Nagas as a 'Society against Voting?': Consensus-Building, Party-less Politics and a Culturalist Critique of Elections in Northeast India

Interrogating the normative notion of 'man the voter', this article draws on ethnography among the Chakhesang Naga in Northeast India to communicate a cosmopolitan, culturalist critique – and an answer to this critique – of liberal democracy's hallmark of party-based elections, indivi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cambridge anthropology 2018-09, Vol.36 (2), p.113-132
Main Author: Wouters, Jelle J. P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Communitarianism
Consensus (Social sciences)
Democracy
Ethical aspects
General Article
India
Liberalism
Nagas (South Asian people)
Political activity
Political aspects
Social aspects
Voting
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Summary:Interrogating the normative notion of 'man the voter', this article draws on ethnography among the Chakhesang Naga in Northeast India to communicate a cosmopolitan, culturalist critique – and an answer to this critique – of liberal democracy's hallmark of party-based elections, individual autonomy and equal voting rights. While Nagas have been decorated as 'traditional democrats', their sense of the good political life is shaped by values of communal harmony, consensus-building and complimentary coexistence. However, these are threatened by practices and principles of liberal democracy, which led Phugwumi villagers to attempt a procedural adaptation of elections by substituting individual voting for consensus-building and the selection of a leader. I use this ethnographic case to provincialize the sprawling contemporary sense of 'liberal universalism', and to postulate that, in their political sociality, Nagas are a 'society against voting', an adaptation of Pierre Clastres' (1977) Society against the State.
ISSN:0305-7674
2047-7716
DOI:10.3167/cja.2018.360210