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To make democracy work, Jayaprakash Narayan suggests, to undo tyranny, it is only necessary for India to return truly to itself. The Ramraj that Gandhi offered is no longer simply Independence, India without the British; it is people's government, the reestablishment of the ancient Indian village republic, a turning away from the secretariats of Delhi and the state capitals. But this is saying nothing; this is to leave India where it is. What looks like a political programme is only clamour and religious excitation. People's government and the idea of the ancient village republic (which may be a fanciful idea, a nationalist myth surviving from the days of the Independence struggle) are not the same thing. Old India has its special cruelties; not all the people are people.
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V.S. Naipaul (India: A Wounded Civilization)