Passionate politics: Democracy, development and India's 2019 general election

by Indrajit Roy (Editor)

Overview

Passions matter to politics. Yet, much of the work on passions in politics focuses on such spectacular events as social movements, civil wars and revolutionary upheavals, but ignores electoral politics as banal. The contributors to this book trace the importance of passions to electoral politics with a focus on India’s landmark 2019 General Elections which saw the decisive re-election of Narendra Modi as the country’s Prime Minister.

This book illustrates the economic, social and cultural processes that shaped political passions in India during the summer of 2019. The contributors compel us to take seriously the ‘structures of feeling’ in politics. Such an approach requires interdisciplinarity. Which is why the book brings together a stellar team of economists, political scientists, sociologists, historians and geographers to explain Modi’s resounding win.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526157737
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	01/31/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	594 KB

About the Author

Indrajit Roy is a Senior Lecturer in Global Development Politics at the University of York

Table of Contents

Introduction: Passionate politics in India today – Indrajit Roy

Part I: Fear, love and fake news
1 Ordinary conspiracy theories and everyday communalism: Hindutva on the Indian cyberspace – Amogh Dhar Sharma
2 People-led campaigns in the 2019 general election: A case study of #Academics4NaMo – Swadesh Singh

Part II: The emotive politics of Hindu nationalism
3 Neoliberalism and cultural majoritarianism in India – Ajay Gudavarthy
4 The BJP and the war on history – Shalini Sharma
5 The passionate politics of the Savarna poor – Indrajit Roy
6 Seeking humanist Hinduism: Education and new Gurukul coaching models of Hindutva
– Suryakant Waghmore

Part III: Love, hate and Kashmir
7 The historical roots of conflict over/in Kashmir – Sarah Ansari
8 This side of paradise: The rise, fall and decimation of regional politics in Kashmir – Shaswati Das
9 The fear of Indian settler colonialism and the battle for Kashmir’s soul – Ather Zia

Part IV: Women, gender and love
10 Love taboos: Hindus, Muslims and moral panics – Charu Gupta
11 Why is romance political? – Sneha Krishnan

Part V: What young Indians want
12 In pursuit of Parivartan: Youth agency and the 2019 general election in Sikkim – Mabel Denzin Gergan and Charisma K. Lepcha
13 What do young people want from elections? – Sneha Krishnan

Part VI: The economics of India’s passionate politics
14 Social oppression and exploitation of Adivasis and Dalits in contemporary India – Jens Lerche and
Alpa Shah
15 Two large shocks and a long-term problem: The economic performance of the Modi government,
2009–14 – Kunal Sen
16 Agrarian crisis, farmers’ protests and women’s assertion – Nitya Rao

Part VII: India tomorrow
17 The Modi government’s authoritarian project in India – James Manor
18 The 2019 elections and their implications for Muslim politics – Mujibur Rehman
19 Cementing emotions: The new reasoning of majoritarian politics – Gurpreet Mahajan
Index

Editorial Reviews

‘Departing from the conventional scholarship on elections, dominated by psephology and discussions of the real, imagined or mistaken interests of sociological groups, this innovative collection of essays focuses instead on the role of feeling, play and aspiration in political life. The result is a stimulating analysis of citizenship and nationalism in contemporary India.’
Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History, University of Oxford

‘At a time when politics in many national contexts is marked by heightened emotions of anger, outrage, paranoia, hatred and adoration, it has become imperative to give emotion due analytic value. This volume is an excellent example of what such a study could look like. Contributors from a variety of disciplines show how the outcome of the 2019 national elections in India cannot be explained by conventional metrics alone and require a recognition of the role that emotions play in determining political outcomes. This volume will be of huge interest for anyone interested in passionate politics!’
Mukulika Banerjee, Associate Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science

‘India's 2019 national elections have challenged the core assumptions of its post-1947 polity. We need a proper understanding of what exactly happened, how and why. A volume like this is hugely necessary. It is remarkable in its breadth of coverage and notable in its range of insights. It will advance our understanding in very significant ways.’
Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, Brown University

‘An engaging exploration of the passions and emotions – fear, awe, love, hate, anger, aspiration, anxiety, protection, care, trust – that suffuse politics. The unusual lens of the 2019 general election in India provokes an interrogation of standard assumptions about the rational voter, as well as reflections on the mutual imbrication of emotion and reason in shaping how political choices are made.’
Niraja Gopal Jayal, Avantha Chair in King’s India Institute, King’s College London

‘The emphatic, expanded support of India’s electorate for the incumbent Modi government in the general elections of 2019 has puzzled observers. Indrajit Roy gathers a diverse range of scholars to view these elections through the prism of emotions. The result is an engaging, vibrant, sometimes provocative, sometimes perplexing portrait of an electorate driven by an overwhelming but contradictory panorama of emotions, ranging from fear, hate and anger at one end to adoration and hope at the other. This is a valuable addition to our understanding of a time of tumultuous upheaval and change in India’s political landscape.’
Harsh Mander, author and human rights activist

From the Publisher