Pratik Masulkar

The Wrong March Pratik Masulkar

"At the eve of "Independence" the masses were largely rural and uneducated, unacquainted with the liberal ideas that had to be a basis for a democratic mindset. Suddenly on an orthodox society a democratic system, which was as liberal and open as in any other European nation, was imposed. India apparently became a democracy at the stroke of midnight! Is that even possible?"With his acute and intriguing observations, Pratik Masulkar presents, in a highly gripping and exciting manner, an intellectual treatise on how the Indian democracy fails to fulfill the basic guarantees of the main principles of democracy. There are some innate traits in Indian society like- contempt towards individualism, glorification of obedience to authority, strong community values, hierarchical family structures, that makes democracy- a Western import, highly imperfect and inefficient for us. In this exciting page turner, the author explains how under a superstructure of parliamentary democracy we are still a society with a firm & well entrenched base of traditional Indian values that often run against values of fully matured democracies. In the context of our society, which has not extricated itself from the old traditional bonds, democracy seems like a blanket imposition and not an organic development. Additionally, external factors like party politics, ideological enmities, and capitalism, mixed with a strong base of Indian community values adds to the further castration of democratic ideals. The existing dispensation is proving to be inefficient because the most critical problems that India faces- economic inequality, class disparity, caste divisions, resource distribution, and technological shifts, cannot be mitigated within the existing system. In fact, the system is gradually becoming a guardian of the status-quo, thereby stifling any scope of real progress on these fronts. The Wrong March is a must read for those who seek to understand the deeper socioeconomic nuances of Indian democracy, or anyone interested in the study of Indian Society and Politics.