Middle-class Populism: Political Inequalities and Populist Appeal in India
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23210230241289451 |
| Author | Pradeep Chhibber |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
Middle-class Populism: Political
Inequalities and Populist
Appeal in India
Pradeep Chhibber1
Abstract
Populist appeals resonate in contemporary India because of political inequalities. These inequalities
persist because political parties are stuck in a reciprocity trap that favours local elites, who provide
the party with financial support and resources. This reciprocity trap not only perpetuates political
inequalities but also leads to the systematic marginalization of the poor by political parties who remain
less receptive to populist appeals by a political leader. This article shows that the middle class, not the
poor, were more receptive to populist messages in the 2024 elections. Even though Modi remained
immensely popular, the middle classes found Rahul Gandhi’s populist message more compelling. The
analysis is based on the pre-and post-election surveys from 2024 and other NES surveys.
Keywords
Inequalities, Lok Sabha 2024, middle-class, populism
It is widely acknowledged that the electoral success of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014
national elections was due to the populist appeal of its leader, Narendra Modi (Palshikar, 2015). The
2014 national election was not the first time a populist appeal has upended the party system in India.
While party systems in India, at the national and State levels, are commonly understood through the lens
of caste and religious divisions and the particularities of State politics, populism has been the source of
significant party system change in India. The reassertion of the Congress party’s dominance under Indira
Gandhi in the 1970s and the triumph of many State-level parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(DMK) of Tamil Nadu, the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh under N. T. Rama Rao, and the
Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal are all driven by populist politics.
Echoing Naseemullah and Chhibber (2024), this article attributes the power of populist appeals in
contemporary India to persisting political inequalities. Instead of levelling the playing field, political
parties contribute to political inequalities because they are caught in what Jensenius and Chhibber (2024)
term a reciprocity trap, thereby remaining beholden to local influentials and the moneyed elites. By
limiting access to political parties and the electoral process to those within party networks, the reciprocity
trap creates conditions for a leader to say that she stands for the people against a corrupt political elite
that is thwarting people’s aspirations. As I show in this article, this populist appeal in contemporary India
is more prevalent among the middle classes than the poor.
Original Article
Studies in Indian Politics
12(2) 208–227, 2024
© 2024 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23210230241289451
journals.sagepub.com/home/inp
1 University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
Corresponding author:
Pradeep Chhibber, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
E-mail: chhibber@berkeley.edu
Chhibber 209
The first part of the article, after a brief discussion of the concept of populism, links populism in
contemporary India to persisting political inequalities, particularly a belief that political parties and
the state privilege only those connected to it. After setting the stage for the 2024 elections, the second
section discusses the prevalence of populist sentiments in India. The third section discusses the
reciprocity trap and shows that the reciprocity trap privileges the few while excluding the poor. I show
that the reciprocity trap ties ruling parties to local power structures, generating political inequalities.
The reciprocity trap also limits a party’s ability to reach poor voters, whom parties do not actively
mobilize even during election time. The poor remain less attached to parties, elections, and the
democratic political process. The middle classes, on the other hand, are more politically engaged, and
they respond to populist messages and identify populist leaders. The next part of the article shows that
the middle classes are more likely to say that Rahul Gandhi, not Narendra Modi, is trying to reduce
the undue hold of influential people. Just because the middle classes do not think that Modi is trying
to curb the role of influential people does not mean that Modi is not popular. In the last section, I show
that Modi’s presence continues to help mobilize voters for the BJP. The article concludes with some
caveats and implications.
Before we proceed, it’s important to emphasize that populism is often confused with popular policies.
Populist politics draws a clear line between the elites and the masses. A populist leader or a party position
themselves as champions of the common people against a corrupt elite. Governments can implement
popular policies, such as social housing programs, healthcare coverage, or financial aid for the less
fortunate, without challenging elite influence or creating tension between the elites and the masses.
Populism thrives on the tension between the masses and the elite establishment, and if a party’s programs
or policies fail to do so, labelling them as populist would be incorrect. Popular public policies cater to
the needs and desires of ordinary people without necessarily addressing the structural inequalities
between the masses and an elite political class. Pro-poor or popular policies like welfare programs may
be well-liked but are not inherently populist. Similarly, leaders can be popular without being considered
populist. For instance, Nehru was widely popular but is not generally regarded as a populist leader.
Similarly, while Modi enjoys popularity, it’s debatable whether his leadership today embodies populist
sentiments, which hinge on representing the ordinary people against a corrupt elite.
Political Inequalities and Populism
There is widespread consensus that populism is an orientation to ‘mass-ness’. Kazin (1995), for instance,
writing on populism in the United States, defines it as ‘a language whose speakers conceive of ordinary
people as a noble assemblage not bounded narrowly by class, view their elite opponents as self-serving
and undemocratic, and seek to mobilize the former against the latter’ (1). Similarly, Mudde (2004) char-
acterizes populism as ‘an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homoge-
neous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” and argues that politics
should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people’ (54).
Populism, as Naseemullah and Chhibber (2024) point out, is more prevalent in South Asia than in any
other region of the world. In India, they argue that populist politics has always pointed to a political elite as
serving its vested interests, not those of the people. Populist leaders from Indira Gandhi to Narendra Modi
and many others at the State level, including Mamata Banerjee, N. T. Rama Rao and M. G. Ramachandran,
to name a few, stress that their leadership will end the rule of the corrupt political elite. The idea that
political inequalities drive populism in India emanated from studies of the Dravidian movement in Tamil
Nadu, which, in the 1950s, led a populist upsurge against a Sanskritic Brahmanical political establishment
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