Mr. P. Chidambaram, former Union Minister and MP Rajya Sabha visited St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata (SXUK) on November 25, 2023. He delivered a special lecture on ‘The Future of Democracy’ and released a book, ‘Development, Decentralisation and Democracy’, authored by Father John Felix Raj S.J., Vice-Chancellor of SXUK and Prof. Prabhat Kr Datta, an adjunct faculty. His lecture was highly appreciated by the audience.

Chidambaram in his address said, “The fundamental message that I wish to convey is that democracy has been, over the years, hollowed out in this country” and he explained that in detail.

Mr. Chidambaram was taken around the university and he spent some time in the Moot court of the Xavier Law School and the Law Library. He met with all the Jesuit Fathers of the university and joined them for a picture.

Significantly, the book is dedicated to the fond memories of an illustrious Jesuit Father Albert Huart who devoted his entire life to the great cause of value based education in Bengal in particular, and India in general. The book was released in the hall named after him. The authors bowed their heads down to pay their deepest respect to Fr. Huart.

Three dominant intertwined paradigms of social sciences, namely, development, decentralization and democracy weave the texture of the standalone chapters captured in three sections of the book running over 330 pages and bind them together.

While the first one refers to goal, the other two are regarded as instruments of achieving the goal – development of the people through their active participation. These concepts and their practices have metamorphosed in their content and underpinnings with the passage of time.

The book seeks to capture the changing nature and context and emerging conceptual dimensions in this regard and to examine and re-examine their validity in the light of realities in our country.

While the first section has 4 chapters, the second one has 5 and the last one has 2 chapters. The book begins with a chapter on redefining development in the historical context, and analyses the core and underpinnings of the concept of development to present before the readers a comprehensive and contemporary perspectives. Social values of development constitute the central thrust of the second chapter.

The third chapter attempts a critical appraisal of the economic reforms in India in which disinvestment figures prominently. As growing corruption is regarded as a threat to development, the authors have included a chapter on ethical governance for combating corruption.

There are 5 chapters in the second section which seek to describe and evaluate the experiences of the different models of decentralized governance in rural, urban and hilly regions. This section begins with an analysis of the role of civil society in the neo-liberal context of governance in India as it is regarded as an important contributor to the process of decentralization.

Decentralised governance and delivery of public services in the turbulent times is the central core of another chapter which analyses how Kerala could deal with the first phase of COVID-19 pandemic more successfully than other states with the help of the vibrant decentralised democratic structures at the grassroots and effective state-society relationship.

The last chapter in this section attempts a critical review of another innovative experiment of decentralised governance in one of the hill districts in India, Darjeeling in pursuance of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.

The third section of the book seeks to explore the dynamics of deliberative democracy in rural and urban India in the light of available empirical studies and highlights where the shoe pinches and what needs to be done to make deliberative democracy a more meaningful proposition in our country.

The book has been published by a reputed publisher in Kolkata. Mr. Aurobinda Das Gupta, Managing Director of the heritage publishing house of Kolkata readily agreed and did the needful.

Dr. Somak Sen
Assistant Professor
Dept of Mass Communication