Ashis Nandy Quotes
India’s democracy has dissolved into … a system totally dominated by electoral victories and defeats. The moment you enter office, you begin to think of the next election.
That is not terribly different from other democracies including the United States.
Ashis Nandy, Indian sociologist, political psychologist, and contemporary cultural and political critic, Quoted in Foreign Affairs, May / June 2012
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In Dolgoff’s era, his argument was that the political parties were so powerful that it was they who controlled who held public office, not the voters. And the parties were controlled by a few party leaders. However, when the system was reformed in the latter part of the 20th century, the individual incumbent member of Congress in America was so hard to dislodge due to the role of money and the advantage of incumbency, that the class of professional politicians was still very powerful. Reform had reduced the control of political parties but not politicians.
Also used in his Message to Congress, May 25, 1967
“Rotation” was the word for “term limits.” The Constitution was amended to limit the President to 2 terms, but there is not yet a limit on senators. What is interesting is that Jefferson did not include members of the House of Representatives in his call for term limits. Yet today, they are the ones who are the most entrenched.
Ashis Nandy (Bengali: আশিস নন্দী; born 1937) is an Indian political psychologist, social theorist, and critic. A trained clinical psychologist, Nandy has provided theoretical critiques of European colonialism, development, modernity, secularism, Hindutva, science, technology, nuclearism, cosmopolitanism, and utopia. He has also offered alternative conceptions relating to cosmopolitanism and critical traditionalism. In addition to the above, Nandy has offered an original historical profile of India's commercial cinema as well as critiques of state and violence.
