ABSTRACT
Scholars of politics often ask some form of the following question: “Is (some religion) compatible with democracy?” The question is most commonly asked or implied with respect to Islam: “Is Islam compatible with democracy?” (Esposito and Voll 1996; Fukuyama 2001; Huntington 2011). If we believe that such questions are asked and answered largely on the basis of political experience—for example, the patchy and troubled history of democracy in many countries of the Middle East—then the case of India might seem to suggest that Hinduism (the overwhelming majority religion of India at about 80% of the population) is highly compatible with democracy. India—virtually alone in the developing world—has been a stable, institutionalized democracy since independence in 1947, with only one interruption of emergency rule for 18 months between 1975 and 1977. In South Asia, only Sri Lanka shares this distinction with India.
