The Class Element in the 2014 Indian Election and the BJP’s Success with Special Reference to the Hindi Belt
| Author | Christophe Jaffrelot |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023015575211 |
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
| Subject Matter | India’s 2014 Elections |
India’s 2014 Elections
The Class Element in the 2014 Indian
Election and the BJP’s Success with
Special Reference to the Hindi Belt
Christophe Jaffrelot1
Abstract
Class has played a more important role than before in the 2014 election. Class-based voting patterns
have contributed to the success of Narendra Modi, not only because he has capitalized on the support
of the middle class, traditionally pro-BJP, but also because he has attracted large sections of the emerg-
ing ‘neo-middle class’, an aspiring social category born out of the economic growth of the previous
decade. This new class has put the very notion of the OBCs in question, in particular in the Hindi
belt, its stronghold in the 1990s. The BJP has benefited from the differentiation of the OBCs in socio-
economic terms. Its upwardly mobile layer expected from Modi jobs and ‘development’ in general.
This evolution does not mean that caste politics is over at the jati level, at least in the Hindi belt. Yadavs
do not vote more for the BJP the richer they are because their elite groups stick to parties (the SP,
the RJD) to which they owe their political clout. Brahmins and the Rajputs vote for the BJP what-
ever their class is almost, because to be associated with this party is part of their status and their
ethos. Dalits continue to reject the BJP because of its political culture and social agenda. The resi-
lience of identity politics is even more evident among the Muslims who have supported the Congress
irrespective of their class in order to counter Modi’s BJP.
Keywords
Indian 2014 general elections, BJP, Narendra Modi, class, caste politics, Hindi belt
The notion of class—that had been eclipsed by caste in the 1990s—has staged a comeback in the writings
of India specialists at the turn of the twenty-first century. Not because of a Marxist revival (although the
resurgence of Naxalism, for instance, could partly be analyzed in Marxist class terms), but because of
the rise of the middle class in the context of a new form of economic growth—and because of its
assertiveness in the public sphere. The middle class was even presented as a political actor in the media
during the anti-corruption movement initiated by Anna Hazare in 2011.
This social category, the focal point of the following pages, is notoriously elusive. In this article I will
define it by using the criteria of the Lokniti-CSDS, whose surveys have shown that this class has consid-
erably increased over the last five years. According to these data the ‘upper’ class represented 11 per cent
1 CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS and King’s India Institute—KCL.
Studies in Indian Politics
3(1) 19–38
© 2015 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023015575211
http://inp.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
Christophe Jaffrelot, CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS and King’s India Institute—KCL.
E-mail: jaffrelot@orange.fr
20 Studies in Indian Politics 3(1)
of society in 2014 (against 6 per cent in 2009), the ‘middle’ class 36 per cent (against 20 per cent), the
‘lower’ class 33 per cent (same as in 2009) and the ‘poor’ 20 per cent (against 41 per cent; Sridharan,
2014, p. 72). The remarkable rise of the middle class is here ‘partly due to the definitional effect of the
cut-offs for class boundaries remaining the same’ (ibid., p. 74). But these figures also reflect the growth
rate of the Indian economy, especially in the urban settings where the middle class is overrepresented.
The middle class needs to be considered seriously by the psephologists because of its demograph-
ics—and even more so if we consider (as I tend to do) that the ‘upper’ and the ‘middle’ classes belong to
the same sociological universe and form a social continuum (Jaffrelot & van der Veer, 2008)—but also
because of its growing interest in the act of voting. While for decades there was a reverse correlation
between the socio-economic status and electoral participation in India—the poorer the voters were, the
more they voted (Jaffrelot, 2008)—the impact of the middle class on the last Lok Sabha elections has
been amplified by their turnout. While the upper class did not vote more than the poor in 2009, things
have changed in 2014, as evident from Table 1.
In terms of party preferences, the BJP benefited more than any other from the mobilization of the
non-poor voters in 2014. In fact, the relation between the BJP’s popularity and the class status was per-
fectly linear: the richer the voters were, the more supportive of the BJP they were too, as evident from
Table 2. This correlation was already obvious in 2009, but at that time the Congress had been able to
attract the upper class more effectively than the BJP.
Tab le 1. Class-wise Turnout in 2009 and 2 014
Class 2009 2014
Poor 57 60
Lower 59 68
Middle 60 69
Upper 57 67
Total 58 67
Source: L okniti-CS DS, National E lection Sur vey (NES, 20 09 and 2014). All the d ata used in this ar ticles, when n ot mentioned
otherwis e, come from these sources .
Note: In this tabl e like in the other s, the four cl ass categori es are define d on the basis of a c omposite ind ex relying on
income and thre e background varia bles (occupation, t ype of housing and selec ted household asset s). These indices
are calculat ed while contro lling for local ity. For insta nce, the resp ondents bel onging to the ‘up per class’ have a n
income above 8, 000 rup ees if they resid e in rural are as, above 13,00 0 if they reside in a t own or city and a bove
17,000 if they reside in a m etropolis. They must also b elong to the highest cate gory as defined in the Oc cupation,
Housing and A ssets Index.
Table 2. The 2009 a nd 2014 Lok Sabha Elect ions: Class-wise Supp ort for Main Parties— All India (All Figures
in Percentages)
Class
INC BJP Left BSP SP AAP N
2014 2009 2014 2009 2014 2009 2014 2009 2014 2009 2014 2014 2009
Poor 20 27 24
(+9)
16 7 10 5 8 3 6 2 3,901 11,791
Lower 19 29 31
(+12)
19 5 7 5 6 4 5 1 6,686 9,894
Middle 20 29 32.3
(+10)
22 3 5 3 4 3 4 2 7,298 5,964
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