Book Review: Tariq Thachil, Elite Parties, Poor Voters: How Social Services Win Votes in India
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023017698273 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
It would have enriched the work had there been an objective analysis of whether existing autonomy
has either adversely affected or benefitted the state in terms of democratic participation and on develop-
ment parameters. Moreover, it requires an in-depth analysis of the role of the mainstream political parties
and the ruling elites on whether they pandered to and pampered soft extremism in the valley to their
advantage and used the same as bargaining tools vis-à-vis the centre in the last six decades.
Even though the author’s perspective constrains her from presenting a comprehensive understand-
ing of the problem, and locating it also in the larger context of pan-Islamism, the book is a significant
contribution to the existing scholarship on Jammu and Kashmir and indispensable for scholars and
students studying ethnic conflicts in general and Kashmir in particular.
Sangit Kumar Ragi
Professor of Political Science
University of Delhi, Delhi
E-mail: sangit_ragi@yahoo.co.in
Tariq Thachil, Elite Parties, Poor Voters: How Social Services Win Votes in India. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (Studies in Comparative Politics Series). 2016. 331 pages. `795.
DOI: 10.1177/2321023017698273
Why do poor people support political parties that represent the economic interest of the elites? Tariq
Thachil attempts to explain how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which caters to the interest of the
elites, massively gained votes from the Dalit and Adivasi groups without losing votes from the upper
castes. By making use of both quantitative and qualitative data, he convincingly argues that BJP man-
aged to make inroads in these communities by providing social services such as education and health.
These services were provided through party-affiliated, yet private, independent welfare organizations.
This allowed the party to continue to represent elite interests and at the same time, also act as representa-
tives of the interest of the disadvantaged groups. By using the National Election data from the 2004
post-poll survey done by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, the author strongly argues
that the upper caste and lower caste voters voted for the BJP for different reasons. The third chapter
‘Why Rich and...
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