Political representation in India: Enlarging the perspective
Résumé
Democratic theory has recently been marked by a renewed inter-est in political representation that is manifest in, and proceedsfrom, a series of theoretical works that radically open up theconcept of representation. This introductory article briefly presentssome of the key theoretical propositions that are brought forwardby this body of literature, but also by anthropological works onSouth Asia, namely (i) the intrinsic plurality of the meanings andforms of political representation; (ii) the centrality and pervasive-ness of representation processes in political life; and (iii) theconstructivist dimension of political representation. As I introducethe four papers in this Special Issue, which collectively demonstratethe heuristic value of an engagement with such debates to under-stand contemporary Indian politics, I insist that what is at stake isnot so much a“crisis”of political representation as a series ofevents and evolutions that question received knowledge aboutpolitical representation in India