In this paper I intend to concentrate on post-independence India, and to explore why a free and lively society with a rich tradition of philosophical inquiry has not thrown up much original political theory. The paper falls into three parts. In the first part I outline some of the fascinating problems thrown up by post-independence India, and in the second I show that they remain poorly theorized. In the final part I explore some of the likely explanations of this neglect. (...) In order to avoid misunderstanding, four points of clarification are necessary. First, by Indian political theory I mean works on political theory written by Indian writers irrespective of whether they live in India or outside it, and exclude the works of non-Indian writers on India. Secondly, I am primarily concerned with Indian political theory rather than with Indian political theorists. Although political theory is generally practised by political theorists, it is not their monopoly. Sociologists, historians, economists, philosophers, jurists and others too ask theoretical questions about political life. I will therefore cast my net wider and look at the works of these writers as well. It is my contention that political theory is underdeveloped among not only Indian political theorists but also their cousins in allied disciplines. Thirdly, I define the term political theory in as culturally neutral a manner as possible. For a variety of reasons too complex to discuss here, political theory has a longer history and is more developed in the West than elsewhere. However it is not absent in most other civilizations. Minimally it is concerned to offer a coherent and systematic understanding of political life, and is three-dimensional. It is conceptual in the sense that it defines, analyses and distinguishes concepts, and develops a conceptual framework capable of comprehending political life. It is also explanatory in the sense that it seeks to make sense of political life, and to explain why it is constituted and conducted in a particular manner and how its different parts are related. Finally, it is normative in the sense that it either justifies the way a society is currently constituted, or criticizes and offers a well-considered alternative to it. Since political theory understood in these terms is to be found in most major traditions of thought including the Indian, albeit in different forms and degrees, our definition is not or only minimally open to the charge of ethnocentrism or universalizing its Western form. (shrink)

This article examines our moral obligations to refugees and stateless people. I argue that in order to understand our moral obligations to stateless people, both de jure refugees and de facto stateless people, we ought to reconceptualize the harm of statelessness as entailing both a legal/political harm and an ontological harm, a deprivation of certain fundamental human qualities. To do this, I draw on the work of Hannah Arendt and show that the ontological deprivation has three distinct though interconnected elements: (...) a reduction to the merely human or bare life, a separation from the common realm of humanity and abandonment, and the diminishment of agency or ability to act in the Arendtian sense. If we pull apart the legal/political harm of statelessness from the ontological harm, we are better able to see that we can address some of the features of the ontological deprivation even though we may not be able to rectify the political harm. I conclude this article by discussing some suggestions that follow from a recognition of the reality and harm of the ontological deprivation. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the role of conscience in the justification of human rights. I argue that in both the western tradition of natural rights and the non-western traditions, human rights are justified, in part, because of their appeal to conscience, and not simply because they issue from a divine source or are based on reason. In contrast, contemporary justifications of human rights primarily look for an objective foundation or simply assert the pragmatic importance of human rights as (...) their justification. While there are distinct advantages to this way of arguing, there are also problems, which I will discuss. As an alternative, I outline Arendt's understanding of conscience as the ability to be with and think with one's self as a secular alternative to both a non-secular version of conscience, and the denial of conscience implicit in contemporary theories. Her view of political judgment helps us to understand how conscience can be understood as subjective but not arbitrary. This paper brings Arendt's insights on conscience and judgment to bear on contemporary discourses of human rights. (shrink)

Iranian scholar Ramin Jahanbegloo interviews one of the leading political thinkers of our time, Bhikhu Parekh, and in the process, addresses issues ranging from cultural diversity, religion, and global ethics to identity politics, liberal democracy, Islam and Europe, Gandhi's role as a political thinker and social reformer, and the significance of multiculturalism and pluralism in the twenty-first century.

I argue in this paper that Hannah Arendt can make a valuable contribution to the debate over global justice and our obligations to the global poor. I maintain that Arendt's work helps us to see how we might be able to combine the best impulses of both partialists and impartialists, and find a middle ground between taking seriously the importance of community as a human good, and the pressing ethical demands of noncitizens. I demonstrate that throughout her corpus, we see (...) both impulses at work. Arendt's appreciation for communitarianism is evident in a number of features of her political philosophy: the undesirability of a world state, and the necessity of a political community to secure human rights, a public sphere, and freedom. By contrast, Arendt's cosmopolitanism is rooted in two features of her political phenomenology: that political action is about the world , a love of the world, and not particular people; and that human togetherness underlies action while human solidarity is its primary motivation. In addition to these two seemingly contradictory threads in Arendt's work there is a third element: Arendt's attempt to mediate between these two impulses through her concept of judgment. To judge means to start from your position within a community, and to take into consideration all other relevant perspectives, regardless of nationality. In this manner, we are able to take seriously what we owe to both our compatriots and people in dire need who are not fellow citizens. In short, in judging, though we begin from our partialist commitments, we must take on a larger cosmopolitan perspective, and ultimately mediate between the two perspectives. Consequently, I hope to show that Arendt can indeed make a contribution to the ongoing debate over our moral obligations to noncitizens in situations of dire necessity. (shrink)

This important and much acclaimed book rapidly became a classic on first publication. In it, Bhikhu Parekh shows that the Western tradition of political philosophy has very limited theoretical resources to cope with cultural diversity. He then discusses how it can be revised and what new conceptual tools are needed. The core of the book addresses the important theoretical questions raised by contemporary multicultural society, especially the nature and limits of intercultural equality and fairness, national identity, citizenship, and cross-cultural (...) political discourse. The new second edition includes a substantial additional chapter addressing key issues. (shrink)

18. Sublegislature and Local Headman -- 19. Fallacies -- 20. Declaration of Rights -- 21. Nature of Political Reasoning -- 22. Summary of Basic Principles -- APPENDICES -- A. Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number -- B. On James Mill -- C. On Locke -- D. Social Contract -- E. Perfection and Its Limits -- NOTES.

Drawing from extensive, eye-opening first-person accounts, No Refuge puts a spotlight on the millions of refugees worldwide who have to leave home but find nowhere to resettle. As political philosopher Serena Parekh argues, this is not just a problem for politicians. Citizens also have a moral duty to help resolve the global refugee crisis and to end the suffering and denial of human rights that refugee are forced to endure, often for years. While the media usually focus on the (...) challenges that Western states have with the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers and refugees, the real problem is that millions are stuck in inhumane conditions in refugee camps and urban centers, with little chance of finding a more permanent solution. Grounded in powerful testimony from refugees and meticulous research on the conditions in which so many suffer worldwide, No Refuge shows why, as states but also as citizens, we cannot afford to wait any longer to end this crisis. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical analysis of the ethical treatment of refugees and stateless people, a group of people who, though extremely important politically, have been greatly under theorized philosophically. The limited philosophical discussion of refugees by philosophers focuses narrowly on the question of whether or not we, as members of Western states, have moral obligations to admit refugees into our countries. This book reframes this debate and shows why it is important to think ethically about people who will never (...) be resettled and who live for prolonged periods outside of all political communities. Parekh shows why philosophers ought to be concerned with ethical norms that will help stateless people mitigate the harms of statelessness even while they remain formally excluded from states. (shrink)

Studie over de politieke ideeën van de Amerikaanse, uit Duitsland afkomstige filosofe (1906-1975).

_Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity_ explores the theme of human rights in the work of Hannah Arendt. Parekh argues that Arendt's contribution to this debate has been largely ignored because she does not speak in the same terms as contemporary theoreticians of human rights. Beginning by examining Arendt’s critique of human rights, and the concept of "a right to have rights" with which she contrasts the traditional understanding of human rights, Parekh goes on to analyze some (...) of the tensions and paradoxes within the modern conception of human rights that Arendt brings to light, arguing that Arendt’s perspective must be understood as phenomenological and grounded in a notion of intersubjectivity that she develops in her readings of Kant and Socrates. (shrink)

In his multicultural citizenship Will Kymlicka offers a liberal theory of minority rights. I argue that although his theory is ingenious, it is seriously defective. Since liberalism itself is a specific culture, a liberal theory of multiculturalism is logically incoherent. Kymlicka makes the further mistake of thinking that all cultured communities conceptualise and relate to culture in an identical manner. His discussion of the rights of immigrants rests on a flawed understanding of the nature of immigration, and is highly questionable.

Free speech is a great value and forms the life blood of a civilised society. It is however, one of several values and may sometimes come into conflict with them. In those cases it may need to be restricted. Hate speech is one such case and the author argues that it can and should be prohibited.

In this paper, I argue that there is a philosophical basis for the claim that states can be held responsible for structural injustices such as gender discrimination and violence—a claim that has been made in international human rights documents, but one that has not gained much normative force. To show this, I draw on and develop Iris Young's notion of “political responsibility.” The purpose of political responsibility is not to find fault or blame the state for a past wrong, but (...) to encourage the state to make things more just in the future. I argue that the state is able to take responsibility in this sense and can discharge the duty of political responsibility in a more systematic way than individuals can. Further, I show that taking political responsibility would entail changing how states think about their human rights obligations. Rather than focusing on cataloguing abuses, states would be required to work toward changing conditions so that human rights violations are less likely to occur in the future. Consequently, I show that it does make sense to say that the state can be held accountable for structural injustices that lead to women's human rights violations. (shrink)

As is the case with most pre‐modern philosophers of India, very little historical information is available about Bhartṛ‐hari. There are many interesting legends, some turned into extensive plays and poems, current about him. However, it is impossible to determine on their basis even whether there was only one philosopher called Bhartṛ‐hari. The appellation “philosopher” could unquestionably be applied to the author or authors of at least two Sanskrit works that are commonly ascribed to Bhartṛ‐hari.

This article is part of an author-meets-author symposium that focuses on my most recent book, No Refuge, and Gillian Brock’s new book, Justice for People on the Move. Both books focus on the ethica...

Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the last 60 years. Though many people initially believed that women could not be persecuted qua women, it is now frequently recognized that certain forms of gender-related persecution are sufficient to warrant asylum. Yet despite this conceptual progress, many states are still reluctant to consider certain forms of gender-related persecution to be sufficient to warrant asylum or refugee status. One reason for this continued bias is the (...) lack of a framework with which to understand gender-related persecution. I argue that we ought to understand gender-related persecution as resulting from the intersection of individual or state persecution and structural injustice. Structural injustice can be understood as the kind of everyday injustice, harm, and violence that women experience that makes possible the more extraordinary kinds of violence that women are likely to claim as the basis of asylum. Understanding gender-related persecution within the context of structural injustice will, I argue, help us to see it as a legitimate form of persecution and thus allow more just outcomes for women refugees. (shrink)

It is an obvious fact of history that human beings have always entertained and continue to entertain different conceptions of the good and lead very different lives both individually and collectively. This raises two questions. First, why do ways of life differ? And second, how should we respond to their differences? The first is an explanatory, and the second a normative question, and the two are closely related. The first question has been answered differently by different writers, of which I (...) shall mention three by way of illustration. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical analysis of the ethical treatment of refugees and stateless people, a group of people who, though extremely important politically, have been greatly under theorized philosophically. The limited philosophical discussion of refugees by philosophers focuses narrowly on the question of whether or not we, as members of Western states, have moral obligations to admit refugees into our countries. This book reframes this debate and shows why it is important to think ethically about people who will never (...) be resettled and who live for prolonged periods outside of all political communities. Parekh shows why philosophers ought to be concerned with ethical norms that will help stateless people mitigate the harms of statelessness even while they remain formally excluded from states. (shrink)

Mill, J. S. Bentham.--Whewell, W. Bentham.--Watson, J. Bentham.--Hart, H. L. A. Bentham.--Parekh, B. Bentham's justification of the principle of utility.--Peardon, T. Bentham's ideal republic.--Hart, H. L. A. Bentham on sovereignty.--Burns, J. H. Bentham's critique of political fallacies.--Mitchell, W. C. Bentham's felicific calculus.--Roberts, D. Jeremy Bentham and the Victorian administrative state.

This essay explores recent scholarship on Hannah Arendt's contribution to the field of global justice. I show that many of Arendt's ideas have been brought to bear fruitfully on some of the most pressing global issues of our day. I turn first to the area in which Arendt has, arguably, been most influential, namely human right. I then look at recent scholarship on Arendt and various issues in global justice, including immigration, statelessness, human security, global poverty, political reconciliation, and global (...) democracy. This essay offers a critical analysis of the ways that Arendt's work has been employed in discussions of global justice and highlights the contributions that she has made to this field of thought.© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (shrink)

Identity refers, among other things, to what distinguishes an individual and makes him or her this person rather than some other. It has two closely related dimensions: personal and social. Personal identity refers to the individual's fundamental beliefs and commitments in terms of which he orientates himself to the world and defines his place in it. Social identity refers to those relations with which the individual identifies and which he regards as an integral part of himself. Social identity is inherently (...) plural. How an individual balances and prioritizes different identities is a result of the dialectic between her self-understanding and social and political environment. (shrink)

Raimond Gaita’s idea that love is the foundation for human rights is both plausible and startling. This paper aims at arguing this point of view by defining the concept of human rights in a philosophical key. Following an investigation on the foundations of human rights in modernity we reach the conclusion that human rights can have no solid, universal foundation within the modern ethos. This doesn’t mean that human rights are illegitimate: it’s exactly the struggle for human rights, the struggle (...) against a conclusion which seems unacceptable what is the most important feature of our dignity. (shrink)

An attempt is made here to examine the analysis three political thinkers - Thomas Paine, William Godwin, and Jeremy Bentham have offered of the idea of equality. The inquiry underrtaken is philosophical and not historical in character, since no attempt is made either at tracing the influence ht the biographical-cum-intellectual level of one of them upon the other or at treating their ideas on equality as born out of their preoccupation with the same problem to which they give various answers (...) and which can therefore be considered within a single overall framework. Instead, each thinker is considered independently. And a study is undertaken of the way he understands equality, the way he justifies it, the sort of equality he considers most important and his reasons for this, the area of life he takes the idea of equality to illuminate, the manner in which he relates it to other ideas, etc.. In each case, a fairly coherent philosophy of equality is sought to be constructed out of their respective writings. These three thinkers are selected for two reasons. The idea of equality looms quite large in their thought; as such, it was felt that looking at their writings from the standpoint of equality may illuminate their certain features that may otherwise remain obscure or relatively underemphasized. Further, as they consider equality from different philosophical positions it was believed that a critical examination of their writings could, perhaps, point to the general merits and limitations of their respective positions in terms of equality. in chapter I, it is argued that there are distinct views of God discernible in Paine's writings, and that corresponding to them are three distinct views of equality, though only two of them are discussed by Paine at any length. in chapter II, it is argued that, though Godwin begins as a thoroughgoing rationalist, three are shifts in his general philosophical position, and that, with each shift, his ideas on truth, rationality and equality undergo important changes. Finally, in chapter III, it is argued that there are two distinct theories of equality in Bentham and that tension between them remains unresolved. (shrink)

The Morality of Politics addresses the issues of politics and morality. The book asks the questions, has politics got a moral basis? Has morality anything to do with politics? Comprised of a collection of unique essays, the book looks at the idea that politics shies away from the discussing the morality of actions and confronts evasion by clarifying some of the basic moral problems of political life. It is a unique collection in which academics holding different political and philosophical views (...) have come together to examine some of the burning and topical issues of contemporary society. The book will appear to all interested in the contemporary political environment and especially students of politics and moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

This introduction discusses some of the background assumptions and recent developments of the current refugee crisis. In this issue, the crisis is not viewed as a primarily European, Western or even Syrian, Afghan, or Iraqi crisis, but as a global crisis that raises complex ethical and political challenges for all humanity. The contributions to this thematic issue discuss a variety of questions relating to the rights and duties of different actors involved in the refugee crisis, and assess some of the (...) suggested responses to handling the crisis. (shrink)

This comprehensive Gandhi reader provides an essential new reference for scholars and students of his life and thought. It is the only text available that presents Gandhi's own writings, including excerpts from three of his books—An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, Hind Swaraj —a major pamphlet, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, and many journal articles and letters, along with a biographical sketch of his life in historical context and recent essays by highly (...) regarded scholars. (shrink)

Colonialism and Its Legacy brings together essays by leading scholars in both the fields of political theory and the history of political thought about European colonialism and its legacies, and postcolonial social and political theory. The essays explore the ways in which European colonial projects structured and shaped much of modern political theory, how concepts from political philosophy affected and were realized in colonial and imperial practice, and how we can understand the intellectual and social world left behind by a (...) half-millennium of European empires. (shrink)

In their perceptive critiques of my recent book on Multicultural Citizenship, Iris Young, Joseph Carens, Bhikhu Parekh and Rainer Forst raise a number of interesting and important issues. In this short response to their critiques, I focus on two of them. First, whereas I tried to draw a sharp distinction between immigrants and national minorities, my critics argue that we should think of ethnocultural groups on a more fluid continuum. Second, whereas I tried to ground a theory of minority (...) rights on specifically liberal principles, my critics argue that such an approach is unduly intolerant of non‐liberal ethnocultural groups. In response to these challenging questions, I try to both clarify and strengthen the positions I outlined in my book. (shrink)

This article is part of an ‘Author meets author' exchange that focuses on my recent book, Justice for People on the Move, and Serena Parekh’s forthcoming book, No Refuge. I describe some of the way...

Until recently, much of the philosophical literature on refugees has focused on what Serena Parekh (2020) in No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis, calls the “first refugee crisis,” i.e., the refugee crisis as experienced from Europe, understood as the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers and the political handling of this situation. This literature has therefore dealt primarily with questions about who really counts as a refugee and when states acquire obligations to admit non-citizens. Rarely, however, (...) do philosophers talk about the ethical implications of what Parekh calls “the second refugee crisis”: the crisis for refugees themselves, who “are unable to access the minimum conditions of human dignity while they wait for a more permanent solution.” In short, when philosophers debate the ethics of asylum and refugeehood, the conclusions or insights they come to will, at best, be applicable to about 10 percent of the world’s forcibly displaced. In this review essay, I briefly outline Serena Parekh’s (2020) argument, showing how her reframing of the refugee crisis provides a much-needed intervention in the current philosophical literature. I then extend these insights into questions concerning immigration enforcement. In doing so, I argue that in order to adequately deal with the second refugee crisis we must be more receptive to the open borders position than Parekh seems to allow. (shrink)

Bhikhu Parekh is an internationally renowned political theorist. His work on identity and multiculturalism is unquestionably thoughtful and nuanced, benefiting from a tremendous depth of knowledge of particular cases. Despite his work’s many virtues, however, the normative justification for Parekh’s recommendations is at times vague or ambiguous. In this essay, I argue that a close reading of his work, in particular his magnum opus Rethinking Multiculturalism and the selfproclaimed sequel A New Politics of Identity, reveals that his claims (...) frequently rely upon a Kantian account of moral dialogue and indeed moral personhood that he remains unwilling to claim. Recognizing this latent Kantianism is essential to a thorough assessment of Parekh’s work on identity, and his criticisms of other theorists. It is only because of his ambiguity that his multiculturalism is able to avoid the sort of charges that he levels against other responses to diversity, including those of such authors as Rawls, Habermas, Kymlicka, and Raz. (shrink)

In this article I investigate the extent to which Bhikhu Parekh believes that a person's cultural/religious background must be preserved and whether, by implication, religious schooling is justified by his theory. My discussion will explore—by inference and implication—whether Parekh's carefully crafted multiculturalism, enriched and illuminated by numerous practical insights, is socially tenable. I will also consider whether, by extension, it is justifiable, on his line of reasoning, to cultivate cultural and religious understandings among one's own children. Finally, I (...) will contend that Parekh, notwithstanding his cautious, even‐handed approach, commits several important errors, including conflating the culture of the parents with that of the children and insisting that cultural and religious persons ought to be allowed to defend their views in the public square on religious grounds. (shrink)

In its broadest sense, globalization refers to the economic, social, cultural, and political processes of integration that result from the expansion of transnational economic production, migration, communications, and technologies. This article outlines the ways in which predominantly Western feminist philosophers have articulated and addressed the challenges associated with its economic and political dimensions.