The Majoritarian Myth: How Unscientific Social Theories Create Disharmony

The Majoritarian Myth: How Unscientific Social Theories Create Disharmony

“In a world thirsty for clarity and practicality, this book couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Beyond the sheer brilliance of its ideas and insights, I applaud Professor Gangopadhyay for his unwavering courage in penning this remarkable book.” — Dr Anand Ranaganathan , Author and Scientist “Kausik investigates the term using well established intellectual frameworks on social tolerance.” — Sanjeev Sanyal , Economist & Writer “A terrific took. The concept is not just promising, but vital to truth.” — Raghavan Jagannathan , Editorial Director, Swarajya This book analyses why majoritarianism is a deeply flawed idea. In a road accident involving a big vehicle and a small vehicle, should the blame automatically assign to the larger vehicle, or to the vehicle that contravened traffic rules? The believer in majoritarianism effectively says that the bigger vehicle is always to blame no matter what! The sane view would be to find the vehicle that broke the traffic rules, and call out its guilt for the accident. The book has simply taken that sane path, scientifically and engagingly, to demonstrate that it is flawed to blame the majority for any social intolerance. For a scientific discussion around majoritarianism, we have shed the notion of symmetry of all cultures, following the ideas of economist Ronald Coase and philosopher Karl Popper. We have defined the notion of Linear Theory of Social Evolution (LTSE) which actually creates a moral impetus for intolerance in people’s minds. If a community, irrespective of its being the majority or a minority, has an LTSE, it becomes the source of social intolerance. We have formulated two hypotheses—the typical Majoritarian hypothesis and our LTSE hypothesis—to explain the source of social intolerance. We test the suitability of these hypotheses based on the idea of economist Friedrich Hayek. The test conclusively demonstrates the superiority of our LTSE hypothesis over the majoritarian hypothesis. The solution to social intolerance may lie in the Indic understanding of the pursuit of satya and ahimsa, as understood in the Mahabharata, rather than any theory. We have demonstrated how the liberal troika of Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity, violates the principles of satya and ahimsa, to the detriment of sustainable social harmony.