Who bears responsibility when social tension erupts — the majority by virtue of its size, or the group whose ideas fuel intolerance? Kausik Gangopadhyay starts with a deceptively simple analogy: in a road accident between vehicles of unequal size, guilt belongs to whichever driver broke the rules, not to the larger vehicle. Applying that same logic to contemporary debates about social harmony, he makes a precise, evidence-backed case that blaming the majority for intolerance is not just unfair — it is scientifically indefensible.
The book builds two competing hypotheses — the standard Majoritarian Hypothesis and Gangopadhyay's own Linear Theory of Social Evolution (LTSE) — and subjects both to a Hayekian test of analytical fitness. The LTSE locates the source of intolerance not in demographic weight but in a community's ideological orientation: any group, majority or minority, that holds a linear view of social progress acquires a moral licence to suppress those it deems backward. Drawing on Ronald Coase's economics and Karl Popper's philosophy of science, the author dismantles the symmetry-of-cultures assumption that underlies much liberal discourse.
The final chapters turn to an older framework: the Mahabharata's understanding of satya and ahimsa as correctives to the coercive logic embedded in Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity programmes. Readers willing to follow an argument wherever it leads — even past comfortable assumptions — will find this book worth the effort.
"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.
.webp)
-(1)_compressed-(1)_page-0001.jpg)
.webp)
