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Framing state-level electoral politics
An introduction
India for a long time has been hailed worldwide for being a successful democracy. Its success, however, is being viewed and judged primarily in its mini-malist form, encompassing nothing but a multiparty system, periodically held free elections, high levels of participation, and contestation that result in the peaceful and regular transfers of political power on a periodic basis. As a ânewâ democracy, India has an uninterrupted history of holding free elections over more than seven decades now (even the emergency imposed in the mid-seventies did not disturb this, it only delayed it for a year).1 In its seven-decades old democratic career, the country has been witness to 17 Lok Sabha elections and nearly 400 Assembly elections, not to mention the countless local bodiesâ elections which have got their own salience after the seventy-third and seventy-fourth constitutional amendment (Kumar, 2019 c, p. 1).2
India has become a far more representative democracy in recent decades, as demonstrated by increased level of participation and representation. The impressive size and scale of social and cultural identities along the regional lines have contributed to the presence of political parties of different hues, each having distinct claims to represent these identities. It is not only the sheer number of parties but also the variety of these parties in terms of their ideologies, the social and spatial support base that easily makes Indian democracy akin to âan electoral laboratoryâ. Adam Ziegfeld (2016) considers India ideal for studying party systems in comparative mode on two grounds: First, India is comparable to western democracies for having a âlengthy democratic history and record of free and fair electionsâ with its many parties, which are âshort-lived, non-ideological, highly personalistic, and poorly organisedâ, also compares with the party systems of the ânewâ democracies. Second, India also presents an âunparalleled settingâ to study the âpuzzling variationâ in the success of regional/state level parties as they âvary in their age, ideological orientation, and support basesâ (Ziegfeld, 2016, p. 6).
What has also impressed the political analysts is the sheer scale3 at which the peopleâs participation takes place in Indiaâs elections involving so many candidates from diverse social and economic backgrounds in the fray. Indiaâs electorates constitute one-sixth of the global electorates. Arguably, India qualifies to be considered ideal for studying an impressive range of elections-related issues like the electoratesâ attitudes and behaviour, manifestos and campaigns, and leadership models that these elections and contending parties throw up. Indian voters stand out for not only that the voters from the marginal social and economic background vote in almost equal percentage than the privileged voters unlike the western democracies but also there has been a sharp decrease in the gender gap and an increase in women turnout in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, especially since 2002, as per the election commission of India data (Kumar and Gupta, 2015, p. 8). Indian âexceptionalismâ also is reflected in the voting behaviour of the Indian voters as almost half of them firm up their voting choices even before the commencement of the election campaign thus underlining their political attentiveness (CSDS-Lokniti national election studies data). This is unlike the western democracies where âtime of vote choiceâ data reveal that an increasing number of voters are making their voting choices only after the start of the election campaign (Sardesai and Mishra, 2017, p. 84).
Speaking of leadership, India has had âmany more political leaders than other countriesâleaders who have won and lost elections, run and mis-run governments, and exercised the political imagination of their constituents in myriad other waysâ (Guha, 2010, p. 288).4 The list includes not only the national but also the other leaders who in their political life remained confined to a particular state or a sub-region within a state and yet were able to play a significant role at the national level (Kumar, 2019c, p. 265).5
Arguably, elections form the âcentral institutionâ of Indiaâs democracy (Lama-Rewal, 2009, p. 2). The centrality argument gets credence when one thinks in procedural/institutional terms. At a time when there is a perceptible trust deficit even for the constitutional bodies and functionaries (not to mention the statutory bodies), the Election Commission of India (ECI) has done fairly well to retain the confidence of the citizens. The ECI has been globally recognised for holding âfree and fairâ elections. Also, it has pushed successfully for electoral reforms (Kumar, 2019c).
Deepening trust deficit in formal democratic institutions along with lack of effective ânon-electoralâ democratic procedures, forums, and peoplesâ movements on the ground6 persuade some political analysts to even suggest that the meaning of democracy in India is getting âmenacingly narrowed to signify only electionsâ, as elections not only âlegitimise and authorise the democratic rule but does much more than thisâ (Khilnani, 1997, p. 193; Palshikar, 2013, p. 165).7 Connected to almost every aspect of the democratic polity in a significant way, elections in India carry âthe entire societyâs aspirations to control its opportunitiesâ to the extent that as the âsole bridge between state and society, they have come to stand for democracy itselfâ (Khilnani, 1997, p. 58).8
What has brought the institution of elections still closer to the citizens in the last three decades is the introduction of local bodiesâ elections as a result of 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments. It has added yet another level of competitive electoral system extending it effectively to the grass-roots level, making it much more inclusive and competitive.9 Arguably, local elections now held every five years in every state under the supervision have further strengthened and provided legitimacy to the basic framework of Indiaâs democratic regime (Kumar, 2019c).10
Not surprisingly, then, the study of elections,11 electoral system and electoral politics12 along with the study of parties and party system holds great significance13 in the study of Indian politics. Significant social and political upheavals taking place in India, having their impact over the electoral arena, especially since the momentous 1990s, has been of great interest to the analysts (Kumar, 2019 c).14
Given the vibrancy of electoral democracy in India, greater academic focus has been on the role of processes like politicisation, mobilisation and assertion involving socially and politically dormant groups.15 Academic attention has been drawn to the way the social basis of the power structure, especially in village India, has undergone a shift through electoral route (Yadav, 1999, p. 2393).
Focus on states
Sifting through elections related literature in India, one finds greater recognition and acceptance of the emergence of states as analytical units in the last three decades. States are being viewed as having emerged as the platforms where not only the electoral politics but the whole gamut of political and economic processes unfolds, which all have national impact (Kumar, 2017b, p. 277).
Why states have emerged as the preferred analytical units rather than election analysts attempting an âall-Indiaâ based election studies needs to be explained. A foremost factor that has brought focus on the state is the politics of identity taking the centre stage. The upsurge in identity politics has reconfigured the democratic politics of India in the last three decades in a significant way as diverse social groups in India have increasingly been politici sed and mobilised on the basis of social cleavages rather than on the basis of their common economic interests or ideology. There have been struggles around the assertiveness and conflicting claims of the identity groups, and of struggles amongst them, often fought out on lines of region, religion, language (even dialect), caste, and community. These struggles have found expressions in the changed mode of electoral representation that has brought the local/regional into focus with the hitherto politically dormant groups and regions finding voices. A more genuinely representative democracy in recent India has led to the sharpening of the line of distinction between or among the identity groups and the regions. These identity groups are sought to be collectively recognised and mobilised either on the basis of caste, tribe, language (script), or dialect. Almost all such social groups are confined spatially to a particular state or sub-region within it, especially after the reorganisation of the states on linguistic/ethnic basis undertaken in the 1950s and 1960s. So invariably, processes of politicisation /mobilisation/participation take place at the state/state sub-regional level, giving primacy to local/regional over national (Kumar, 2017 b).16
That this can be an important ground for undertaking political research on Indian states was recognised way back by Weiner (1968), much before the Rath Yatra, Mandal, and the Mandir happened in the 1990s. A pioneer in the discipline, Weiner had argued: âit (is) at the state level that the conflicts among castes, religious groups, tribes and linguistic groups and factions are played outâ. Inevitably, in recent decades, the greater level of recognition of constituent states in the Indian Union as the primary units of analyses has led to the emergence of state politics as an autonomous discipline. Even in the discipline of comparative politics, state-level variances have of late received much more focus in the discussion of themes like ethnic movements, party systems, developmental experiences, political institutions, and democratisation, unlike in the past when India was always referred to in cross-national perspective (Kumar, 2017b).
State level parties
What has also brought focus on the states as critical political spaces is the emergence of the state level parties in the last three decades.17 The sizable presence of state parties in the successive Lok Sabha and the frequency of coalition governments at the centre after the decline of âCongress systemâ18 has made âall-Indiaâ/national polity seem little more than the aggregation of the state level politics. The ascendancy of the BJP as the dominant party has not altered the ground situation much. What explains the electoral success of state parties in recent India?
First, it was the advent of the âpost-Congress polityâ19 that ushered in the âthird electoral systemâ. It was marked by fragmented/regionalised party system which provided the political space to the new political entrepreneurs/parties.20
Second, the incentive to set up state parties for the political entrepreneurs came from coalition/minority governments becoming the norm in the 1990s. Coalition governments were formed as a result of opportunistic alliances, marked by tough bargaining among political parties, either preceding the elections or after, and sometime even much after the government formation. With the strong-centre framework remaining largely intact, alliances pave the way through which the state parties hoped to influence decision-making process at the national level and also to bring resources to their respective states.21
Third, in its effort to become a polity-wide party,22 BJP especially after its 1996 setback23 entered into state-specific alliances with the state parties like JD (S), BJD, INLD, AGP, TDP, AIADMK, SAD, and Shiv Sena. To begin with it accepted to be junior ally. While these alliances helped the BJP, they also helped the state parties in confronting the weakened Congress and leaders to gain in stature at the national level.24
Fourth, the long-term ascendance of the state level/sub-state level parties,25 coinciding with an endemic decline of the Congress having ârainbow coalitional social support baseâ26 is to a great extent due to ongoing collectivisation27 and mobilisation veering around social cleavages.28 These processes have helped in the rise of state/sub-state level parties,29 a phenomenon now visible even in the âolderâ democracies with the long tradition of having only national parties in winning positions.30
Until recently, state parties, especially the âethnic partiesâ, succeeded more than the âpolity-wideâ parties in drawing support from the newly mobilised identity groups. Of late, however, even the BJP has successfully sought the support of the numerically weak marginal groups by holding festivals/resurrecting their community icons like in case of Uttar Pradesh.31 Following the state parties,32 it has targeted specially the castes/communities which have remained âsandwichedâ between the upper and middle/intermediate castes and the Scheduled castes. So the polity-wide parties including the Congress are no longer averse to play the identity card with impunity.
Fifth, as the state-based parties openly target and cater to the interests of a particular set of social categories, they show greater potential than the âpolity-wideâ33 parties in being able to activate voter linkages that are sectarian, ethnic, and populist in a clientelistic democracy like India. The state-level parties, particularly if they are âethnic partiesâ, gain by openly resorting to identity-based clientelistic politics. National/multi-state parties have to play âa coded ethnic card, invoking ethnic identities quietly in its selection of candidates but not openly in its identification of issuesâ, seeking the support of ascriptive categories through the âdistribution of patronage but never through the rhetoric of identityâ (Chandra, 2004, p. 26).
As a result, the state parties have better potential to create and retain a âcore social constituencyâ which in turn becomes a distinct âvoting communityâ.34 This politics of âvote bankâ more often than not gets them electoral dividend under the single plurality electoral system, especially if there is a multi-polar contest35 and also that it is a ânormal electionâ and not a âwave electionâ, a rarity now.36
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