The Algebra of Warfare-Welfare

Description

Electoral democracy combines the ideas and practices of warfare and welfare, where both work in tandem as near synonyms. India’s robust electoral democracy exemplifies this combination in diverse forms. Critically analysing the 2014 Parliamentary elections beyond the seduction of immediacy and bare cold statistics, this book puts human subjectivity at the centre of election studies and, through an anthropological–sociological approach, makes lives—human and non-human, lived and unlived or unlivable—central to any understanding of elections and democracy.

Crafting a new, comprehensive approach, this volume looks at the 2014 elections in relation to the changing nature and forms of elections and democracy globally. Coming from multidisciplinary backgrounds, the contributors to this volume use ethnographic observations to open up a space for new theoretical and methodological reflections on the role of media in Indian elections, the shift to the right in 2014 and its consequences, the significance of traditional Hindu spaces such as the river Ganga in BJP’s victory, the role of gurus like Baba Ramdev, and the electoral choices available to and exercised by the minorities, among others.

About the Editors

Irfan Ahmad is an anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany.

Pralay Kanungo is professor of politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and fellow at Max-Weber-Kolleg, Erfurt, Germany.

Contributors

Irfan Ahmad,

Hilal Ahmed,

Bikramaditya Kumar Choudhary,

Patrick French,

Zoya Hasan,

Pralay Kanungo,

T.K. Oommen,

Sudhir Pattnaik,

Mohammad Reyaz,

Manisha Sethi,

R. Thirunavukkarasu

Table of contents

List of Figures and Tables

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Democracy and the Algebra of Warfare-Welfare

Irfan Ahmad

1. Democracy as Rumour: Media, Religion, and the 2014 Indian Elections

Irfan Ahmad

2. Modi and the Spectre of Terrorism: Crafting the Hindutva Icon

Manisha Sethi

3. Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Politics: The Baba Ramdev–BJP Partnership in the 2014 Elections

Pralay Kanungo

4. The Gujarat Model and the Right-Wing Shift in 2014

Zoya Hasan

5. Communal Violence, Electoral Polarization, and Muslim Representation: Muzaffarnagar, 2013–14

Hilal Ahmed

6. Does Space Matter in Electoral Democracy?: Analysing Mother Ganga’s ‘Call’ to the BJP’s Prime Ministerial Candidate

Bikramaditya Kumar Choudhary

7. Caste and Cultural Icons: BJP’s Politics of Appropriation in Tamil Nadu
8. Thirunavukkarasu
9. Hindutva’s Reach Out to Muslims in the 2014 Elections: A Historical Analysis

Mohammad Reyaz

9. Media, Corporates, and Democracy: Lessons from the 2014 General Elections

Sudhir Pattnaik

10. On the Ground: The Unfolding of the 2014 General Election Campaign

Patrick French

11. Unity in Diversity: Democracy and Manifestos in the 2014 Indian Elections

Irfan Ahmad

12. On Studying Elections and Democracy: A Conversation with T.K. Oommen
13. Thirunavukkarasu

Afterword

Notes on Editors and Contributors

Index