Social cleavages and electoral competition in India

Given the great diversity in language, ethnicity, and caste in India, and the resulting millions of possible winning electoral combinations, why is it that in contemporary India we see large state-wide and inter-state political coalitions built around categories such as “Bahujan” or “Backward Caste” instead of thousands of separate caste parties competing at the regional or zila (district) level? This question is the focus of Christophe Jaffrelot's India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in India, Pradeep Chhibber's Democracy without Associations: Transformation of the Party System and Social Cleavages in India, and Anirudh Krishna's Active Social Capital: Tracing the roots of development and democracy. This review assesses how these works address the question of political organization and social cleavages in India, examining the differences in approaches and discussing what still needs to be addressed.     

Cultivating “success” and “failure” in policy: participatory irrigation management in Nepal

Introduced over a decade ago and considered largely successful by irrigation professionals, Irrigation Management Transfer and Participatory Irrigation Management (IMT/PIM) policies were recently reviewed and seen to have resulted in more cases of “failure” than “success”. Primary research on two IMT/PIM projects in Nepal, which were among the few “successes” in the assessment supporting a “failed” PIM, shows how such policy-driven evaluations, when defining success, overlook incongruities between policies, institutions, and the evolving dynamics around class, caste, ethnicity, and gender. Without exploring the dynamics of practice, the process of “cultivating” success and/or failure in evaluations provides little insight on how irrigation management works on the ground.     

Uncertain India? Deepening globalization,unanticipated consequences and the challenge of sustainability

ABSTRACT

Taken together, these essays are an eye-opener for those who still see India as a homeostatic society, trapped into caste and custom. The articles on transparency in public transactions, financial credit market reform, effect of the new, reformed economy on the leaders of business and industry and the general framework for understanding India’s “reform consolidation,” present different facets of a society on the move. They showcase how endogenous transformation interlocks with external stimuli and opportunities. This introduction is a succinct analysis of the course of India’s development in specific arenas, contradictions, and resilience of the general process of which they are a part, and, most important of all, the convergence of endogenous developments and exogenous conditions that have emerged as critical determinants of the durability of India’s globalization. However, thanks to India’s noisy but resilient democracy, the direction and pace of India’s globalization, locked into the clash of two paradigms, one drawing its legitimacy from the rhetoric of secularism and social justice and, the other, leveraging on muscular nationalism, deep cultural roots, and rapid corporate-led growth, remains uncertain.     

Democracy and the Recasting of Caste in India

The three books under review offer a fascinating account of how the processes of democracy and the practices of the modern Indian state have refashioned caste as an important feature of social stratification and self-definition. But the implication of the recasting of caste varies in the three accounts. According to Zoya Hasan, caste is an important marker of socio-economic backwardness and the policies of affirmative action that are based on this disadvantage should be extended to minorities. For Lucia Michelutti, electoral politics has refashioned caste into ethnic groups. The ethnicization of caste is premised on the horizontal solidarities of fictive kin groups. For Anupama Rao, the politics of dalit emacipation from caste atrocities has paradoxically exposed dalits to further acts of violence. Together, these books offer a compelling account of the formation of political subjects in modern India.     

Explaining recent increases in calorie intake in rural India: the role of social policy strengthening

ABSTRACT

During the past decade, considerable research efforts have sought to explain India’s “calorie consumption paradox”, namely, the coexistence of a decline in average per capita calorie intake in rural India alongside increased material living standards. Evidence from the most recent (68th) round of the National Sample Survey (NSS), released in 2014, however, indicates increases in calorie intake, notably among poorer income quintiles. This paper argues that the turnaround in these data is linked to the improved performance of pro-poor social protection measures. Analysis of data suggests a close association between states that have made the greatest improvements in social policy delivery systems, and increased calorie intake for the poorest quintile of rural populations. This conclusion supports wider international evidence on the importance of social protection strengthening for nutrition-sensitive economic growth.     

Does infrastructure facilitate trade connectivity? Evidence from the ASEAN

This paper explores the impact of infrastructure on trade connectivity among ASEAN and three Asian countries—India, China, and Japan. Our study is mainly motivated by the increased infrastructure investment and trade among these countries in recent years. The main results of trade network analysis include high trade density and interconnectedness among ASEAN, India, China, and Japan. There are specific “trade intensive paths” among the few countries in the group. It highlights the “export hubs” or main “suppliers of intermediate goods” in the region. Further, the paper analyzed the nexus between trade connectivity and infrastructure by applying the panel fixed effects method and Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood. Moreover, the robustness of the results is tested by estimating two-stage least square. Hard infrastructure, foreign direct investment plays a crucial role in bringing the nexus to trade connectivity. Reducing trade barriers and improving infrastructure quality are essential for deepening regional trade integration.

     

Film and Media Scholarship on Contemporary India: The Assemblage,the Narrative,and “Bollywood”

Reading the work of film scholars Anustup Basu, Amit Rai and Ravi Vasudevan together, this essay discusses contemporary film and media scholarship in India. It highlights the central differences between these works as pivoting on their research methodologies as well as the way each conceptualizes significant terms, namely, identity, ideology, hegemony, and assemblage. The essay shows that this scholarship proceeds along two routes: one eschews the primacy of the narrative and the concept of identity, focusing instead on the “assembling impulse” of the Hindi film, and the second is attentive to the axes that give form and consistency to the loose assemblages that define the Hindi film in India. As such, film scholarship also makes an argument about the shape of the social formation in contemporary India. While one mode assumes the newness of the contemporary period and argues for a looseness to its political assemblages, the other is invested in delineating what is new about the period and in tracing the hegemonic thrust that gives it shape.     

Soft power,strategic narratives,and state identity: Re-assessing India-Afghanistan relations post-2011

In 2011, India and Afghanistan signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement that delimited cooperation in economic, social, political, and cultural areas. It depicted the rise of Indian soft power influence. However, the extent to which India garners strategic influence in Afghanistan through soft power remains contentious. This article contends that India’s soft power effectiveness in Afghanistan post-2011 can be fully grasped only via the construction and reception of India’s regional power identity negotiated at the sites of: “civilization,” “democracy,” and “economic-military” enabling India to provide a regional leadership that can forward both India and Afghanistan’s mutual interests. Examining soft power via the constructivist-discursive framework of collective identity strategic narrative, this article compares India-Afghanistan relations in periods 2011–14 and 2014–17. The former formalized strategic partnership agreement and the latter marked continuation of the agreement albeit through domestic political transitions in both countries. This article demonstrates that the Indian soft power influence in Afghanistan between 2014 and 2017 has increased markedly.     

Challenges of Protecting India From Terrorism

The secular, pluralistic, ethnically diverse, and vibrant democracy that India has nurtured ever since its independence in 1947 has become the envy of many radical and extremist ideologies and religions that seek to bring in order through tools of fourth generation warfare like Jihad and “Proxy War.” Typical examples of such conflicts facing India are the ones being waged against her by Jehadi organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other proxy factions supported by the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence Agency. Despite a few pro-active measures instituted by the government of India after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, there is no clear counter-terrorism policy that has been articulated either in the form of a doctrine or white paper. If India has to dispel the image of being a “soft state,” it is imperative that the government clearly spells out its stand on terrorism.     

Defining the “queers” in India: The politics of academic representation

ABSTRACT

In the last 20 years, research and academic writing on “non-heterosexual” lives, identifications, and sexualities have developed considerably in India, in a context where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and queer politics have become more and more visible in the public sphere. When it comes to gender and sexuality, researchers are often activists, and scholarship is highly political. In particular, by documenting non-heterosexual lives, practices, and groups, social scientists participate in the construction of social categories that can be mobilized in the public sphere. Using both Pierre Bourdieu’s and Stuart Hall’s views on representation as a discursive process by which representatives shape the group they claim to represent, this article contends that social scientists are engaged in a “work of representation” when it comes to LGBT and queer individuals and groups. Yet, this process is not without tensions, as there is a deep contradiction between the making of an “object of study” that is spoken about, and the promotion of a political subject, who can speak for him- or herself. Drawing on a corpus of about 45 academic publications on LGBT and queer people and issues in the last 25 years, this article explores the contentious discursive formation of “LGBT” and “queer” as analytical and political categories.     

Arab Muslim Attitudes Toward the West: Cultural,Social, and Political Explanations

We utilize pooled data from Zogby International's 2002 Zogby, James. 2002. What Arabs Think: Values Beliefs and Concerns, Utica NY: Zogby International.  [Google Scholar] Arab Values Survey (carried out in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and UAE) in order to test for “cultural,” “social” and/or international “political” influences on Arab Muslim attitudes toward “Western” countries (Canada, France, Germany, UK, and USA). We find little support for “cultural” hypotheses to the effect that hostility to the West is a mark-up on Muslim and/or Arab identity. We find only limited support for “social” hypotheses that suggest that hostility to the West is predicted by socioeconomic deprivation, youth, and/or being male. We find the strongest support for a lone “political” hypothesis: hostility toward specific Western countries is predicted by those countries' recent and visible international political actions in regard to salient international issues (e.g., Western foreign policies toward Palestine).     

印度“补偿性歧视”的合宪性调适——兼论对我国的启示意义

印度宪法同时规定了实现社会正义的两条路径：一方面禁止基于种姓等事由的歧视,另一方面授权政府以＂补偿性歧视＂方式提升表列种姓、表列部族和其他落后阶层的福祉。近年来,补偿性歧视的政治化倾向和种姓身份逆向确定等问题在印度愈发突出,威胁到制度本身的存续。印度最高法院通过在中性的禁止歧视原则中嵌入反从属的价值取向和＂衡平-比例＂原则的适用调和了冲突的宪法利益。印度在执行补偿性歧视中暴露出的问题以及对不同宪法利益整合的思路为完善我国民族优惠政策提供了有益参照。     

India and the dialectics of domestic and international “land grabbing”: Historical perspectives,current debates,and the case of Ethiopia

International land “acquisition” or land “grabbing” has become a global phenomenon in which India plays an increasingly important role. While there is a critical domestic debate regarding land deals within India — especially pertaining to the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 2014 — there is practically no such debate regarding international land deals by Indian companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. By applying a two-level discourse analysis, this article argues that the land discourse within India can be understood as a strategy of exclusion. By linking land issues with questions of “development,” the discursive strategies of powerful actors lead to the exclusion of the arguments of NGOs and others opposed to the land deals from the discourse within India. This strategy of exclusion is then taken to the extreme with the strategy of securitization outside India: land deals are linked to “food security,” as the example of Ethiopia highlights.     

Consolidating democracy by containing distribution: “sandwich tactics” in Indian political development, 1936–96

How did Indian democracy avoid the fate of other Third World democracies that collapsed in the face of distributional conflicts, when such conflicts were in ample evidence in India? The traditional answer is that the inclusiveness of the Indian National Congress during the independence movement gave the party legitimacy after independence and allowed it to contain social conflict. This argument fails to account for the persistence of Indian democracy after the 1960s. This article suggests that the pre-independence Congress did not accommodate challengers from below as is commonly suggested, but rather outflanked them by championing still weaker groups further down the social ladder. This “sandwich tactic” has been used repeatedly by Congress leaders during successive crises and accounts for the party's long innings in power, its continued strength today, and, inter alia, the acquiescence of Indian elites in electoral democracy.     

Solidarity or hierarchy?: India’s identification with Africa and the postcolonial politics of race

The idea of solidarity between India and Africa has long drawn heavily from historical sources, including the anti-colonial legacies of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, and ongoing frustration with a hierarchical world order that subordinates them from international decision-making. In this article, I consider the historical ambivalence embedded within the ways in which India now identifies with and talks about “Africa.” I argue that elements of the Modi government’s political project is changing the meaning of India’s identification with “Africa.” After a brief theoretical discussion and a consideration of the historical context, I look at two recent examples in which India’s relationship with Africa was narrated: the 2015 India–Africa Forum Summit and the recent furor over attacks on African students in India. This has already caused upset between India and specific African states. Although still premised on shared resistance to hierarchy, there are signs that the idea of “India-Africa relations” itself can become a hierarchical discourse.     

美俄印欧的欧亚地缘战略对“一带一路”建设的影响

“一带一路”建设是中国以新兴发展中大国的姿态建设性参与全球秩序重塑的过程。在此过程中,“一带一路”与既定地缘政治格局中某些国家的利益和战略之间存在一定程度的冲突和博弈。为此,本研究试图从“一带一路”与美俄印欧版“一带一路”之间的互动关系中,考察美俄印欧基于各自地缘政治经济利益而制定的地缘战略,以及客观上所形成的地缘挑战,提出中国的应对举措。本文认为,源自于特朗普弱化美国国际领导责任的地缘战略,“C5+1机制”对“一带一路”并不具有反制的地缘战略效果;中俄互信固然达到了前所未有的高度,然则受地缘政治变化带来的地缘战略不定性的影响,不可忽视欧亚经济联盟与“一带一路”之间存在地缘利益失衡的潜在风险;印度“印太构想”等互联互通战略和“大国梦想”背后的地缘战略考量,势必削弱“战略对接”在人们预想中的相关积极功能;欧版“一带一路”反映出欧盟试图通过所谓的“可持续”亚欧联通战略提升在亚欧大陆话语权的地缘战略考虑,但其内部的认知分歧,使其无法摆脱中国对其“分而治之”的疑虑。     

Narrative and elucidating the concept of democracy: the case of Myanmar’s activists and democratic leaders

Narrative analysis has been widely employed in the social sciences. Yet there has been no systematic application of narrative theory to the study of how the word “democracy” is given meaning by political actors. Using the empirical example of the Burmese democracy movement in the lead up to the historic 2015 election victory of the National League for Democracy, this article argues that narrative analysis can contribute in unique ways to the interpretive task of “elucidating” the concept of democracy. Tracing plot and character construction within activist and aid worker stories about democracy in Myanmar, this study reveals three prominent and diverging narratives of democracy within and around the movement; a liberal narrative, centring on liberal democratic institutions and values, a benevolence narrative, focussing on the value of moral leadership and selflessness, and an equality narrative, highlighting the importance of cultural reform towards greater relational equality. Attention to these narratives has implications for donor “democracy promotion” strategies raising new questions about the role of formal institutions of democracy, the perceived source of “solutions”, and the impact on internal struggles within democracy movements.     

Too many enemies: Mobilization,marginalization, and political violence

Over the past decades, a pattern has emerged across the Islamic world of secular actors struggling to build sustainable social movements while Islamists show a higher success rate in doing so—a dynamic often accompanied by high levels of violence and little space for dialogue between actors from across the political spectrum. In this article, we illustrate the utility of social movement theory (SMT) in explaining the ability of some movements to mobilize en masse, while others become marginalized. Furthermore, we suggest that SMT is useful in understanding the processes that produce socio-political dynamics conducive to violent rather than non-violent tactics. Through a case study of Bangladesh, where in 2013 the secular Shahbag mobilization was derailed by a massive Islamist counter-mobilization, this article shows how movements not only capitalize on, but actually contribute to, shifts in cultural discourse through political maneuvering and long-term socialization. By anchoring their ideology in pre-existing religio-cultural imagery, Islamists have been successful in casting themselves as “authentic” defenders of Islam and their secular opponents as “atheists.” In such a socio-political context, the space for dialogue among the various political actors is severely limited and the impetus to employ violent tactics strong.     

马来西亚印度人社群研究——以印度人社群语言状况为例

马来西亚的印度人社群来自印度,以淡米尔语言群占大多数。印裔族群的内部差异相当大,可以从语言、宗教、社会地位、教育、种姓分别开来;也依来源地分成两大阶层：一为来自印度东南部的穷困劳工,二为来自斯里兰卡受教育懂英语的淡米尔人。本文拟从语言的角度,实地调查马来西亚老中青3个不同年龄层的印裔,探讨印裔的语言问题。研究发现,不论在社会或家庭里,马来西亚印裔的常用语言是淡米尔语,其次为英语和马来语。但淡米尔语的使用在逐代减少,而英语有慢慢取代淡米尔语的趋势。在政经文教条件的影响下,印裔族群语言态度开始改变,要维持淡米尔语为主的语言,情况并不乐观。     

Women on Wheels: empowering women through an innovative training and employment programme

Significant victories have been won due to the development sector’s engagement with gender inequality as a political project, but regressive shifts have also led to development being conceptualised as a managerial issue rather than as a process of social change. This article uses empirical research conducted in New Delhi, India with an organisation that trains and employs poor urban women as commercial drivers to discuss how an obsession with “cost effectiveness” and “scale” can delegitimise the valuable work of some organisations. This article encourages re-engagement with gender equality as a complicated social issue rather than as a technical-rational management project.