Indian Elections: Can You Help Make Sense Of Them?

I realized five years ago, when the Congress Party came back into power after everyone had seemingly given them up for dead, that Indian politics is way too complicated to try and predict, especially from the outside.

Still, I wonder if readers have been coming across insightful articles or websites that explain what is happening in individual states or regions of the country, or analyze trends in a useful way. If so, could you put your recommendations in the comments below?

Here are two things I’ve read in the past day that I thought were interesting: the New York Times, on Narendra Modi, and Soutik Biswas, at the BBC, on why the 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai is not likely to be a national election issue.

This time around, it seems impossible to read too much into what is happening on any given day. Nor does it seems necessary to pay all that much attention to the to and fro between the Congress Leaders, the BJP leaders, and third front leaders. It doesn’t seem particularly consequential in terms of how people vote. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing remotely similar to the glut of daily tracking polls we had in the U.S. with the elections last year, nor are there websites like 538.com, which synthesized all the polling data coming in. (Are there such polls and websites? Have I simply been missing them?)

It does seem clear that the steady, incremental shift from national to regional politics is continuing in the current election. On the one hand, that is bad, because it means that whatever government comes to power at the center will be inherently weak and coalition-based. On the other hand, that weakness at the center can also be a good thing in terms of maintaining overall stability — not always easy in a country with 1 billion people. Even if a far-right or far-left party comes into power next month, they will not be able to do anything too drastic for fear of losing coalition support.

Second, it seems like “Hindutva” has seemingly lost some of its force as a national issue. The BJP and its allies might still prevail, but they’re playing the “nationalism” card more than the communal card.

Third, caste politics seems to be more prevalent than ever. I find that to be one of the most depressing and deadening things about Indian politics.

Fourth, Varun Gandhi is Ram, Shashi Tharoor is on bail, and Sanjay Dutt’s daughter in New York is pissed at him.

255 thoughts on “Indian Elections: Can You Help Make Sense Of Them?

  1. Vote Report India does a good job of aggregating a lot of content, from news organizations and blogs to twitter posts, and one of their partners Global Voices has an India page that has plenty of analysis of the elections.

    (The Vote Report site was built by Gaurav of Gauravonomics who has himself done a lot of analysis on the use of social media in the elections, and things like that.)

  2. LeVar, thanks for the link to the Ashutosh Varshney article. I had missed it — he has some great insights.

    I actually think he and Anand Giridharadas are making slightly different points, though. They agree that India’s national political orientation is not likely to change, whatever the election outcome.

    But for Anand Giridharadas, the alphabet soup of regional/caste politics is playground politics, and essentially meaningless. For Varshney, the focus on caste is simply a reflection of the reality of rural life in India: SCs and lower OBCs have been historically mistreated in Indian society, so their organizing along caste lines is a reflection of their attempt to use state power to better their situation. It’s still somewhat crude as a way of conducting political discourse, but it is meaningful for him in a way that Giridharadas wouldn’t accept.

  3. Sorry, I think it is very difficult to make sense of Indian elections..

    One thing is for sure. Do not believe what the Indian media (esp. the English media) says..

  4. Second, it seems like “Hindutva” has seemingly lost some of its force as a national issue. The BJP and its allies might still prevail, but they’re playing the “nationalism” card more than the communal card.

    it’s crypto communalism where they have maniacs like varun gandhi talk the talk and then play the plausible deniability game, and then prop up modi with a trains running on time shtick, when it is clear to everybody why modi is in fact loved by a large part of the bjp electorate.

    anand giridhardas’ article is spot on – i am very impressed that he said what he said given that his usual contributions are relatively trite and/or non-insightful. these paragraphs are a perfect description:

    But, even as foreign reporters pour in to tell that prefabricated story, it is difficult to fight the feeling that this big, big election is in fact pitifully small. The understanding of democracy is small. The candidates are small. The conversation is small. The quoted paragraph distills this election well: no ideology, no larger-than-life leaders, no causes, no principles at stake. Instead, just alphabets, this lot siding with that lot and these people with them — a process resembling a children’s game show, not the solemn selection of leaders for 1.2 billion human beings. But it is, above all, the smallness of the national conversation that baffles. The debate never rises above the battle tactics of who is with whom, and who ditched whom, and who said what in reply to what the other one said. The politicians, seemingly incapable of ideas, are wise not to attempt any. But the press, whose task is to challenge them, plays along, writing drivel analyses like the analysis with which I began, treating the thing like a sport, tit-for-tat, tat-for-tit, until it is time to go home.
  5. Amardeep, the reason you’re not seeing any polling data or exit polling results is because the Election Commission has banned the activity (not altogether, just in the weeks leading up to the elections). Since the election is spread out over 5 weeks, they didn’t want the earlier results from influencing later results; more importantly, they didn’t want the inevitable horsetrading and wheeling-dealing to start well before the elections were fully over. This, as you can imagine, have made the current elections much more of a guessing game than previous elections.

  6. Actually Amardeep, you forget to mention one of the biggest trends in Indian Politics: Dynasty. Whether it’s the Congress with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, the Samajwadi Party with Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav, or the Shiromani Akali Dal with Parkash and Sukhbir Badal, political parties have by and large become family assets and are emblematic of neo-royalism.

    The only major parties with a democratic and professionalized leadership are the BJP and the CPI-M. They are the exceptions to what is broadly considered a serious albatross to the Indian political process. Here is a good piece that touches on the topic:

    http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/indias-election-parties-and-people-amid-change

  7. I agree with P.S. on how difficult it is to figure this out – unlike the U.S., the national elections are not as predictable – or as malleable to political control by major parties, etc- at least on a surface level – it is far more decentralised and disconnected.

    if you’re interseted in overriding factors, the two factors i suggest you focus on are anti-incumbent voting (whether by intent or just in effect) and whether anything has happened in the past two years like the financial crisis and its effects to shift politics dramatically away from a small majority congress led or bjp led coalition.

    without a level of information that i have no access to and that i would need to figure things out, i will work on the assumption that it hasn’t and either congress or bjp will have a slight majority and the third front or regionalism or anything else isn’t going to cut into that pattern significantly yet. i would guess congress/congress partners would lose seatss, bjp/bjp partners may or may not gain, and some of the smaller marginally idnpeebndnet forces like mayawati will probably gain, resulting in a smaller upa majority or, morel ikely imo, a series of coalition governments that don’t last very long because the political alignments are shifting. there’s still a chance i suppose that bjp/nda might gain, but something doesn’t seem plausible about that right now, despite my fears.

    i recommend looking at sridharan’s writing on the historical changes in election results over the past 30 years and yogendra yadav who i haen’t really read ever but is an expert on the elections in particular. and of course you can find reasonably good analysis in EPW.

  8. Still, I wonder if readers have been coming across insightful articles or websites that explain what is happening in individual states or regions of the country, or analyze trends in a useful way. If so, could you put your recommendations in the comments below?

    Because by the rules of Election Commission in India, once the election starts, and until it ends, no exit polls, opinion polls, and talking heads are allowed that can sway the direction of elections.

    It all seems boring at this moment, because the elections are so spread out.

    Trust me, once the results start poring in, it will be most interesting drama.

  9. Keep an eye out for Yogendra Yadav’s articles,he is a psephologist but is also one of the few who cautioned against predicting a landslide before the 2004 lok sabha elections for the NDA in the wake of the India Shining fiasco.

    Varshney is also good though I don’t agree with everything he says and he seems to be a bit soft on Hindutva and has some odd views on certain aspects of Muslim rioting.

    Anybody who is a follower of Indian politics or studies Indian politics/society/economy will be able to provide you a clearer picture of things. At the national level there really is no single party system; so it is of no use to think of national election systems what you really have is a set of regional electoral systems between different parties that might be opposed to each other in one arena even when they are allied to each other at a national level coalition. My main suggestion to you would be to get a friend who studies/teaches Indian politics etc. And get them to talk you through the current elections. If they are willing (and they usually are, poli-sci people are nothing if not gabby) and you don’t get too bored this is the best single way imo to learn exactly what is going on – otherwise things will be somewhat confusing to you.

    Polls – generally useless imo; given that we are basically a rural democracy and no pollster I know of will visit bastis in the more inhospitable villages to conduct their surveys. Also in village India not everyone is going to come out and say what they think; first few times I went to a village to do a survey on a govt programme all the villagers were praising both the programme and the pradhan in a survey, only after spending a few months in the location did their real and rather different opinions come out.

    Also Amardeep – frankly I find some of your comments baffling. Why should you not expect caste to be a prevalent factor in politics – it still is in most of the villages where the majority of Indians live and it still characterises divisions deeply within our society for all except perhaps the urban middle class (even this lot aren’t as casteless as they sometimes like to think). If you are a Dalit or an Adviasi; you will rarely be allowed to forget it wherever you are, no matter what you do in a number of ways; some subtle some not so subtle people will remind you of this fact. Caste and religious identification are difficult to escape in our society; its reflection in politics is to be expected. The reason it arouses comment is only because the OBCs and Dalits seem to have discovered the political language of caste, just at the time that it is being abandoned by those above them in the social hierarchy. This said, all parties have since the very first elections placed an enormous amount of emphasis on caste as a factor in selecting candidates for most constituencies; those of the party leaders excluded.

    Re: regionalisation, I don’t see the problem here. India is made up of many different ethnic and regional groups and when an attempt was made to incorporate them into a single party national system with local opposition as in the famous ‘Congress system’ it didn’t work. National parties can’t brook regional dissent from within their own parties or from local opposition groups and there is nothing to indicate that this has changed, so fragmentation of the party system is inevitable and desirable to the alternative of over-centralisation imo which just steered us the path of armed conflict.

    Lastly, I don’t know what you mean by “far-left” but in India this will mean the Naxalite and Maoist parties and fronts and they have little chance of coming to the Centre. The mainstream Communist parties have abandoned revolution and you could even say they have given up any hope of a parliamentary road to socialism, lapsing instead into a social-democratic platform accompanied by Stalinist thuggery of their low ranking party cadre. Indeed if the actions of their CMs, particularly in West Bengal are any guide; they are throughouly bourgeois both in their economic strategy and policy; given the fulsome praise one sees of them in the neo-liberal press such as the Economist and the unedifying sight of their ministers running after various industrialists and corporate groups both domestic and foreign. No revolution will be forthcoming from these comrades.

    I can’t read most of what the mainstream press writes about the elections; if it isn’t some propagandist piece drooling over Mayawati and the BSP, there is the latest offering in idiocy from Rahul Gandhi or some other such joker. However a few links of interest:

    The Economist discovers behenji!

    http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13497128&fsrc=nwl

    Good distinction on the National and the Local in Indian elections

    http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/14/stories/2009041454941200.htm

    the rural heartland, what really decides election outcomes but nearly always gets neglected

    http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/23/stories/2009042350161400.htm

    As one of the commenters mentioned above the EPW is an excellent source of info; the only problem is that most of their in-depth analysis tends to be after the elections of the results, rather than the campaign.

    I haven’t seen anything that really captures all the complexity of the current elections; except perhaps Varshney’s article which alludes to the differences without going into specific detail (understandably given his space constraints).

  10. It’s still somewhat crude as a way of conducting political discourse, but it is *meaningful* for him in a way that Giridharadas wouldn’t accept.

    You’re right professor.

  11. Caste is and always will be the curse of India. It is only seconded by religious differences..who can ever make sense of Indian Politics? The Mantris will always keep the population fighting against each other to retain power.. Although I am proud that Singh is Prime Minister..truthfully Sonia Gandhi won it last time…

  12. Conrad, regionalisation is a good thing? Between Raj Thackeray and the politics of Eelam, regionalisation is not a good trend for India. Yes it is a multiethnic democracy with many regional groups whose aspirations should be tended to as best as possible. And yes, the congress model stinks. But look at India’s immediate neighborhood: Taliban threat to the west, a restive Bangladesh in the east, and a belligerent China (hundreds of border violations and indian patrol ambushes not just in Arunachal but in Sikkim, developing naval bases to the south, west and east of India, and a long history of financing insurgencies) to the North. How exactly do parochial goals help protect the country from looming strategic threats? You need parties who consider national interest above petty caste politics and dynastic claims.

    Also, how exactly did indian overcentralisation almost lead to armed conflict?

  13. India is, at least currently, a cargo cult democracy anyway. To that extent, the elections are inconsequential because, in all the chaos, whatever of consequence happens thereafter – positive or negative – happens mostly inspite of the government!

  14. Satyajit Wry: I speak of regionalisation in terms of allowing regional parties a greater say in the central govt until we have national level parties that either can incorporate this into their own party structures or properly respect federal procedures then I see no alternative. The genesis of so many conflicts like the Punjab imbroglio, Kashmir and Assam owe much to unwarranted interference from the central govt particularly under the Congress govt in its halycon days when it refused to stop meddling in state-level politics. Everytime the centre does this, there is a backlash; whether it is imposing its own choice of CM as AP, trying to push Hindi as the sole prememinent official language or engineering the collapse of opposition govts the story remains the same.

    I think some of the threats you cite are overblown; Bangladesh will face an ecological crisis at some time over the next few decades, which will in all likelihood destroy its capacity to function as an independent state, the Pakistani army which is the most powerful institution in Pakistan can barely keep control of the country, the Taliban have no chance. China remains a potential strategic adversary but has huge internal problems of its own, namely its own democratic transition (or lack thereof) frankly I am more worried about China’s impending crisis than I am over any Indian internal problem.

    I also think you have a slightly idealised idea of politics. Politics is all about interest, especially electoral politics in India.Waiting for a party to come along that can rise above caste politics/dynastic claims is sheer fantasy imo; you might as well be waiting for Kumbhakaran to wake up by himself. All parties in India revolve around axis of caste, religion, ethnicty and their political dyansties. The only political formations that have avoided this to some extent are the BJP and the Communist parties and even these have been compromised heavily when they have come to power. This is the reality of Indian politics today; to wish it otherwise is just to wish for another India. This might be a pretty exercise in dreaming but it won’t help you address the reality.

  15. I also think you have a slightly idealised idea of politics. Politics is all about interest, especially electoral politics in India.Waiting for a party to come along that can rise above caste politics/dynastic claims is sheer fantasy imo

    Conrad, Nice analysis, in that quoted sentence and throughout. It leads to a pretty pessimistic analysis, though, no? I recall in school discussing the idea of why, seemingly strangely, the losers of WWII (i.e., Japan and Germany) emerged as the 2d and 3d largest economies in the world (by the end of the 20th C.–China has probably passed Germany today), while the “winners” like the UK, France, China (not as surprising, they went communist!), etc. stagnated in comparative terms–and one counter-intuitive and interesting idea (Gordon Tullock’s, if remember correctly–I just did some googling but was unable to confirm decisively that it was his) was that in the “loser” countries you had the pre-war special interest groups, which had perfected taking their own “rents” at the expense of general social welfare, smashed. So, for a while (i.e., relatively unhindered by well-organized special interest groups), the losers could grow more quickly compared to, say, the UK, where the same pre-war interest groups (be it aristocrats, labour unions, professional organizations, whatever) were still propagating their strangle-hold. (Another idea would be aid by the US, like the Marshall plan, but this seems like a weak case overall.) The way you’re speaking about Indian politics (which is probably the correct way), it seems as if various interest groups have their strangle-hold in place before the country is well-developed, which would tend to suggest “sclerotic” growth going forward, rather than that sort of “break-out” growth that we saw in, e.g., non-democratic Taiwan or South Korea (where the ruling elites could take some rents, of course, but had to make sure other groups kept rising, b/c they couldn’t be sure of who might rebel–democracies, on contrast, are seldom overthrown by rebellion). Not to be too much of a downer, but worth thinking about. . . .if true, would suggest the perverse outcome that China, in spite of its deeply unappealing political structure, actually outperforms India, in spite of its democracy, in the next few decades. 🙁

  16. This is the reality of Indian politics today; to wish it otherwise is just to wish for another India.

    One would think that for an Indian political system to be considered a “success” it should be focused on creating another India. An India without grinding poverty that isn’t riven by perpetual sectoral conflicts. If a party or a system is incapable of bringing us closer to that, then what good is it?

  17. Overblown, heh, sorry Conrad, but i think that’s wishful thinking on your part. 1. If Bangladesh reaps the very whirlwind of climate change that you reference, where do you think 150 million people are going to go? Take a look at the eastern districts of w.bengal and you’ll see what’s in store for the rest of the state. Do you think HUJI or Jamat will just disappear and pledge allegiance to their new country? Please 2.The Pakistani Army is the most powerful institution in the country, and if it has no will to resist the Taliban, what exactly would stop the Taliban from taking power? Once they have control of the country, what do you think is next on their agenda? Please let’s not be naive in thinking that we can just get back to playing cricket. If anything, the midranks of the Army bought into Zia’s policies and are not the old Johnnie Walker types who trained at Sandhurst. Indeed, they may very well be encouraging a Taliban takeover of pakistan 3. I think your comments about China are a little underinformed. Potential strategic adversary? Who do you think has provided Pakistan with nuclear and missile technology? Where do you think all the JF fighter planes headed for Rawalpindi are coming from? What do you think 1962 was about? What do you think the hundreds of nuclear missiles in Tibet are targeting? Lastly with 30 million men of age unable to marry, what do you think is the best way to distract a disgruntled populace from trouble at home? Just ask Galtieri

    Yes, politics is about interest, but it is also about balancing the interest to achieve the greater good. That’s the point of statecraft. By simply brushing all parties as only beholden to parochial interest does a disfavor to the one party with an actual national agenda. So yes, address the realities, but don’t mischaracterize them either. There are people like Brahma Chellaney, KPS Gill, and Arun Shourie with truly national vision and thinking. If you want to change the system start voting for parties who abjure nepotism and caste politics and seek out a genuine national agenda, don’t just dismiss them out of ennui or in an attempt to be fashionable. Or if you disdain them so much as many of our “secular” people here do, at the very least, lobby your party of choice to change their nepotist and parochial ways. Politics is as much about changing the system as it is about working within it.

    As for your points about centralisation, you are correct about the failure of the congress model which is embodied by your examples above, but that should not preclude a national vision for the country, or for that matter a national language. There is nothing wrong with hindi being the national language so long as the respective states can maintain their own languages at the assembly level. Bickering over petty things while ignoring external threats is what got India colonized in the first place.

  18. 22 · Satyajit Wry

    Also, good points. At the risk of offending Conrad, let me attempt a reply:

    1) Land-mines and sealed border. They’ve made their “civilizational commitment” pretty damn clear–if India feels charitable, free boat-fare to Indonesia or Saudi? 😉 2) I have no idea about what’s going to happen in Pakistan, other than to say that the population seems so passive that it’s difficult to imagine an Iranian-style revolution. It’s also difficult to imagine the Taliban taking over, since they’re so tied to the Pastun’s. Doesn’t mean Islamists can’t take over. So, I predict an internal-to-the-army struggle, which results in a new military dictatorship, aka par for the course in Pakistani “history.” Could be dangerous; but I predict that they’ll go with “modernity”/take the US money. 3) Well, the whole US/Pakistan/India/China imbroglio–I’m not well-positioned to predict that. A lot will depend on relative economic development–e.g., if current trends continue, nobody will care about Pakistan, other than as a “bother-zone” like Afghanistan; similarly, India needs to “keep up” in some sense with China on the economic front if it wants to continue to unlock a mutually beneficial relationship with the US (which I think the US wants, and has signaled with the nuclear deal)), unless the US will fear it needs to accommodate China too much. Perhaps the biggest threat is that even the Pakistani elite will get jealous of India’s development economically (of course, let’s not be too sanguine about it–still fighting the Naxalites in a non-trivial part of India) while they are bogged down with Balochistan and NWFP.

  19. Janeofalltrades, why don’t you do a “guest blog” special interview with him for Sepia Mutiny.

    I’m sure several of us readers, diasporic Indians, would like to present some questions.

  20. Satyajit,

    I think you’re overstating the extent to which regionalisation makes us more vulnerable to our neighbours. None of the regional parties (except the communists) have really articulated a position on foreign policy and tend to fall in line with whatever national party is leading the coalition, I’m having a tough time seeing how it undermines our strength or ability to respond to an external threat.

    Economic policy is more complicated since you can’t always distinguish national interests from regional interests, but there needs to be a balance between trying to become an economically powerful nation and trying to achieve a somewhat fair distribution of that wealth. National parties with their national agendas tend to do a horrible job of this. Regional/caste based parties do establish some representation of their constituency, however crudely they may do it.

  21. Because by the rules of Election Commission in India, once the election starts, and until it ends, no exit polls, opinion polls, and talking heads are allowed that can sway the direction of elections.

    Actually, in spite of the Election Commission rules, TV channels are broadcasting quantitative seat projections. For example, here is Prannoy Roy of NDTV talking about today’s Phase III of the elections with predictions for Karnataka, and elsewhere. They cannot attribute it to exit polls, but talking heads (who include current and former politicians) are attributing the quantitative projections to their own ‘sixth sense’, combined with fairly detailed qualitative historical and trend analyses.

  22. Even if a far-right or far-left party comes into power next month, they will not be able to do anything too drastic for fear of losing coalition support.

    That is a good point, but on the negative side the government can not take any drastic steps that might actually be good for the country. Case in point – the drama over the nuclear deal. Besides, each minister in such coalitions is thinking mainly about his party, not the government as a whole, because it isn’t really a team.

    The biggest reason i am losing sleep (and hair) these days – our votes really don’t mean anything. I may be voting against one party, but eventually that party might form an alliance for the guy i voted for. The voter is felt feeling utterly helpless and stupid.

    Coalitions are fine if they are announced before the elections, but if the coalitions move around once the results are out, if defeats the entire electoral exercise.

  23. AV, I see your point on distribution of wealth and raise you another. While I do agree that this is an important concern, ultimately, as we’ve seen with the Gujjars and the recent AP Congress party’s moves, these regional/caste outfits end up focusing on reservations. As we’ve seen in “the creamy layer” OBC reservation debates, these have by and large begun to harm the greater debate on development and empowerment.

    As for treatment of dalits, I absolutely agree that the violence that they have been facing in villages is deplorable and must be tackling. But voting for parties like the BSP or neo-luddite ones like the Samajwadi party end up sending the country back to the stone age. Mulayam Singh Yadav is actually advocating an end to computerisation and english education…is that really going to achieve a fair distribution of wealth or destroy it?

    While I do agree that it is important to balance regional interests to make sure distinct groups don’t feel marginalized, at the same time this decentralization is hurting the country when it comes to security (have people already forgotten all the blasts last year that led up to Mumbai?). And security, thanks to regional parties like the Samajwadi Party, setting aside the obvious Congress contribution, has now been equated with vote bank politics. Minorities should not be demonized under any circumstances–but that does not mean a complete abdication from fighting terror, an absence of national legislation, or federal security architecture. The United States has done an admirable job of protecting its muslim minorities from such demonization while simultaneously protecting itself from attacks.

    Just look back to Amar Singh’s declarations during the Batla House encounter. The country doesn’t even have a counter terror strategy according to national security commentators like Bharat Karnad. Also, see how conveniently the Samajwadi Party jettisoned its position on the nuclear deal because it suited them? They became “open to being convinced” and were “educated by Kalam on the deal”. Hmm, how timely since the UPA was able to make all those CBI cases filed against them magically disappear! This is what happens when you have regional satraps engaging in horsetrading that impacts a country’s sovereignty and security simply because their selfish short term political interests dictate as much. So no AV, I don’t think I’m overstating it, I think you’re underestimating it.

    For those who are interested, here are some decent articles covering many of these points about the political system and more by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, head of the Center for Policy Research in India

    http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-elections-have-little-to-do-with-who-will-be-our-pm/434523/1 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/identity-markers/443798/1

  24. Hmmm, time is of the essence here and I don’t want to hijack this thread to turn it into a discussion about international relations but just to respond to your points Satyajit briefly:

    1) Bangladesh – oh yes, I agree with you here but this crisis is going to put enormous strain on on Bangladeshi society and cause a lot of disruption. It will be a trauma on an existential level and while some Islamist groups will try to take advantage of it and will need to be countered I can’t see much coming out of this since there will be no alternative but to reach an accomadation with India and they will have little or no chance of success.

    2)Pakistan – yes, but the army far outnumbers and outguns the Taliban, they will not surrender power easily if at all. The Taliban number barely 10,000-20,000 fighters; it is one thing to run things in the NWFP where they have a strong social base and links with the local population; quite another to go to Punjab where they are a foreign element, different ethnic group and will be regarded as outsiders and try to run things there. We are quite a way aways from an Iranian situation in 1979 where there actually was an Islamist revolution aided and supported by most sections of society. Any open confrontation with the Pakistani army will result in the Taliban being cut to pieces; which is why they will rely on guerrilla tactics and avoid engaging the army openly unless forced to on their home territory. The army will bide its time, since it hasn’t given up hope of using the Taliban in the future and it sees little need to confront and engage in a bloody fight that will lead to significant causalties and that most of the population, while not pro-Taliban, regard as a war for American interests.

    3) China – it is difficult to predict what will happen here. China has held back from supporting Pakistan at key points in time whether we are talking 1971 or Kargil and has allowed Pakistan to be humiliated militarily; something that Pakistani military planners did not think it would do. So I wouldn’t overstate the Sino-Pak relationship; it has also refused to bail out Pakistan from the most recent economic mess Islamabad is in, forcing it to go back to the US and Western creditors. Personally, I think China’s internal problems are/will be much greater because they don’t have mechanism to resolve them effectively under the current system. And as for the “bare branches” theory, that is excessively deterministic and if true our neighbours should start to panic because in a few decades we will have more unmarried men than China. In anycase, any rivalry will need to be based on a healthy population and a strong economy and we are far behind China on this score and won’t be able to compete unless this improves.

    The general point about politics; I would say my point is that there is no clear conception of the greater good much less a desire to embrace it. Some of the figures you mention such KPS Gill are hated by wide sections of their own community so how they can somehow appeal across boundaries is beyond me; Shourie is smarter and better but his works on Ambedkar tell me that he is a political idiot who would stand no chance have a wider appeal. The problem here is that these people speak to very specific constituencies and their appeal outside middle-class drawing rooms will be limited. If I was a Dalit labourer being under daily threat of being beaten up by the local thakur landlord or an adivasi being harassed by the forest department and living under the threat of being evicted from my home to make way for some industrial project; it is not hard to see why populist demagogues like Mayawati and Shibu Soren appeal more than Shourie with his trickle-down theories of growth. People like Shourie simply can’t communicate in the same language as large parts of the electorate and have no vision that can include them effectively or appeal to them politically. None of the figures you cite would be able to win an election off their own popularity without a relying on one of the major parties to back them. The problem is that those figures who can bring their own problems. However, this is more a disagreement about what “ought to be” rather than “what is” so it isn’t really applicable to any empirical understanding of Indian elections, as you can’t derive an “is” from an “ought” unless you happen to an aspiring politician; in which case, this will be the very least of your problems.

    I disagree with you in your analysis of regionalisation as a weakness; as av has pointed out regional parties have not been interested very much in foreign policy issues and have had little impact on them since their interests are more local. In a coalition govt there is nothing to suggest that they play a role that makes India prey to external threats; with the partial exception of the Tamil parties and this is a specific problem that can’t be extended to other parties. If there is a complaint against regional and caste parties in this regard it is simply that they don’t really have a view/vision on this area as such. I also disagree with your view on why India got colonised but that is a separate discussion.

  25. Huh, Rob/Yoga Fire; I have tried to reply to your points but SM won’t accept my comment text for some reason. When I work out what I am doing wrong I will post my comments.

  26. The regionalization of indian politics is actually a big step forward, its the way for 70% of the country to participate in the national life. And if their goals seem trivial or selfish, well, thats the way those groups see it right now. It may be painful to see the low level of education and policies of a Mulayam Yadav or the obstructionist agenda of a Mamata but these are far from irrational people. Varshney’s article (cited above) is totally right on the money there.

    There is a need for an education process, of a ferment in which professionals get more involved with the different regional/caste parties and help create a different dynamic. I think we are also starting to see that happen in this election but in a small way.

    There is no other way forward for a country like india where diversity and multiple viewpoints are so widespread since the beginning of recorded history. When people feel close to the state, feel that the state means something for them, only then will they fight for change and (not irrelevant) fight for protecting the nation. We have the examples of the earlier tamil alienation or the punjab insurgency as counter-examples; where an overly centralized state manipulated things or was inflexible and harsh. Similar thoughts apply to north-east india, where there are even more diversities – a bit different from the “mainland”.

  27. Giridhardas has no clue. Elections nowhere and never in the world’s history have been purely “about ideas”. One would think he would at least consult the electoral research done in the past 70 years or so before making his inane observations. He seems to have been taken in by the rhetorical bullshit that politicians in the older democracies have learned to sprout to hide real agendas. I mean elections are always first and foremost about power. In the post hundred years or so, more and more policy spaces have been taken outside the electoral arena (take as example control over money, or financial policy in general which is never directly voted on in most countries); and this has been a secular trend. In that sense even Varsheney’s observations can be applied to–I would guess–most democratic societies in the world today. What is somewhat different in India is that you observe the same trends and tendencies, only in a very poor and unequal society and hence the particular manifestations of similar processes appear novel. And since there are many more poor people, and moany more identities in India, the distributive pushes and pulls are highly exaggerated.

  28. Google, Hindustan Times, and several NGOs have come together to create the Google Lok Sabha Elections 2009 page at http://www.google.co.in/intl/en/landing/loksabha2009/

    It is still in its early phase, but offers some good basic information on candidates by constituency. Not sure how many voters will be using this to help them decide, however.

  29. Satyajit,

    I may be being dense here, but I can’t follow your train of thought. We’re talking about external threats right? Are any of the regional parties cutting our defense spending, making a fuss about how we treat Pakistan, or doing anything else that concretely affects our IR? You’ve mentioned our lack of a counter terrorism plan. Do you have some reason to believe the Congress or BJP was pushing one before the Mumbai attacks but was blocked by smaller parties? As I said before, the majority of regional parties have no interest in foreign policy. They may use support for a foreign policy initiative as a bargaining chip from time to time, but it’s a chip they usually give away lightly. How are they the obstacle to strong IR? Far as I can tell, the incoherence of our administration has more to do with the incoherence of our administrators than the parties they belong to.

    The articles you linked make some good points on identity politics and the consequences. I find it troubling too. But in the specific case that you’ve brought up – external threats – i don’t think it’s particularly relevant.

  30. Janeofalltrades, why don’t you do a “guest blog” special interview with him for Sepia Mutiny. I’m sure several of us readers, diasporic Indians, would like to present some questions

    .

    Actually we are all in wait mode, in Mumbai they won’t find out for another few days who on. Right now it’s mostly chaos, too early. I think I’ll have lots of questions for him if he wins or loses. Right now our only conversations are laced with too much goofiness as he’s probably trying to blow off some steam with someone not from there.

  31. AV, i think the point about the Samajwadi party pretty much sums it up. The nuclear deal was something which some parties said compromised India’s sovereignty and independence and other parties countered by saying it was important for energy security. Now on such an issue which weighs so heavily on the future of all Indians, should a political party so easily allow for its decision to be bought off to the highest bidder? That’s essentially what happened here. The Samajwadi Party even said the deal was anti-muslim, but quickly did a volte face when the Congress promised to make all those inconvenient cases disappear. So if the deal indeed compromises Indian sovereignty and security, the SP essentially sold out for this favor. Therein lies the external threat and the relevance to IR: policy not based on strategic thought or national interest, but petty parochial favors.

    Also, this support was not given “lightly” since the SP support clinched the Parliamentary Majority for the UPA. Hope this answers your question.

  32. To be frank, I have always been pretty annoyed by India coverage in general by the NYT correspondents—Somini Sengupta and Anand Giridharadas. It is usually simplistic, often bothering on ridiculous.

    The disclosure part done with, Anand seems to be confusing his inability to listen to a lack of ideas. In India, the biggest ongoing issue today is to how best to accomodate various groups of people with myriad interests.

    Anand is a few decades behind today, when we had larger than life figures with “answers” to easily posed questions like “how to root out poverty” (Nehru and Indira)—and we all know the unmitigated disaster the answers were. The lesson learnt today is that there is no blanket statement/question you can make about India which remains at least superficially true/relevant everywhere. Add to it, there is little inclination in India to be uniform to conform to the European notion of nationality.

    Therefore, while the voters do get interested by some big shots—the Gandhi family or Advani or Modi—at the end of the day, it is your very local interests that matter. Even questions at the national level are a culmination of local questions—local meaning a combination of geography/income level/profession—things like foreign policy aren’t so high on the election list yet because there is a broad consensus among political parties.

    A short cut to understanding the local questions is the caste/region combination. People’s interests are compartmentalized by the caste and region they belong to, since it is largely true that people of one caste in a particular region have similar economic and social condition. There are people who want a discourse independent of caste—but for political parties, it is the best of way of understanding what issues matter in their constituency. The knee jerk way of seeing caste is as a down and out structure for oppression of people, and therefore such a view ignores any ideas that are pitched in this framework.

    So, to understand what is happening, you have got to listen to the brusque and racous comments peddled in rallies in India. In some regions, the issues are small—a neighborhood school or farms. In some states, it is balancing agricultural interests with runaway urban growth. In some states it is infrastructure. In others, it is minority rights.

    It is not for me or Anand or Amardeep or any of the several participants here to tell the voters what they should want. More importantly the lack of easy to digest soundbites doesn’t mean lack of ideas. Look at the steady enfranchisement of every group of people today—dalit, women and even hizras in some parts. From a constitutional point, look at the evolution of a flexible federal structure through coalitions, while retaining a broad consensus in major issues. To me, they are pretty remarkable ideas—just because no one shouted “Yes, we can” doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything.

  33. Conrad,

    1. Bangladesh- Accommodation? Really. I don’t think you’ve been reading at all about bangladeshi migration to the northeast or to w. bengal and how the change in the demographic balance is being leveraged by islamists. There are now 40 million illegal bangladeshi migrants migrants, and if you don’t think there’s a powder keg developing there, I’m afraid you’re in denial, my friend

    http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/29/stories/2008072960591400.htm http://www.dailypioneer.com/168047/The-death-throes-of-minority-Hindus.html http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded_files/paper1484.html

    1. Pakistan/Taliban- I think you’re just ignoring the facts here. Why do you think both Musharraf and Kayani reached peace deals with the Taliban? It’s because 20% of the Pakistani army consists of ethnic pashtuns (i.e. the very people who form the core of the taliban). These soldiers were openly deserting because they didn’t want to fight their kinsmen. So there’s your first reason why the Taliban could subsume Pakistan. The second, which you also ignored, is that the mid ranks of the ISI and the Army now consist of people who openly identify with Taliban ideology. It is not just a means to an end, like it is for the preceding generation. It is the end.

    http://southasiaanalysis.org/papers32/paper3161.html http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/apr/20taliban-vows-to-enforce-shariah-across-pakistan.htm http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/feb/13guest-taliban-spreads-into-pakistans-heart.htm

    3.China-Really? Held back? I don’t think you’re all that familiar with military history but that was the whole reason why Indira Gandhi wrapped up 1971 in 2 weeks rather than prolong it to break up Pakistan–the implicit Chinese threat that it would not tolerate such a move. And Kargil? Yes of course they didn’t get involved, because right now their focus is on accruing as much comprehensive national power as possible rather than getting bogged down supporting their crackpot client state every time it needs to get bailed out. It instigates Pakistan knowing full well that the US will have to clean up the mess, which is what it did. India has recourse to unemployed men through its democractic system. China does not and its state legitimacy is derived from economic benefit. If those benefits dry up so does support for the state. What happens then? So let’s not be glib here.

    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64832/robert-d-kaplan/center-stage-for-the-21st-century http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2207681/posts http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=2ed476f4-f590-4d36-ac76-f4137331b25a

    Please read some papers by strategic thinkers, it might save us the hassle of these long posts debating over the validity of long-accepted facts within the IR community.

    No sense of national interest? I think you really need to broaden your newsources. All these thinkers and others have broadly defined the imperatives needed to offer a safe and secure strategic environment so that india can develop itself, its people and rid itself of poverty. That you have no “conception” of this greater good does not really help your case here.

    Umm, you also neglected to mention the fact that KPS Gill was the Sikh Chief of Punjab police who was responsible for defeating Khalistani terror groups. That he would be vilified by supporters of Khalistani terror would be obvious to even a layman, but that he is an Indian hero should be equally obvious as well. And you really shouldn’t be branding people like Arun Shourie as idiots when your own grasp of IR and politics here is so tenuous. No one’s talking about Shourie as Indian PM, so please stop erecting strawmen. As to the point about dalit oppression, it is something that has already been addressed earlier in comments. It is absolutely a stain on the conscience of the country, but voting for the BSP hasn’t changed it. Real change comes from enacting legislation to counter these hate crimes and by funding a more professionalized police forces to enforce those laws. That’s something that neither a BSP nor a Samajwadi Party (which actually encouraged many of these crimes) will ever do. So rather than engage in sophistry about what is rather than what should be, I think we should simply focus on the facts. In the security environment that India faces, maharashtra for marathis movements, tamil nationalism, and the assorted terrorist groups in the north east only hurt the country. They do not help them. Endearment to the state is developed by reconciling regional interests with national goals, but you don’t need corrupt regional parties that sellout their support to the highest bidder or that constantly threaten secession to accomplish that. And please, don’t tell me that India is just “an invention of the british” so regional parties are needed for each regional nationality…

  34. conrad, excellent points and i appreciate your polite comments in the face of wry’s patronizing remarks even as he indulges himself in circular logic.

  35. Satyajit, Good effort. I wish I had the time to write more, but sufficient to say that I share your views.

  36. circular logic.

    Circular logic? You keep using that phrase my friend. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    Inconceivable!

  37. Circular logic? You keep using that phrase my friend. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    Inconceivable! KPS Gill was the Sikh Chief of Punjab police who was responsible for defeating Khalistani terror groups. That he would be vilified by supporters of Khalistani terror would be obvious to even a layman, but that he is an Indian hero should be equally obvious as well

    Enough said. anyways, the crypto sympathies and history blind analyses of a certain cadre of commenters here are quite boring.

  38. Enough said. anyways, the crypto sympathies and history blind analyses of a certain cadre of commenters here are quite boring.

    Crypto-sympathies? Are they sympathizing with concealment? And what’s history blind about it? You keep throwing out accusations without actually justifying what you’re trying to say.

    I still don’t think you understand what “circular reasoning” is. If there is anything circular about that snatch of text you quoted I don’t see it. Maybe you can try actually justifying your point instead of saying “Enough said” and piling on still more unsubstantiated invective as if that helps prove your point?

  39. Too much ethnic/regional infighting in India–how is this going to resolved through democracy? The more I look into this in detail, the more pessimistic I get. I’m betting that Sri Lanka becomes a sort of “off-shore” Hong Kong/Singapore-type operation for India–it is (and my family is not from there, though my mother is (Indian) Tamil!) awfully nice to visit/calm/reasonable in comparison to just about anywhere in India (or Dubai–ughh!) other than some of the mountain areas like Shimla. . . .China has too much political risk to make me feel secure–going to be a big upheaval there at some point, based on history/human nature. . . .Of course, commercial real estate is already kind of pricey in Colombo–I am coming late to this view–damn!

  40. Satyajit, I see what you’re saying now, but I still have to disagree. Yeah, they add a political cost to the equation by engaging in trading, but that’s true of all parties on most policy, foreign or otherwise. Your view on trading is somewhat idealistic. Political capital is traded. That’s how it works. The negative in the example you gave is not that they traded, but that they traded for personal gain. If they had asked for funding for schools, it’s perfectly legit. If you don’t agree with this, what does the deal say about the Congress? In an analogous argument, we could use the same example to say national parties don’t give a damn about the establishment of a fair legal system and are only concerned with grandiose visions of becoming a world power. The argument doesn’t hold up. The debate should be on the items being traded.

    On the nature of the policy itself, if they sell themselves to the highest bidder, they are effectively making themselves passive players in the formulation of foreign policy. Note I’m saying formulation, not implementation. The policy position itself in your example was still determined by the Congress. We didn’t pass a half assed version of the nuclear deal. They got what they wanted. Being passive is not ideal, but not actively a negative. Also, on initiatives that clearly benefit the country, they don’t have the leverage to be a pain in the ass.

  41. I guess that I have no clue about Indian politics–I’m an AB(C)D–it seems to me that India is the only country in the world that would take a major and violent hit on its financial capital by thr governmental organ of another state (i.e., ISI/LeT) and do absolutely nothing to respond. This does not encourage any reason to invest money there. Hit me again, please, I am a wimp! I’m putting my money into Bangkok/Tel Aviv/Brazil–I guess my parents were onto something when they left India 30 years ago. . . . really sad and pathetic.

  42. Satyajit; I think you take a very narrow view of affairs and also seem to have made some effort to deliberately misunderstand what I said.

    1) I have lived in Bangladesh for a few years and half my family lives in Kolkata so I do have some idea about what is happening in this region. My point was a longer-term one, which was that if Bangladesh collapses as an independent state, it will put severe strain on any notion of a Bangladeshi identity. Islamism will attempt to step into this vacuum but I don’t think it will succeed, particularly given the dependent position such ecological refugees will be in vis-a-vis India. I am not saying there won’t be any problems; but do I see some existential threat to India, er no.

    2) Your points on Pakistan are just wrong. Islamicisation of the army is hardly new; it had started in the early 80s by which time a significant section of the junior ranks consisted of officers with these sympathies; Zia was far more a hard-line Islamist than his successors since, yet in terms of policy he was much more of a realist. The ISI has been penetrated by such a section for at least a decade now; there is nothing new that you are saying here. And where is the evidence that Pak soldiers have deserted the army? The Pak army for all its faults is a highly professional force; I would like to see some strong evidence for these kinds of claims. News articles and op-ed pieces by people who have never been to Pakistan much less the NWFP to see what is actually happening on the ground is no substitute. We no longer live in the age of Babur when a few thousand mounted central Asian warriors can stroll over, defeat/dissipate a larger army and then take over an entire nation. It will take much more than that. Either way events will prove one of us right/wrong.

    3) The Chinese threat was there in 1971 but didn’t play much part in Indian war-planning – the war aims were limited to winning the campaign in the Eastern theatre and liberating Bangladesh. There was no intention to “break-up” Pakistan in the West only the die-hard Pakistani nationalist and idiot Indian nationalists believe this gibberish; neither Indira Gandhi nor her generals were so stupid to believe that this could be achieved. I don’t think the Chinese are anywhere near as complacent about what the US will do as you seem to imply and as for the unmarried men – ARE YOU SERIOUS, what the hell does having the vote have to do with not being able to find a partner? You have some very weird ideas about life, it you think that men will be compensated for lacking married life simply by being able to vote every five years. My earlier point stands, if the dubious “bare branches” theory is to be believed, India will be in as much trouble as China.

    4) Re Gill – the reason I didn’t mention Gill was because I assumed everyone here would know his history and his role. People like me lived through that period and it was a bad, bad time all round; especially if you moved around in Punjab-Haryana for work. I won’t say too much about Gill or the conflict because it is a separate issue; unfortunately I say what I say with regret since I am a strong opponent of the Khalistani movement and Sikh separatism but between my Sikh friends and I, there is a gulf of understanding on this issue as I can never quite sympathise with them on the views they hold. The vast majority of Sikhs I have met and known, while not being supporters of Sikh separatism, were strongly opposed to the policies of the central govt at the time and absolutely detest Gill. This is pretty much a fact whether one agrees with it or not. I think you are slightly delusional about the strength of feeling on this score; I was as well, till somebody told me to see whether I could find any Sikh that would have a bad word to say about Satwant Singh and Beant Singh; I was quite shocked to discover that my colleague was right and I did not find any such figure. Those of us who are non-Sikhs have totally underestimated the degree to which there is still a lot of bitterness on this issue. In anycase, Gill was imo a far inferior figure to Julius Ribeiro who actually put in place the strategy that would destroy the militancy; as a police officer and an analyst Ribeiro was much greater than Gill; had his warnings been heeded at the time then subsequent events could have been avoided but this is another issue which I will not go into here.

    5) Re: Shourie – where did I say that Shourie should be a PM candidate. My point was that Shourie couldn’t win an election off his own bat to save his life at the parliamentary or state level without the support of a major party. Even divisive figures like Modi, Mamata Bannerjee, Laloo, Kalyan Singh etc. Can do this. Shourie is much beloved of the conservatively inclined sections of our middle-classes; which is fine as it goes but this won’t win you an election; except perhaps at a municipal level. He is a political idiot because slagging off people like Ambedkar, alienates something close to 30% of our population; his views on Muslims, Christians, Mandal etc. Ensure that well over 50% of the general population will view this figure with hostility. In a FPTP democracy what kind of serious politicians slags off/alienates 50% of the electorate and then hopes to win an election? The man is a political idiot. He should stick to giving lectures on the IIT circuit, since with this kind of attitude he isn’t serious about politics.

    6) I never said that “India is an invention of the British” that is a stupid comment and saying; I simply said that I don’t think that internal divisions was why the British succeeded in colonising India. This internal weakness arguments is always trotted out to try and suppress various different political articulations of Indian identity. The simple fact of the matter is that there isn’t a single Indian identity that can easily fit everyone and trying to hegemonies one – like by imposing Hindi as a national language is a stupid course of action which will be resisted by the majority of Indians who don’t accept it.

    As for your claims about “well-accepted claims in IR thinking” I find this amusing. A number of my colleagues from university are now faculty members in various US, UK and Indian universities in Poli-Sci and IR and they can’t agree on any consensus of the national interest, so I am surprised to find that you have. The assumption that all groups will win equally if some magical course of action is pursued is a fallacy; depending on what path you take, some groups will do better than others and some groups will do worse. There will always be losers in any course of action – telling them or expecting them to suck it up because it is in the national interest is a bit like the Stalinist planners who thought that workers could be encouraged to be Stakhonovites by just doling out medals and commendations. It didn’t work then and it sure as hell won’t work now.