This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Gilmartin, D. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

One day’s sultan

T.N. Seshan and Indian democracy

David Gilmartin is Professor of History at North Carolina State University, USA. Email: david_gilmartin{at}nscu.edu

T.N. Seshan’s tenure as Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) in the early 1990s transformed the role of the Election Commission of India in India’s electoral politics. This article examines Seshan’s reforms but concentrates in particular on the public controversies that Seshan’s tenure at the Election Commission engendered. Public debate about the role of the Election Commission brought to the surface underlying assumptions about the meaning of popular sovereignty in defining India’s democracy. It highlighted the tension between law and democracy in shaping democratic ideals in India and underscored a view of elections as legally marked by a cyclical notion of ‘electoral time’. The reforms of the Election Commission during the early 1990s, in fact, opened an unprecedented period of public debate in India on the nature of electoral democracy, which this article explores.

Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 2, 247-284 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/006996670904300203


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?