Rural/Urban Responses

India’s democracy is acknowledged and cel- ebrated, at home and abroad, especially because very few Asian, African and Latin American societies have been able to maintain liberal democratic institutions and practices. The admiration is often laced with a sense of amazement as India still lacks almost all the ingredients that are supposed to make democracy a success. For these analysts, India seems to be ‘an ideal case for testing democratic theories’ (Weiner, 1983: 51) for ‘democracy in India is a phenomenon that, by most accounts, should not have existed, flourished or indeed, long endured’ (Mehta, 2003: 2).