Studies in Indian Politics

- Publisher:
- Sage Publications, Inc.
- Publication date:
- 2021-09-06
- ISBN:
- 2321-0230
Issue Number
- Nbr. 9-2, December 2021
- Nbr. 9-1, June 2021
- Nbr. 8-2, December 2020
- Nbr. 8-1, June 2020
- Nbr. 7-2, December 2019
- Nbr. 7-1, June 2019
- Nbr. 6-2, December 2018
- Nbr. 6-1, June 2018
- Nbr. 5-2, December 2017
- Nbr. 5-1, June 2017
- Nbr. 4-2, December 2016
- Nbr. 4-1, June 2016
- Nbr. 3-2, December 2015
- Nbr. 3-1, June 2015
- Nbr. 2-2, December 2014
- Nbr. 2-1, June 2014
- Nbr. 1-2, December 2013
- Nbr. 1-1, June 2013
Latest documents
- Book review: Paul Wallace (Ed.), India’s 2019 Elections: The Hindutva Wave and Indian Nationalism
Paul Wallace (Ed.), India’s 2019 Elections: The Hindutva Wave and Indian Nationalism (New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2020), 428 pp. ₹1,395 (Hardback). ISBN: 978-93-5388-244-0.
- Editorial
- Behind the Popular Narrative: Negotiating Life and Political Engagement in Conflicted Kashmir
The article focuses on the subaltern system of micro appropriations or Jugaads used by young Kashmiris to survive within precarious situations inflicted due to armed conflict. More particularly, it argues that such Jugaads are invoked by the subaltern consciousness of Tehreeq-e-Azadi, which offers space for not just the negotiation with the state but also the creative improvisation of daily political actions. It is illustrated that young people’s political participation is entangled with the attempts to overcome the uncertainty around their lives, thereby offering them pragmatic solutions in advancing their interests. It is further elaborated that the existing polarization between separatism and mainstream is obscure at the experiential level, living within precarious situations has taught young people to silently craft possibilities of a good life without looking confrontational to either side. The article argues that localized forms of engagement are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of how modern states operate.
- Book review: Elizabeth Chatterjee and Matthew McCartney, eds. Class and Conflict: Revisiting Pranab Bardhan’s Political Economy of India
Elizabeth Chatterjee and Matthew McCartney, eds. Class and Conflict: Revisiting Pranab Bardhan’s Political Economy of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2019. 299 pages. ₹1,395
- Of Caste and Indian Politics: A Detour Through D. L. Sheth and Beyond
Stemming essentially from D. L. Sheth and the work embodied in his 1999 essay ‘Secularisation of Caste and Making of New Middle Class’, the article attempts to outline the pathways for an alternative engagement with caste and politics. In perspective is what is termed the ‘triumphalist’ mode of encountering caste identities; and, along this course, the extant possibilities of the constructivist understanding of caste are addressed. The stakes of the exercise are largely theoretical and conceptual, although a further thought is thrown in about the contemporary ground of caste politics in India as well.
- Bypassing the Patronage Trap: Evidence from Delhi Assembly Election 2020
Scholars have long theorized on the limits of patronage politics and the possibility of counter-mobilization it produces against clientelist strategies. Analysing the recent win of the Aam Aadmi Party in the 2020 Assembly election in Delhi, this article shows that programmatic policies of welfare can help parties to circumvent this trap and avoid targeted patronage networks. We find that this broad-based appeal increases the social base of the party to even include those segments of voters who remain aloof to patronage-based exchanges. Additionally, we test the salience of majoritarian issues in the presence of universal welfare. We find that by locating themselves on issue positions of relative advantage, and reducing the ideological distance with their chief competitor, a policy-focussed party may capture not just ideology-agnostic, but also peripheral voters who might be opposed to the other challenger. Using a logistic regression model, we find that policy concerns catapulted AAP to victory, while its ideological distance from the BJP added to this. Our analysis has significance for understanding the underlying changes to patronage-based linkages, especially in the presence of heightened ethnic appeals that increasingly characterizes electoral contexts in the country.
- Did the Poona Pact Disenfranchise the ‘Depressed Classes’? An Analysis of the 1936–1937 and 1945–1946 Provincial Elections
This article contests the conventional view that the ‘Depressed Classes’ lost out on representation by agreeing to joint electorates in the Poona Pact. It analyses the results of the elections to the provincial legislatures in British India that took place in 1936–1937 and 1945–1946 under the Government of India Act, 1935, to concretely appraise the working of the Poona Pact. The article argues that reserved seats, primary elections and cumulative voting redeemed the ability of the Poona Pact to provide both descriptive and substantive representation for the ‘Depressed Classes’.
- Book review: Sanjib Baruah, In the Name of the Nation
Sanjib Baruah, In the Name of the Nation (New Delhi: Navayana Publishers, 2020), 278 pp. ₹599.
- Book review: Shirin M. Rai and Carole Spary. Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament
Shirin M. Rai and Carole Spary. Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2019. 398 pages. ₹995.
- The Double Life of Dissent: Art, Politics and the Predicaments of Democracy in India
The article focuses on two moments in India’s political history, in which out-rightly expressed dissent underlines analytical shifts in the nature and course of the country’s democracy. It asks two questions: First, what does a self-proclaimed, democratic state do with peaceful dissenting artists? The second question follows from this. If indeed the state stigmatizes and suppresses that dissent, what does the artist do? By foregrounding the relationship between the dissent and offence-taking, the article shows the increasingly complex changes in the nature of the democratic state, role of the art market therein, the dynamic patterns of dissent itself, which underline the cyclic outbursts of violence against artists.
Featured documents
- The Rise of the Second Dominant Party System in India: BJP’s New Social Coalition in 2019
The social coalition that supported the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 mirrored the demographic profile of the Hindu society. The party made substantial gains among the lower castes, the poor, rural voters, and less educated. How did BJP manage to attract these new voters? We argue that the...
- After Silent Revolution: Most Marginalized Dalits and Local Democracy in Uttar Pradesh, North India
There exists a widely held view that a ‘silent revolution’ is occurring in North India. However, a scanty literature deals with how this revolution has changed the distribution of political opportunities on the ground. Drawing on longitudinal and long-term ethnographic research conducted between...
- Studying Indian Politics with Large-scale Data: Indian Election Data 1961–Today
- What Do Preambles Do? A Study of Constitutional Intent and Reality
‘We, the people’ is the most popular phrase from the constitutions. In spite of the fact that the number of countries including preamble as part of their constitution has been on the rise, preambles have received scant attention in academia. The importance of preambles has been established in...
- Book Review: B.L. Shankar and Valerian Roderigues. The Indian Parliament: A Democracy at Work and Sudha Pai and Avinash Kumar (Eds). The Indian Parliament: A Critical Appraisal
B.L. Shankar and Valerian Roderigues. The Indian Parliament: A Democracy at Work. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2014. 428 pages. ₹550 [Paperback edition]. Sudha Pai and Avinash Kumar (Eds). The Indian Parliament: A Critical Appraisal. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. 2014. 353 pages. ₹775....
- ‘How Different Are Goa’s Politics?’
This article explores how Goa’s politics have evolved in conjunction with national politics. It finds that there has been an evolution from communal regional party government dominated by the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) to the supremacy of two national parties—the Indian National Congress (...
- Book Review: Paul Wallace (ed.), India’s 2014 Elections: A Modi-led BJP Sweep
Paul Wallace (ed.), India’s 2014 Elections: A Modi-led BJP Sweep. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. 2015. 451 pages. ₹1,250....
- Spurn Thy Neighbour: The Politics of Indigeneity in Manipur
This article examines the recurrent ‘politics of indigeneity’ in Manipur with the emerging notions of space and territoriality, and the increasing demand for ‘political space’ by marginal groups. The perpetual xenophobic anxiety and perceived threat of ‘homogenization’, which aroused the drive for ‘...
- Studying the Indian Legislature: What does Question Hour Reveal?
This article explores legislator behaviour during the Question Hour in the lower house of India’s parliament (the Lok Sabha) over a 30-year period (1980–2009). It establishes that there is considerable variation in the volume of legislator activity, with some Members of Parliament (MPs) remaining...
- Concentric Clientelism: A Case Study of Rural Saharanpur
In this article, we examine the role of intermediaries in sustaining political clientelism in rural Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Drawing from fieldwork and electoral data, we show that clientelism in Saharanpur is based around providing three specific guarantees to the voter—security from or by the...