India’s States: The Struggle to Govern
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023016634909 |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
India’s States:
The Struggle to Govern
James Manor1
Abstract
This article analyzes recent variations in governing strategies in different Indian states. Those varia-
tions mean that the ‘Indian state’, as citizens experience it, takes different forms in different states.
Between 1989 and mid-2014, no single party could gain a parliamentary majority. That caused a major
decentralization of power away from the once dominant Prime Minister’s Office—horizontally to other
institutions at the national level, and vertically downward to governments at the state level. Ironically,
that decentralization of power at the national level was accompanied by a marked centralization of power
in the hands of chief ministers within many states. This is connected to a surge in state and central
government revenues after 2003, and to India’s far from neoliberal economic order which leaves huge
discretionary power in politicians’ hands. Various devices—legitimate and illicit—which chief ministers
use to increase their influence and to survive in power are examined.
Keywords
Indian states, politicians, tactics, centralization, corruption, post-clientelism
This article analyzes the difficulties and opportunities that senior politicians and political parties in India
face as they seek to govern. It examines leaders’ and parties’ efforts to connect with, respond to, cultivate
support from and perhaps control citizens and society. A focus on those two words draws our attention
mainly to the states in this federal system. It is at the state level and below that most of the actual govern-
ing occurs in India. It is there that governments and society mainly interact.
There is another reason to focus on states. Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar (2009, pp. 394, 401)
have argued that ‘The 1990s could easily be called the decade of the states: as the theatre of politics
shifted to the states…’, a decade which saw ‘the emergence of the state as the principal arena of political
choice’. That remained true after 2000, although the emergence of Narendra Modi at an assertive prime
minister with a parliamentary majority in 2014 may change things. Between 1980 and 2014, state-
based parties participated in multi-party ruling alliances in New Delhi, but their cabinet ministers at
the national level often focused less on governing than on milking their ministries for benefits and
funds (legitimately and illicitly) to be used within the individual states which form their power bases.
1 Emeka Anyaoku Professor Emeritus of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK.
Studies in Indian Politics
4(1) 8–21
© 2016 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023016634909
http://inp.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
James Manor, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, Senate House, Malet Street,
University of London, London WC1E 7HU, UK.
E-mail: james.manor@sas.ac.uk
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