Specificity of India’s Democracy- Its Success and Decline

The talk will explore the unique success and subsequent decline of Indian democracy—unique when compared to experience of Western democracies. This trajectory emerges from a nation-building project, to be traced back to India’s nationalist/freedom movement and its two competing narratives: on the one hand, a pluralistic, inclusive polity and on the other, a Hindu majoritarian India. In 1950, India was the first country to experiment constitutionally with multicultural democracy (an attempt to reconcile individual and collective rights plus the creation of a federal asymmetry). It has now become the first country to kill that experiment, legally and constitutionally. For the past decade, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s populism, there has been a rapid decline in both electoral and liberal democracy. Given the worsening decline of democracies around the world, we need to ask question: what is the path towards a revival of democracy given that its erosion has come about through elected political leaders who, once in power, come to progressively dismantle its pillars slice by slice?

Date: Wednesday, May 20th, 2026

Location: Yates Memorial, Allsbrook Room | Doors Open at 11:30 AM

Address: 1000 Allsbrook Road, Parksville, V9P2A9

Cost: $30.00 each.  Click here to purchase tickets..

A light lunch and refreshments will be served at 11:30am followed by our speaker at 12:30PM. For special dietary or seating requests email vancouverisland@thecic.org.