Class and Caste in the 2019 Indian Election–Why Have So Many Poor Started Voting for Modi?
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023019874890 |
| Author | Christophe Jaffrelot |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Class and Caste in the 2019 Indian
Election–Why Have So Many Poor
Started Voting for Modi?
Christophe Jaffrelot1
Abstract
In the 2009 and 2014 elections, the poorer the voters were, the less BJP-oriented they were too.
The situation changed in 2019, when the prime minister appeared to be equally popular among
all the strata of society, including the poor. Modi’s massive appeal to the poor is counterintuitive given
the weakening of pro-poor policies like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the elitist
character of BJP. If class has lost some of its relevance for explaining the results of the 2019 elections,
caste is showing some resilience, not as aggregates in the garb of OBCs or SCs, but as jatis at the
state level. In spite of the BJP’s claim that the party’s ideology was alien to any consideration which may
divide the nation, its strategists have meticulously studied caste equations at the local level in order to
select the right candidates. This caste-based strategy partly explains the above-mentioned class element
as the small OBC and Dalit jatis that the BJP has wooed are often among the poorest—and upper caste
poor vote more for BJP than their co-ethnic rich anyway.
Keywords
Indian 2019 general elections, BJP, Narendra Modi, class, caste politics, Hindi belt
Introduction
In 2014, the notion of class—that had been eclipsed by caste in the 1990s—had staged a comeback, not
only because of the new assertiveness of the middle class (reflected in its turn out that jumped by 10
percentage points compared to 2009—see Table 1), but also because of the rise of what Narendra Modi
called the ‘neo-middle class’, an aspiring social category born in the context of a high growth rate
(Jaffrelot, 2013, 2015a). And his victory was largely due to these two social milieus; hence the reconfir-
mation of an old, simple linear correlation according to which, the richer the voters were, the more BJP-
oriented they were too (see Table 2).
Five years later, class has lost its explanatory power as this correlation does not operate any more. In
the 2019 election, class has not made any significant impact on the voting patterns and the poor have
Studies in Indian Politics
7(2) 149–160, 2019
© 2019 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
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DOI: 10.1177/2321023019874890
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1 CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris and King’s India Institute—KCL, London.
Corresponding author:
Christophe Jaffrelot, CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, CERI, 56 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris.
E-mail: jaffrelot12@gmail.com
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