Socio-Political Movements and Grassroot Democracy in Contemporary India

The socio-political movements have been very instrumental in directing grassroots democracy in India through increasing the involvement of the citizens beyond the electoral politics. This paper looks at the works and contributions of Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan and Anna Hazare to see how the movements bolstered democratic practices at the grassroots level in post-independence and modern India. A democratic socialism and decentralisation conceived by Lohia underlined local self-government and mass participation as the pillars of democracy. The importance of the need to empower villages and local institutions emphasized in his advocacy of a four-pillar state as a way to be substantially engaged in democracy. The call of Total Revolution by Jayaprakash Narayan turned the mass movement to a grassroots democracy by organising students, youth and the civil society against corruption and authoritarianism in the 1970s. His movement saw that popular participation and moral politics were able to transform democratic institutions. The anti-corruption movement of Anna Hazare escalated the idea of grassroots democracy in the modern era by preempting the civic vigilance, transparency and accountability by using non-violent collective action. Through a comparative analysis of these three leaders, this paper argues that socio-political movements have always been the initiators of the grassroots democracy in India. Although the contexts and strategies may be different, their visions all emphasize the importance of the involvement of people in the maintenance of democratic governance.