Vidoes
2024
Prof. Rahul Mukherji talks about the state of Indian democracy ahead of the 2024 election.
2021
KU Leuven RECONNECT Global Lecture: "India's Authoritarian Turn", by Prof. Rahul Mukherji
17 March 2021: In the 2nd lecture of our RECONNECT Global Webinar Series: "Democratic and Rule of Law Backsliding. Causes, Consequences and Prospects from around the World," Prof Mukherji takes stock of developments with regard to democratic backsliding in "the word's biggest democracy", India.
Rakesh Tikait, leader of farmers' protests, interviewed by Prof. Rahul Mukherji
Rakesh Tikait has now become the most important leader of the ongoing farmers' protests in India. He is interviewed by Prof. Rahul Mukherji of Heidelberg University, Germany.
Book Discussion On Capturing Institutional Change: The Case of the Right to Information Act in India
Capturing Institutional Change: The Case of the Right to Information Act in India (OUP: New Delhi, 2020), by Dr Himanshu Jha examines the what, why, and how of institutional change through the lens of transformation in the ‘information regime’ in India by tracing the passage of the Right to Information Act (RTIA), 2005. Using archival material, internal government documents, and interviews, Dr Jha demonstrates that the institutional change resulted from ‘ideas’ emerging gradually and incrementally, leading to a ‘tipping point’. The first book in the Institutions and Development in South Asia Series (OUP New Delhi), this volume studies the information regime in India from an alternative historical institutional perspective.
NGOs and Civil Society in India Lecture by Prof. Dr. Rahul Mukherji
India’s democratic institutions are singularly challenged on the eve of its seventy fifth birthday. The symptoms characterizing a layered transition towards authoritarianism are imminent. Layering occurs when a layer of new institutions carrying a new moral imperative sit atop an old and established morality. Such a movement towards curbing social action can push politics towards competitive authoritarianism. Today’s authoritarian takeovers are an evolutionary process. Gradually are the institutions of democracy such as the courts, the media, the Internet, and the regulators captured. The leadership tries to eliminate the independence of the civil service as well. Most of these regimes have a professed anti-elite orientation. They look down on the supposed sophisticated foreign influenced elites as ones who have not served the old and venerated culture. These characteristics of the authoritarian temptation that characterise regimes ranging from Orban’s Hungary to Kaczynski’s Poland, are beginning to characterise India’s widely acknowledged democratic institutions as well under Narendra Modi. This presentation will assess India’s competitive authoritarian propensities in recent times.
Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First Century India
How and when did India transform into a lucrative emerging market in the twenty-first-century? Brand New Nation delves into the long history of India’s capitalist transition into an enclosure of global investment flows. Far from being a counter-force against free-market globalization, the book argues, twenty-first-century Indian hyper-nationalism is deeply entwined with the promise of capitalist growth. India itself has become a business enterprise, one that desires to be the “factory of the world”: its lifeblood the dreamworlds of “India growth story” and the majoritarian quest of recovering a mythical Hindu golden past.
2020
Struggling to See: How the Politics of Sight Configures Social Welfare in Contemporary India
Starting in 2004, India enacted a series of laws that expanded a right to economic security and social opportunities for its most disempowered citizens. A striking feature of this new welfare regime was its emphasis on the nexus between corruption, transparency and accountability. On the one hand, many rights campaigners believed greater transparency would expose the failure of public institutions to grant basic entitlements due to corruption. Thus, social activists demanded a right to ‘see the state’, manifested in the Right to Information Act (RTI), 2005, and via the right to participate in local social audits in other many schemes. On the other hand, many public officials highlighted the need to reduce ‘leakages’ by corrupt middlemen and unintended beneficiaries. Hence the establishment of Aadhaar in 2009, providing unique biometric identity cards to target cash transfers and social entitlements to deserving recipients, allowing government to ‘see like a state’. Why is the politics of sight a crucial dimension of India’s new welfare architecture? How are the sources and mechanisms of corruption, transparency and accountability conceptualized, justified and operationalized by each side of this debate? And what have been the ramifications of these struggles to date? This paper addresses these questions by analyzing the assumptions, implementation and consequences of these two competing visions of social welfare in India.
Is India still a 'Patronage Democracy'?
India has been described in a recent publication as 'the quintessential patronage democracy in the post-colonial world'. Yet other scholars believe that India is 'post-clientelist, post-patronage'. The aim of this presentation is to examine the bases for these apparently conflicting claims in the light of recent research by both political scientists and anthropologists.
INAUGURAL SESSION: Final Global India Training Network Meeting
Changing Contours of India’s Democracy : Challenges and Pitfalls
Professor Rahul Mukherji on Authoritarianism and Democracy in Times of the Pandemic
Professor Rahul Mukherji delivered a talk entitled “Authoritarianism and Democracy in Times of the Pandemic” on 15 September 2020. This was part of a three days web-talk series, organized by the German Centre for Research and Innovation – DWIH New Delhi on ‘Social Impact of Covid-19, Indo German Perspectives’.
Professor Rahul Mukherji on India’s Economic Reforms
Professor Rahul Mukherji delivered a lecture entitled “Economic Reforms in India” on 15 September 2020. This talk was organized by SDS Public Policy, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.
Prof. Dr. Rahul Mukherji on India’s Political Crisis
Prof. Dr. Rahul Mukherji, head of the department of political science, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University and Mr. Prashant Bhushan, public interest lawyer in the Supreme Court of India, discussed India’s political crisis. In this substantive discussion, they reviewed the attack on institutions, the crisis in the opposition and strategies to save the constitutional idea of India.
Prof. Dr. Rahul Mukherji on The Idea of India
Prof. Rahul Mukherji's article on "Fallacies About Indian Democracy: Majoritarianism & Tradition" highlights the political crisis in India today. It stresses to revisit the idea of India. Will India become a Hindu nationalist state? Or, will it draw from an Indian tradition and work towards co-existence and mutual learnings from diverse religious and spiritual traditions. Read this article here.
2018
The Inaugural Lecture of Prof. Rahul Mukherji on Governing India: What do we know and need to know?
The Inaugural Lecture of Prof. Dr. Rahul Mukherji on 'Governing India: What do we know and need to know?'
Date: 15th November 2017
Venue: Alte Aula, Heidelberg University
2017
Governing India Workshop: Interviews
India presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.Video credit: Ayon Mukherji
Workshop Governing India: Ending Session (part 1)
OpisIndia presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
Workshop on Governing India: Day 2 Panel 4 Making the Government Work A View from the State
India presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
Workshop on Governing India: Day 2 Panel 3 Making Government Work Dealing with Corruption 2 (part 2)
OpisIndia presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
Workshop on Governing India: Day 2 Panel 3 Making Government Work Dealing with Corruption (part 1)
India presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
Workshop on Governing India: Day 2 Panel 2 Making Government Work – Rights Based Approach (part 2)
India presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
Workshop on Governing India: Day 2 Panel 2 Making Government Work – Rights Based Approach (part 1)
India presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
Workshop on Governing India: Day 1 Opening session
India presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
Workshop on Governing India: Ending Session (part 2)
India presents a laboratory for comparisons where narratives of successful and failed governance can reveal the conditions under which citizen centered governance is likely to occur. This workshop invites policy-makers, public intellectuals, technocrats and scholars who have engaged with governance in India to reflect and discuss on how India executes its governance. The workshop provides a ringside view of interactions between the political executive, technocracy (bureaucracy) and civil society groups that engenders possibilities for citizen well-being in India.
2016
Prof. Rahul Mukherji on Is India a Developmental State?
India has been known to be a state that never changes. Since the 1980s, and especially after the 1990s, however, India’s growth trajectory has begun to evolve and change from its static status quo. RAHUL MUKHERJI has investigated the reasons for this change, as he explains in this video. For this, he looked at historical processes and compared processes that have achieved successful change to processes that have failed to achieve change. He found that India performs despite its slow developments in policies because they gradually achieve a consensus among political and social actors. Once this critical mass of ideas has been reached, changes in policies occur, for instance in the area of welfare policies, such as the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
