Aishwary Kumar on Neo‑Democracy, Cruelty, and the Fate of the Vulnerable

In this episode of Democracy in Question, host Shalini Randeria speaks with Aishwary Kumar, Professor of History of Political Thought and Institutions at Cal Polyoma California, and director of its Democracy Institute, about his concept of “neo-democracy,” a mutation of liberal democracy defined by the return and acceptance of extreme inequality, the moralization of punishment, and organized cruelty carried out through law rather than outside it. Kumar links neo-democracy to neoliberalism and argues that majoritarian indifference enables legislative abandonment of vulnerable groups, the paramilitarization of violence, and a “jurisprudence of neglect” in which increasingly partisan courts recognize harm yet refuse redress, widening the gap between legality and justice. Tracing democracy’s global genealogy through anti-colonial struggles, he identifies the refugee as the key subject of this condition and calls for “moral institutionalism,” urging critical engagement with institutions rather than abandoning them.

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