Ideology And Organization In Indian Politics

This book offers an in-depth study of right-wing politics in India by analysing the shifting ideologies of Hindu nationalism and its evolution in the late nineteenth century through to twenty-first century. The authors provide a thorough overview of the chronological evolution of Hindu nationalist organizational outfits to reveal how Hindu nationalist ideology has adapted in ways that have not always corresponded with the orthodox Hindu nationalist position. An examination of the overriding preference for Hindu nationalism demonstrates how it has flourished and continues to remain relevant in contemporary India despite being marginalized at the dawn of India’s independence. The book demonstrates that Hindu nationalism is a context-driven ideological device which is sensitive to the ideas and priorities that gradually gain salience. It also explores Hindu nationalism as a vote-catching device, especially from the late twentieth century onwards. Providing a nuanced analysis of Hindu nationalism in India as a constantly evolving phenomenon, this book will be of interest to researchers on Asian political theory, nationalism, religious politics and South Asian and Indian politics.

This text examines the immense changes that have occurred in Indian politics over the past decade and its impact on the Indian National Congress. The impact is most apparent in the changing fortunes of the Congress party, which suffered two major defeats in 2014 and 2019 elections, bringing the party's crisis to the front and centre of public debate. This book seeks to understand the reasons for these enormous changes by looking first at the underlying conditions that led to the decline of the Congress and, second, the challenges' both external and internal' confronting the Congress and, while doing so, estimating its impact on Indian politics and on the Congress.

Indian party politics, commonly viewed as chaotic, clientelistic, and corrupt, is nevertheless a model for deepening democracy and accommodating diversity. But if these perspectives are contradictory, they do have one thing in common: the perception of Indian politics as non-ideological in nature. In Ideology and Identity, Pradeep K. Chhibber and Rahul Verma argue that the Western European paradigm of what constitutes an ideology is not entirely applicable to many multiethnic countries in the twentieth century. In these more diverse states, the most important ideological debates center on statism-or the extent to which the state should dominate society, regulate social norms, redistribute private property, and accommodate the needs of various marginalized groups. Using survey data from the Indian National Election Studies (NES) and other studies along with evidence drawn from the Constituent Assembly debates, this book shows how education, the media, and religious practice transmit the competing ideas that lie at the heart of the ideological debates in India.

Ideology and Organization in Indian Politics examines the immense changes that have occurred in Indian politics over the past decade and its impact on the Indian National Congress. The impact is most apparent in the changing fortunes of the Congress party, which suffered two major defeats in 2014 and 2019 elections, bringing the party's crisis to the front and centre of public debate. This book seeks to understand the reasons for these enormous changes by looking first at the underlying conditions that led to the decline of the Congress and, second, the challenges' both external and internal' confronting the Congress and, while doing so, estimating its impact on Indian politics and on the Congress. More specifically, it looks at how important ideological debates provoked by the rise of majoritarianism, the Gujarat model, hypernationalism, the secular retreat, and the curbs and restrictions on the opposition influenced Congress. Exploring ideological shifts and organizational limits that shaped the decline of the Congress makes a compelling case for the significance of the Congress story in understanding the larger political transformation underway in India. The argument centers on the Congress party, but comparatively speaking, it has relevance for the experience of centrist and centre-left parties in other countries, which too suffered a decline in the context of the upsurge of populist nationalism and right-wing politics in the past few years. Analysis of political change in India in the past decade affords insights into the processes of transformation and polarization that grounded the Congress party and centrist parties in other countries as well.