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Social exclusion and inclusion remain issues of fundamental importance to democracy. Both exclusion and inclusion relate to the access to participation in the public realm, public goods and services for certain groups of people who are minorities, marginalized and deprived. Democratization has led to the inclusion of the previously excluded in the political process. While the problems of exclusion remain even in advanced Western countries in respect of the minorities of sorts, and the underprivileged, the problem of deep-rooted social and cultural exclusions is acute in post-colonial countries, including India. This book analyses social exclusions in India, which remain the most solid challenges to Indian democracy and development. Communal clashes, ethnic riots, political secessionist movements and extremist violence take place almost routinely, and are the outward manifestations of the entrenched culture of social exclusion in India. With its interdisciplinary approach, the book looks at the multidimensional problems of social exclusion and inclusion, providing a critical, comprehensive analysis of the problem and of potential solutions. The authors are experts in the fields of historical sociology, anthropology, political theory, social philosophy, economics and indigenous vernacular literature. Overall, the book offers an innovative theoretical perspective of the long-term issues facing contemporary Indian democracy.

\"This book analyzes how the paradox of the poor often voting against their material interests emerged in India\"-- Provided by publisher.

The ongoing existence of health disparities in marginalized communities in India can be attributed to social health determinants such as poverty, caste, gender, and limited access to education and healthcare. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, an iconic figure in Indian social reform and the driving force behind the Indian Constitution, acknowledged the significance of the social determinants of health influencing health outcomes. This paper explores Dr. Ambedkar’s vision of addressing health disparities, with a focus on his contributions to public health policy and the promotion of social justice. Additionally, it analyses the ongoing perpetuation of inequality through the examination of social determinants of health and explores how Ambedkar’s vision can provide guidance for present public health strategies. The analysis highlights the importance of strong primary healthcare systems, recognizing universal healthcare as an essential human right through the vision of Dr. Ambedkar. It also advocates for greater government funding and policy coordination to effectively tackle health disparities.

\"In Dalit Politics, Amit Ahuja uses the Dalit case to develop a powerful new theory of the often orthogonal relationship between social and political mobilization. He argues that when a marginalized ethnic group's social mobilization precedes its electoral mobilization, the marginalized group's ethnic party will perform poorly. This is because any political inclusion won by a marginalized group's movement weakens the ethnic bloc voting required by its ethnic political party to succeed. When Dalit social movements succeed, competition for their votes increases at the local level, which in turn lowers the importance of caste for differentiating among parties. In areas where marginal groups have a tradition of successfully social mobilization, they prefer material goods over symbolic goods--which serves to divvy up party preferences within the group. Yet when Dalit social mobilization is absent or weak, other parties do not compete for them. Without competition for marginalized voters, their voting blocs are preserved. Ironically, marginalized ethnic group parties are more likely to succeed. Ahuja also analyzes the human development outcomes and finds another irony: in the social sphere, caste solidarity improves public goods provision for the marginalized group, but in the electoral sphere, the effects are negative because such parties are weak political clients. Democratically elected officials are less accountable to them. Featuring a powerful research base and a highly original thesis, Mobilizing the Marginalized promises to change how we think about democracy in the developing world\"-- Provided by publisher.

A blend of historical and contemporary forces has shaped populism in India. The Congress government’s shortcomings (2004–2014), marked by dynastic politics and corruption, paved the way for the rise of populism, particularly under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which capitalized on anti‐elite sentiment. Narendra Modi’s leadership, characterized by Hindu nationalism and a development agenda, has significantly altered India’s political landscape. This study focuses on the rise of populism in Northeast India, specifically in Assam, where populist movements and leaders have increasingly influenced the socio‐political environment. It explores the socio‐economic conditions and identity politics that have driven the growth of populist ideologies, often leading to the marginalization of ethnic minorities. By analyzing key political events, movements, and policies, the research seeks to uncover the root causes of populism in Assam and its impact on democracy, social cohesion, and regional stability. Employing a qualitative methodology that includes political speeches, media analysis, and empirical evidence, the study examines how political leaders in Assam have mobilized regional and ethnic sentiments for electoral gains, further exacerbating ethnic marginalization. The article aims to understand the catalysts and consequences of populist governance in Assam, offering insights into the broader trend of populism in Northeast India and its future trajectory.

Universalism has driven many imaginations of the world. From civilizational discourse to cosmopolitan ethics, universalism as an idea and ideal have mobilized various political units, social activism, and religious movements. This article introduces a hitherto neglected expression of religious universalism in the fin-de-siècle—Indo-U.S. brotherhood. Unlike other colonial Indian and U.S.-American connections, this alliance was designed to be ephemeral and rooted in the transimperial moment of rising U.S. power, rather than in anti-imperialism. The article traces the emergence, dispersion, and afterlives of transimperial Indo-U.S. brotherhood to reveal the politics of universalism, which involved processes of marginalization and unfolded around the intersection of gender, race, and religion. The article reorients us to move beyond the important discussion of “multiple universals” and to place ephemerality and exclusion at the center of our historical investigation of how universalism has shaped diverse world-imagination and world-making.

This article examines the deterioration of water quality in the peri-urban areas of Sonbhadra district, which is an adjacent district to Varanasi, a major urban centre. The research employed a Political Ecology framework to explain the inequitable distribution of costs and burdens associated with industrial pollution, which is responsible for the degradation of water quality. The stated objective was achieved through a physiochemical analysis of groundwater samples gathered from different sites within the Myorpur block. A survey in 300 households across five distinct settlements in this block was conducted to measure the socio-economic implications of the contaminated drinking water. The physiochemical analysis of groundwater samples shows that most of the samples exceed the maximum permissible level for physiochemical elements suggested by WHO 2011 and BIS 2012 for drinking water. Furthermore, findings from the household surveys indicate that socio-economic status often influence access to safe drinking water, with socially and economically marginalized households facing more significant challenges in obtaining clean and safe drinking water. Moreover, these households are also less equipped to cope with the repercussions of consuming contaminated water. Hence, though water scarcity is a natural phenomenon, it is exacerbated by various socio-economic and political-administrative factors.

Background Health care services express social and structural inequalities, especially for Dalits and women, due to the indignity and discrimination experienced in health care facilities. Jagrutha Mahila Sanghatane (JMS), a grass-roots organization led by neo-literate Dalit women in rural Karnataka in India, adopted a human rights-based social accountability (SA) approach to address discrimination and dignity in accessing maternal health services. This approach integrated community-based evidence with multi-pronged and multi-level accountability processes with their goal of socio-political empowerment. Methods The methodological approach is qualitative and uses document analysis, including thematic and content analysis, in-depth group discussions with the campaign leaders, participant observation and interviews with the community health workers. Results JMS embedded the practice and processes of SA in the politics of empowerment which was central to addressing the structural issues of discrimination and social exclusion faced by Dalit women. The human rights perspective and the pathway of conscientize-organize-struggle provided by the Dalit liberation leader, Dr B. R. Ambedkar, facilitated the organization to conceptualize SA as a process of claiming dignity and justice for Dalit women. Integrating the evidence generation and its deployment into the community campaign cycles, Dalit women could use the accountability process for intensifying mobilization and empowerment. The cumulative impact of the community enquiry relentlessly pursued through the framework of a campaign brought changes in several aspects of primary health care and specific dimensions of maternal health care. Community ownership of the SA process, participation and empowerment were integral to the generation, synthesis and deploying of evidence. Deploying evidence in multiple forms, both horizontally with the communities and vertically with the authorities deepened communities' mobilization and intensified Dalit women's negotiating power with the authorities. The iterative and persistent process of SA provides insights into re-articulating SA beyond the usual recognition of outputs such as report cards into the politics of meaning-making by the mobilized community of the marginalized. The community-based organization posited the SA itself as the process of resistance to structural injustice and as an avenue or their empowerment. Conclusions For marginalized communities, the SA process has the potential to be a tool for their empowerment in addressing structural power inequities. For such a repositioning of SA, it is critical to focus not only on the technicality of generating evidence but also on the framework driving such a process, the mode of evidence generation and deployment, and integration into the organizational strategy. Such a process can be equally empowering, efficient in addressing the systemic challenges of increasing marginalized community's access to health care services, and valuable in sustaining those changes. The analysis of the strategies of JMS offers significant insights for researchers and practitioners working on SA and maternal health to re-articulate SA from the point of politics of empowerment of the marginalized communities.