracy
Populism against Democracy or People against Democracy?
Lecture by Christophe Jaffrelot
Hilal Ahmed will Chair
Tuesday, 2 February 2021, 5 pm
The lecture was held on Zoom
Link: http://bit.ly/3olZT0Z
Meeting ID: 957 5197 1413
Passcode: csdsdelhi
CSDS Dialogue on Democracy: ‘Democracy’ gets defined almost on daily basis by various actors and at multiple levels. The advent of new technologies, phenomenal expansion of mass media, especially digital media, proliferation of non-party political formations, influence of transnational forces on the working of national/local governments, restructuration of economic, educational and other public spaces, environmental transformations and emerging risk scenario etc., are not only transforming the political landscape but also the ecosystem of democracy. Together, these transformations pose new questions and demand greater conceptual and practical clarity.
In this lecture series, we invite the theorists of democracy-academics, public intellectuals, journalists and researchers as well as the practitioners of democracy-activists, parliamentarians and policy makers to an open-ended dialogue on emerging challenges and prospects of democracy in our times.
Populism relates paradoxically to democracy from two points of view. First, populist leaders claim that they represent the people’s interest against the elite’s vested interest and are all in favour of more democracy. Second, populism often develops within democracies as it requires a public arena for mobilizing masses – usually by playing on emotions such as fear (of the other) and anger (vis-à-vis the country’s rulers). But once in power, populist leaders turn authoriatarian and most of the time pervert democracy. The authoritarian trend is even stronger in the case of national populism, an ideology that transforms minorities into second class citizens and reflects to some extent the crisis of liberal, representative democracy.
Christophe Jaffrelot is Director of research at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King’s India Institute (London), Non-Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and President of the French Political Science Association. His last book, with Pratinav Anil, is India’s First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-77 (Hurst, 2020).
Hilal Ahmed is Associate Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.