The ‘Modi Wave’: Behind the Results of the 2014 General Elections in India

Narendra Modi’s spectacular victory over Congress in the 2014 Indian general elections was made possible by many factors. However, the main and overarching cause of Modi’s victory was the process which, starting in 2009 with the backing of the Indian corporate sector, built up the image of Modi as a kind of fearless and unblemished hero who, having raised his home state, Gujarat, to an extraordinary level of economic development, was now in a position to replicate the same feat at the all-India level. ‘Modi’s legend’ first conquered the middle class’ imagination and, then, was spread among the masses and, transversally, among first-time voters by that same middle class, with the help of RSS volunteers. Thus, a juggernaut was created and deployed with devastating effects, not only against Congress but, as shown by the cases of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, against some of India’s strongest regional parties.     

“Security and growth for all in the Indian Ocean” – maritime governance and India’s foreign policy

ABSTRACT

In a March 2015 speech delivered in Mauritius, India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined what he described would be India’s vision for the Indian Ocean Region. Under the acronym, SAGAR or “Security and Growth for All in the Region,” five key points were elucidated. At the time, the speech was praised for articulating a proactive approach to the Indian Ocean and the various visits to, and agreements that followed with, littoral and island countries, appeared to confirm this. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which India has been able to deliver an agenda of security and growth for the maritime region. Despite the enthusiastic reception to SAGAR, the critique is often made that India is slow to deliver on the promises made as part of the country’s maritime and naval diplomacy. The paper highlights a selection of decisions and actions taken since 2015, which have contributed to maritime governance in the region and argues that there is a substantial change in the way SAGAR provides a framework for strategic action.     

International Relations Theory and Minimum Deterrence

ABSTRACT

India’s government under Narendra Modi represents a return to single party rule. This paper investigates whether and why single party governments in India differ in their extremity of foreign policies from coalition governments. It particularly focuses on how different forms of government influence the saliency, contestation, and enactment of national conceptions about India’s global role. First, I situate India within the academic debate regarding coalitional governments and foreign policy. I suggest that one reason why India challenges scholars‘ assumption is the missing link between partisan conceptions of India’s global role and their institutional representation. Second, I propose a role theoretical approach and argue that the process of self-identification, consisting of ego and anticipated alter expectations, conditions a state’s role set and extreme foreign policy. It is hypothesized that the nature of contestation of national role conceptions varies between factions and fractions because of the nature of India’s party system, as well as the relative significance of external others for India’s identity. Third, I examine instances of role-taking in the field of nuclearization and Sino-Indian relations. Findings suggest that contested role conceptions during single-party rule caused more extreme variances in international role-taking, while coalition governments proved to induce more complementary role-taking processes.     

Two States: A Comparative Analysis of Gujarat and Bihar’s Growth Performance Between 1981–2011

We examine the growth performance of two states, Gujarat and Bihar, whose economic turnaround under the leadership of Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar has received a lot of attention in the run up to the recently concluded national elections. We study if there are trend breaks in the growth rates in Gujarat and Bihar relative to the national average after these respective leaders came to power. We decompose the growth rates in these two states by sector, namely, agriculture, industry, and services, and try to ascertain where any potential growth spurt may have come from. We also look at the evidence on trend breaks in growth of real wages in these states relative to the national average as a first step to understand how growth may or may not have trickled down to the poorer sections.     

“东向行动”下印越合作新发展及其对华影响

2014年印度总理莫迪当选后将“东向”政策升级为“东向行动”政策,期望凭借印度在南亚次大陆的地缘优势,寻求南亚霸权的同时,向东扩展自己的战略利益。基于地缘政治和区域战略的需要,越南成为莫迪政府的“东向行动”政策的重要战略支持,两国不断推进多渠道的联系与交往,并逐步发展成为全面战略伙伴关系,在双边和多边层次上加强政治、军事、安全、经济等多方面的合作。尽管印越两国合作是基于战略和安全的现实需要,但由于两国均为中国邻国,且当前两国仍与中国存在着领土争端,因此在战略上相互借力,平衡中国在区域内的影响就成为两国发展伙伴关系的重要目标,印越两国在各领域的合作也在一定程度上对我国的周边安全环境造成了影响。     

Networks of Death and Militant Vegetarianism: The Mechanics of Communal Violence in Gujarat

This review essay examines two recently published books that explore communal violence in Gujarat: Ward Berenschot's Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State and Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi's Pogrom in Gujarat: Hindu Nationalism and Anti-Muslim Violence in India.     

Recent Political Developments in India and Their Effects

In March 2017,Narendra Modi led his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to victory in state elections,among which he gained parliamentary election of Uttar Pradesh (state in northern India),known as the weather vane of Indian elections.Back in 2014,the BJP had already won a simple majority in Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament),bringing an end to more than 30 years of coalition government.Now,the BJP is exhibiting stronger presence as a one-party-rule at both federal and local levels,with no counter-balance from the Indian National Congress,local parties,or left wing parties now or in the foreseeable future.This increases the likelihood of Modi's re-election as prime minister in 2019.Obviously,Indian political development is characterized by complexity,accidental factors and intrinsic logic,which will definitely exert great influence on the future of India.     

What’s Law Got to Do With It? Economics,Nation-Building,and Human Rights in India and Beyond

The review essay examines three recently published books: Eleanor Newbigin’s The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India: Law, Citizenship and Community, Narendra Subramanian’s Nation and Family: Personal Law, Cultural Pluralism, and Gendered Citizenship in India, and Yüksel Sezgin’s Human Rights Under State-Enforced Religious Family Laws in Israel, Egypt and India.     

The alluring voice/the allure of film (theaters): the formation of the voice in the Japanese cinema of the prewar period

Abstract

Kitada Akihiro provides a historical overview of film presentation as a transient business, its migration into dedicated cinemas, and the concomitant rise and fall of benshi film explainer culture, as silent film incorporating a narrative developed out of simplistic ‘moving pictures,’ only to be gradually replaced by ‘talkies.’ He does so by following the career of Tokugawa Musei, one of the most prominent benshi of the 1920s and 1930s, from beginning to end; in describing the changes in audience composition and expectations, he outlines the transition from the showman-like VOICE「声」 to the more ‘talkie’-like voice «声».     

Populism,ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics

Abstract

In an era increasingly defined by insecurity and populist politics, India has emerged as a forceful ontological security provider under the leadership of Marendra Modi. If ontological security is about finding a safe (imagined) haven, then ontological insecurity is about the lack of such a space in narrative terms. Drawing on Lacanian understandings of ‘the imaginary’ as something that can fill and naturalize this lack of space, the article is concerned with how memories, places and symbols of narrative identity constructions are used in populist discourse. More specifically, it attempts to understand the relationship between ontological insecurity and the imaginaries of populist politics in India. In so doing, it argues that the re-invention of ‘nationhood’, ‘religion’ and ‘Hindu masculinity’ along gendered lines has created a foundation for governing practices aimed at ‘healing’ a number of ontological insecurities manifest in Indian society. It specifically looks at how the Modi doctrine has formulated and expanded its foreign policy discourse into one that privileges populist narratives of nativism, nationalism and religion as forms of ontological security provision at home and abroad, but also how everyday practices can challenge such narratives, thus allowing different imaginaries of the Indian state.     

News constructs of customary identity versus democratic practice: the case of Lindiwe Dlamini and Mswati III of Swaziland

Abstract

If colonial Africa was governed through ‘indirect rule’ or ‘decentralised despotism’ (Mamdani 1996:8), its legacy remains surprisingly intact post independence. If the notion of the tribe lay at the heart of indirect rule and was effected by institutional segregation, such identities were discursively produced and sustained by being constantly flagged through a range of institutional structures in order to produce ‘willing subjects’ (Foucault 1977). The media has increasingly played a central role in flagging such identities as well as those that contest them, notably a civil identity.

This article examines how ethnic identity continues to be discursively deployed in opposition to democratic governance by focusing on one incident, namely the choice of the Swazi monarch‘s twelfth bride at the annual Reed Dance and its contestation by the bride's mother. The Times of Swaziland covered this dispute and provides an interesting case study. The analysis identifies how the contestations between customary and human rights discourses in this one African location are variously deployed and negotiated by the social actors in this instance, and it teases out the contradictions and tensions between them.     

Visual representation,editorial power,and the dual ‘othering’ of black men in the South African gay press: The case of Gay Pages

Abstract

This article considers some of the ways in which black gay men are marginalised within the queer community and have limited ‘visibility’ in mainstream queer visual culture. The formation of a minority within a minority (or the ‘other’ Other) is ultimately what the article sets out to expose. Thus, we argue that images of black gay men are far less ubiquitous than, for example, those of white, male and middle-class gay men. In order to illustrate this, a purposive sample from the South African gay men's lifestyle magazine Gay Pages is considered and critiqued. We argue that the visual mode of Gay Pages gives the impression of promoting a hegemonic gay male identity. This identity appears to be ‘natural’, but is in fact one-sided and stereotypical, as are most cultural constructions and representations. The narrow and limited representation of gay men endorses an exclusive, homogenous and inaccurate portrait of the queer constituency (in the minds of heterosexual and gay South Africans alike) and suggests the question that leads this investigation: If ‘belonging’ is articulated through the consumption of queer culture, what then of those queers who do not fit the ‘mould’ standardised by mainstream gay print media? This exploration of queer visual media deals not only with that which is frequently represented (white homomasculinity), but also, more significantly, with that which is not (black homomasculinity).     

Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz and the rebirth of the ottoman empire

For more than three decades Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz played a crucial role in the development of military relations between the German and Ottoman Empires. He trained and advised the Ottoman army, and commanded Ottoman troops in the First World War. He was a firm believer in the possibility of the Ottoman Empire's political and military revival, this belief reflecting his own conservative, militarist ideology. From 1898 onwards he was also a firm advocate of a German‐Ottoman alliance in a future war against Britain, arguing that Ottoman expeditionary forces sent against Egypt and India could deal mortal blows to Britain's world power.     

Spreading Hindutva through education: Still a priority for the BJP?

This article explores how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pursued its ideology of Hindu nationalism through educational reforms. It pays most attention to the reforms undertaken by the first BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, from 1998–2004. A key argument is that these reforms mirrored BJP’s ideology. The reforms were legitimized with reference to certain challenges facing contemporary Indian society, particularly the threats represented by value degradation and a weakening of indigenous traditions. I view such arguments in terms of sublimating all challenges to the cultural realm. Moreover, these reforms aimed to establish an education system based on a coherent, integrative framework, concurring with the ideological outlook of the BJP. In the final part of the article, I examine the current NDA regime and seek to explain why similar reforms do not appear to be high on Prime Minister Modi’s agenda. By doing so, the article sheds light on the question of Modi’s commitment to Hindu nationalist ideology. A major argument is that to Modi, Hindutva-inspired reforms of the education system collide with the promises made during his electoral campaign and with key elements of the political programs he has initiated so far.     

The problem of tatemashi in Murakami Haruki’s work: comparing The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and 1Q84

Abstract

This article investigates a problem that has been underexamined in Murakami scholarship so far, namely what I will call tatemashi (stacking), a method of novel-writing which Murakami Haruki used twice in his career, first in Nejimakidori Kuronikuru and later in 1Q84. In both cases, Murakami first published a shorter, two-volume version, but later stacked up the novel with a third volume. This article studies the various problems surrounding this writing method. I suggest that edits during the translation process of the two novels into English have made it impossible to detect why tatemashi was carried out. By studying the Japanese versions, I identify that a main reason for tatemashi to happen is the thrust of a storyline that calls for the development of a ‘smaller-scale’ story of personal self-discovery into a ‘larger-scale’ tale of commitment to an ‘other’.     

Comments (2) on ‘cultural differences in the behavior of terrorists’

This article reviews the development of security policy in Northern Ireland since the outbreak of the current ‘troubles’ in 1969. Following an examination of the three principal categories of actor directly involved on the state side ‐ politicians, civil servants and security agency personnel ‐ the problems accompanying the fust phase of security policy, from 1969 to the mid‐1970s, are discussed. Particular attention is paid to intelligence aspects of the situation. The second part of the paper is devoted to security policy as it has developed since the government's policy review of 1975–76. The re‐emergence of the Royal Ulster Constabulary as the primary security agency is described, together with what is called the ‘Hermonization’ of the force in the 1980s. The development of the police under Sir John Hermon (Chief Constable 1980–89) has reflected three main trends in security policy: Ulsterization, professionalization, and the de‐politicization of the force. The article ends with a consideration of the problems of the co‐ordination and accountability of the security forces, and notes that any purely security strategy in the province is doomed to failure.     

Incarnating a rhetoric of identity: Pat Robertson and the 700 Club

Abstract

The article analyses the American ‘Christian’ television talk show, the 700 Club, created by Pat Robertson. It suggests that Robertson has developed a sophisticated form of programming based on the creation of a participatory identity between the viewer, programme hosts and interviewees. This is based on the skilful combination of rhetoric and myths, understood in terms of narrative paradigms, supported by the active involvement of worldwide church-based support networks.     

Press-party parallelism: The Star's editorial position on the 1922 Miner's Strike

SUMMARY

Against the background of a theory about press-party parallelism the author of this article argues that the Johannesburg based newspaper, THE STAR, supported the use of political violence when this newspaper supported the government of the day. As an example he illustrates how THE STAR vigorously defended the strong steps taken by the Smuts Government against revolutionaries in 1922. This was at a time when THE STAR was associated with colonial control and mining interests. During the mine worker strikes in 1913, 1914 and 1922 THE STAR supported the government's use of military measures to suppress revolt, and identified ‘communists’ and ‘agitators’ as the primary force behind the strikes. Today the same newspaper opposes the government's arguments for strong measures against revolutionaries. According to the author the implications of his historical evidence are disquieting: they suggest that on occasion newspapers are so tightly linked to a political party and other interests that truth, balance and fairness are of secondary interest.     

Humanitarian crises and peace operations: a personal view of UN reforms during Kofi Annan's first term

Editorial Note: The editors, starting with this issue, will occasionally publish personal reflections of prominent practitioners in the Conflict, Security and Development field. These will appear in lieu of the Resources section of the journal. This first reflection is written by Martin Barber, who served as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Afghanistan in 1995–96, as Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996–98 and as Chief of the Policy and Advocacy Branch of the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs from 1998 to 2000. He was Director of the UN Mine Action Service from 2000 until his retirement in 2005. Martin is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Edinburgh.     

G. Johnson (Ed.) (2010). Peacemaking,Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880–1939. Essays in Honour of Professor Alan Sharp

He [Wilson] was more than just an idealist: he was the personification of the heritage of idealism of the American people. He brought spiritual concepts to the peace table. He was a born crusader.

Herbert Hoover

¹ 1 Herbert Hoover, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson (rev. ed. Baltimore, 1992) ix.

The issue of the Japanese plea for race equality at the Paris Peace Conference is generally seen as a secondary issue for American delegates. Most accounts see Wilson as being bullied into rejecting the proposal by the Dominion delegates — most notably Australia’s Billy Hughes. Analyzing his views on race and its intricate connection with immigration and examining his own and his advisers response to political allies and opponents at home and in Paris over these issues, this piece will argue that Wilson responded as much to domestic pressures as external forces in his eventual compromise with the Japanese in Paris.