Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-05T11:57:39.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Political Mobilization in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Sumit Ganguly  and
Rahul Mukherji
Sumit Ganguly
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
Get access

Summary

On May 17, 2009, India concluded its fifteenth general election. This proved to be the largest democratic electoral exercise in the country's and the world's history. The country had an eligible electorate of 714 million voters and 58 percent chose to exercise their right of adult franchise. The results of the election confounded the most astute political analysts and observers, all of whom failed to predict its outcomes. The Indian National Congress, which many had expected to fare poorly, performed extraordinarily well, winning as many as 206 seats in a 543-seat parliament. The grand hopes that many political pundits, especially those with left-wing political proclivities, had reposed in the so-called Third Front, a conglomeration of political parties coalesced around the lower-caste oriented Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), proved to be completely ill-considered. The BSP under the tutelage of Kumari Mayawati, a dalit (“untouchable”) politician (and the chief minister) from the populous and socially retrograde state of Uttar Pradesh, failed to dramatically increase its standing in the Lok Sabha, or the House of the People, winning a mere twenty seats out of a possible eighty. The Indian National Congress, which had once dominated the politics of the state, managed to obtain twenty-one seats, relegating the hypernationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to ten seats.

What explained the abject failure of Indian and foreign political analysts to accurately predict the outcome of this election?

Type
Chapter
Information
India Since 1980 , pp. 109 - 140
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Jaffrelot, Christophe and Verniers, Giles, “India's 2009 Elections: The Resilience of Regionalism and Ethnicity,” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 3 (2009): 1Google Scholar
Jaffrelot, Christophe, India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of Lower Castes in North India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)Google Scholar
Thakurta, Paranjoy Guha and Raghuraman, Shankar, Divided We Stand: India in a Time of Coalitions (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2007)Google Scholar
Manor, James, “Anomie in Indian Politics: Origins and Wider Impact,” Economic and Political Weekly 18:19 (May 21, 1983): 725–34Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968)Google Scholar
Hardgrave, Robert L. Jr., The Nadars of Tamilnad: The Political Culture of a Community in Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969)Google Scholar
Rudolph, Lloyd I. and Rudolph, Susanne H., In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 333–92Google Scholar
Frankel, Francine, India's Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar
Kothari, Rajni, “The Congress System in India,” Asian Survey 4:12 (1964): 1161–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh, Democracy, Development and the Countryside (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 31–47Google Scholar
Herring, Ronald J., Land to the Tiller (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharma, Shalendra D., Development and Democracy in India (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1999), 112Google Scholar
Brass, Paul, “Chaudhuri Charan Singh: An Indian Political Life,” Economic and Political Weekly 28:39 (September 25, 1993): 2087–90Google Scholar
Kothari, Rajni, Politics in India (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2009): 177–90Google Scholar
Hewitt, Vernon, Political Mobilization and Democracy in India (London: Routledge, 2009), 77–85Google Scholar
Frankel, , “The Middle Classes and Castes in India's Politics,” in India's Democracy, ed. Kohli, Atul (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), 249–50Google Scholar
Belt, Hindi,” The Journal of Asian Studies 59:1 (February 2000): 90
Fickett, Lewis P., Jr., “The Major Socialist Parties of India in the 1967 Election,” Asian Survey 8:6 (June 1968): 489–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subramanian, Narendra, Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizenship and Democracy in South India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar
Subramanian, Narendra, “Identity Politics and Social Pluralism: Political Sociology and Political Change in Tamil Nadu,” in Decentering the Indian Nation, ed. Andrew Wyatt and John Zavos (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 125–39Google Scholar
Frankel, Francine R., India's Political Economy: 1947–2004 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 283–308Google Scholar
Kohli, Atul, “Political Change in a Democratic Developing Country,” in Democracy in India, ed. Jayal, Niraja G (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 140–7Google Scholar
Brass, Paul R., The Politics of India since Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, Henry, ed., Indira Gandhi's India: A Political System Reappraised (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986)Google Scholar
Gupta, Das, “A Season of Caesars: Mobilization Regimes and Development Politics in Asia,” Asian Survey 18:4 (April 1978): 315–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, Francine R., “Compulsion and Social Change: Is Authoritarianism the Solution to India's Economic Development Problems?” World Politics 30:2 (January 1978): 215–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swamy, Arun R., “Political Mobilization,” in The Oxford Companion to Politics in India, ed. Jayal, Niraja G. and Mehta, Pratap B. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 268–87Google Scholar
Hardgrave, Robert L. Jr., India under Pressure: Prospects for Political Stability (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984)Google Scholar
Sudarshan, R., “In Quest of State: Politics and Judiciary in India,” The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 28:1 (March 1990): 44–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reddy, Ram, “The Politics of Accommodation: Caste, Class and Dominance in Andhra Pradesh,” in Dominance and State Power in Modern India: Decline of a Social Order, ed. Francine Frankel and M. S. A. Rao (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), 282–92Google Scholar
Suri, K. C., “Telegu Desam Party,” in India's Political Parties, ed. deSouza, Peter Ronald and Sridharan, E. (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2006), 283–7Google Scholar
Frank, Katherine, Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi (London: HarperCollins, 2001)Google Scholar
Frankel, Francine R., India's Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar
Tully, Mark and Jacob, Satish, Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (London: Jonathan Cape, 1986)Google Scholar
Fair, C. Christine, “The Golden Temple: A Tale of Two Sieges,” in Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Places, ed. Fair, C. Christine and Ganguly, Sumit (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar
Dhillon, Kirpal, Identity and Survival: Sikh Militancy in India, 1978–1993 (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2006)Google Scholar
Rubin, Barnett, “Economic Liberalization and the Indian State,” Third World Quarterly 7:4 (October 1985): 942–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohli, Atul, Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar
Gupta, Akhil, Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 33–105Google Scholar
Omvedt, Gail, “Farmer's Movements and the Debate on Poverty and Economic Reforms in India,” in Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power and Politics, ed. Ray, Raka and Katzenstien, Mary Fainsod (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 179–202Google Scholar
Hasan, Zoya, “Transfer of Power: Politics of Mass Mobilization in UP,” Economic and Political Weekly 36:46/47 (November 24, 2001): 4401–9Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Omvedt, Gail, “The Anti-caste Movement and the Discourse of Power,” in Democracy in India, ed. Jayal, Niraja Gopal (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar
Jaffrelot, Christophe, “The Rise of Other Backward Classes in the Hindi Belt,” Journal of Asian Studies 59:1 (February 2000): 86–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lama-Rewal, Stephanie Tawa, “The Resilient Bhadralok: A Profile of the West Bengal MLAs,” in The Rise of the Plebians, ed. Jaffrelot, Christophe and Kumar, Sanjay (New Delhi: Routledge, 2009), 361–92Google Scholar
Pai, Sudha, “New Social Engineering Agenda of the Bahujan Samaj Party: Implications for State and National Politics,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 2:3 (November 2009): 338–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ganguly, Sumit, The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes of Peace (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997)Google Scholar
Jamal, Arif, Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir (Brooklyn, NY: Melville Press, 2009)Google Scholar
Gopal, S., ed., Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhumi Controversy (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1991)Google Scholar
Telford, Hamish, “The Political Economy of the Punjab: Creating Space for Sikh Militancy,” Asian Survey 32:11 (November 1992): 969–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, Gurharpal, “The Punjab Problem in the 1990s: A Post-1984 Assessment,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 29:2 (July 1991): 175–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh, “Contested Meanings: India's National Identity, Hindu Nationalism, and the Politics of Anxiety,” Daedalus 122:3 (Summer 1993): 227–61Google Scholar
Muni, S. D., The Pangs of Proximity: India and Sri Lanka's Ethnic Crisis (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993)Google Scholar
Hardgrave, Robert L. Jr. and Kochanek, Stanley, India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation (Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008)Google Scholar
Ghosh, Partha S., The Politics of Personal Law in South Asia: Identity, Nationalism and the Uniform Civil Code (London: Routledge, 2007)Google Scholar
Varadarajan, Siddharth, ed., Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2002)Google Scholar
Yadav, Yogendra, “The Elusive Mandate of 2004: An Overview,” in Electoral Politics in Indian States, ed. Sandeep Shastri, K. C. Suri, and Yogendra Yadav (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1–45Google Scholar
Hardgrave, Robert L. Jr., The Nadars of Tamilnad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969)Google Scholar
Weiner, Myron, “The Struggle for Equality: Caste in Indian Politics,” in The Success of India's Democracy, ed. Atul Kohli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×