Democracy

There is no escape for concerned citizens and civil society groups from getting involved in politics without being politicians. They have to use all available means to change and continuously monitor the functioning of the political system. These means include using the judicial system through public interest litigation, the media for information dissemination and statutory organs such as the Election Commission and the Law Commission which have both proposed major initiatives for reforming the electoral system.

Building Democracy in South Asia: India, Nepal, Pakistan by Maya Chadda; Vistaar, New Delhi, 2000; 

Does social capital make democracy work? Democracy is by definition empowering. A logical corollary is that development should be decentralised and with social capital, democracy and development could be packaged as a model for replication. Ground reality is more complex, as the fieldwork on which this paper is based shows. It also suggests that social capital cannot be understood outside of its particular cultural, ideological and institutional contexts or indeed independently of the nature of social segmentedness, whether along caste, class or any other lines.

Social capital is in a way fundamentally about 'connectedness' or engagements - especially those that contribute in building trust among people, increase the predictability of their behaviour and promote collective action. The author seeks to explore the associations and interactions that give rise to such engagements - by locating his search in a small village in Orissa's Puri district. Here collective memory and its role in conflict resolution in the village is crucial in creating or destroying trust. Memory, among other things, holds the key for the continuation of social connectedness or engagements.