Parvez Alam

The coronavirus has changed the social fabric of many societies. It came with so many consequences in the life of people which cannot be described without taking into account the loss of life; trauma and psychological distress people are going through in their everyday life. The initial days of uncertainty and unpredictability in the unruly behaviour of virus created the doomsday kind of situation for people and authorities, which has been mitigated gradually with the introduction of vaccines and booster doses and regimen of other combination of medicines. Yet people are into rumour spreading through social media platforms and there are doubters who are yet to believe the presence of coronavirus. This paper is an attempt to explain and understand the impact of coronavirus on Indian social life. One of the ways of studying Indian society is to bring in the phenomenological and political anthropology as a methodological tool to unravel the intricacies, social cleavages and the fault lines prevailing in the everyday life of people. By applying these methodological tools one can also understand the complexity it brings into social, political and economic life of an individual and community.

This paper aims to understand the complexity of majoritarianism and how it converts into populism. It argues that majoritarianism cannot survive without the fodder called 'minorities'. Further, it is argued that because of the authoritative tendency of majoritarianism, many from the same majority communities hold opposing views on policies and action of their community. Majoritarianism suppresses internal criticism and critics are treated as traitors, the tag used for minorities. Populist majoritarianism is an ideology which believes that the original claimant on the politics and society should be those who form majority in the population-religiously, ethnically, or linguistically. This paper also aims to understand, theoretically, populist majoritarianism in India and Pakistan. The Indian case is highlighted many a times empirically through Hindu-Muslim conflict. In this paper Pakistan is dealt empirically as a special case study of majority and minority conflict.

The religious minorities of India and Pakistan are on almost equal footing in terms of development and "otherisation" but Pakistan's case is more precarious and disturbing because otherisation of minorities is happening from State to individual level. The increasing inequality of income and wealth can sharpen the class antagonism and partisanship in the society. The democratization of any society also depends on the treatment of individual and accommodation of the minorities in mainstream. The patronization of one religion by the State also becomes problematic and somehow alienates and marginalizes the other religious minorities. The Islamisation of Pakistan in 1970s and out casting and framing of communities as non-Muslims has had detrimental impact on trajectory of progress and development. The Secularization and inter-faith interaction is the need of the hour to bring social change in Pakistan. Tolerance and individual liberty should be inculcated and promoted into the educational and political institutions. This paper tries to understand the situation of religious minorities in Pakistan.

India is losing the great tradition of 'spirit of inquiry and dissent' which we cherished in the past as the progressive history of cultural tolerance and harmony. In today's India, the political parties in power and opposition are eyeing human individuals as potential voters and trying to woo them by spreading untruths and rumors. Indian society by and large needs introspection and learn from an icon of 20th century who shown us the path of wisdom, non-violence and peace. Gandhi cherished the heterodoxy and learned from the great tradition of dissent.

India is a mosaic of great cultures. Not now. The culture which we inherited from our founding fathers and martyrs who wanted to preserve the greatness would be ashamed to see India today. India today which is digital, India which is nuclear  and India one of the fastest growing economies of the world is now also the land of cynical, hysterical and emotional people. In today’s India citizenship is redefined based on emotions for cows. Gaurakshaks (Cow protectionists) are now new citizens. In hierarchy of citizenship, they are on the top. They are beyond the limits of constitution. They are limitless. No laws are applicable on them. They are new police. Sometimes it’s their responsibility to police the Police also. Police is now spectator and governments are theatre troupes and gaurakshaks are directors. They are directing the new India. Disciplining and punishing is now their prerogative.

Politics is all about business and economics. Business conglomerates are running the world and not the elected governments. The recent Oxfam report 2015 says that “1% of the world’s population will own more wealth than the other 99% in 2016.”[1] This is grave issue of inequality where democracy prevails in more than 80% of the globe. Democracy stands for building egalitarian society, that’s what common masses believed and accepted as the political system. But it seems that ideals of democracy is muffled and twisted for the ruling class. Mind it. Ruling classes are not at all those who are at the helm of affairs in political affairs of the country. It is them, those who are prevailing in economic affairs of the country.

Sometimes the state identity conceptualized by the dominant representation within state becomes contradictory to what is there on the ground. This is one of the problematic of this kind of identity formation that the state identity perceived by the external players seems more appropriate. But it is assumed that by and large every state tries to maximize its gains in international system by portraying its soft image to capture more friendly states and space.

The editors of Research Ethics and Social
Movements, Kevin Gillian and Jenny Pickerill,
begin the book by focusing on the conundrum of
the ‘theory and practice’ debate around researchers
involved in social movements/social studies
as ‘activist-scholars’.

This paper on Participatory Democracy and
Decentralization: Localizing the Governance observed that
the entire process of decentralization planning depends on
the kind of quality of deliberation and participation and
suggested that for well being of the society as well as
individual, the solution lies in deliberation and participation
in grass root democracy. How is one going to do depend
on the people’s choice and not on the whimsical
understandings of the bosses or administrative officers. It
should be peoples call.