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The Grassroots of
Democracy: Field Studies of Indian Election
Shah observes that it was Srinivas who thought of bringing out a book on electoral politics in order to highlight the distinctiveness of sociological methods and approaches. In all, this book has 19 essays on the parliamentary and Assembly elections that took place in 1967 and 1971. The contributors to the volume have taken up either a village or an urban neighbourhood for an in-depth analysis and showed why the 1967 and 1971 elections were marked as watershed in the history of electoral politics in the country, and how the reconfiguration of political forces began to take place during this time. The new political forces offered stiff resistance to the Congress at the time of 1967 elections. However, the contours of Indian politics began to change in 1971. The Congress once again appeared on the political scene with its new radical programme and socialist rhetorics. It claimed credit for the nationalisation of banks, abolition of privy purse, and carried out its election campaign with the ‘garibi hatao’ slogan. The contributors present rich ethnographic data to highlight the dynamics of electoral politics. The volume is divided into two parts—11 essays in the first part examine elections in 1967 and eight essays in the second part primarily deal with the 1971 parliamentary elections. Commenting on the general elections, most of the authors observed castes and other primordial loyalties as well as modern sources of power as crucial in influencing the decision of the electorate. They critiqued the view that universal adult franchise and secret ballot were incompatible with caste-based politics. The electoral battle in 1971 brought secular issues to the forefront like eradication of poverty, rural development, and agrarian reforms. These issues helped political parties in getting support along with the traditional loyalties of castes and communities. The contributors also brought to our notice how voices of the under privileged sections of the society, especially of the SCs and STs, became crucial over the years. In some states, e.g., Tamil Nadu, new political outfits came into prominence in order to represent their interests. The authors also noted that elections trigger off intense political activity both in the rural and urban centers. Electorates are not mute spectators of political events, they take active part in debates and discussions. Each party and its candidates are carefully evaluated before casting votes. Moreover, one gets to know a great deal from these essays about the emergence of regional parties in Indian politics, the parties that are playing a key role in contemporary Indian politics. We may look at at some of the important findings of 1967 general elections. Anand Charavarti points out that in a village in Rajasthan, the Rajputs were once the dominant caste but their influence has waned with the abolition of jagirdari. As a result, it was difficult to establish any direct link between dominant caste and voting behaviour. In the case of Tanjore, as Jayaraman observes, new equations of caste and politics began to take place from the late 1960s. Other scholars too explain that in the changing political scenario, traditional sources of political support were being replaced by new power equations. In the urban context, Veena Dua, Khadija Gupta and others explain that the image of the leader, socio-economic programme of the political parties, sectarian and caste associations are important in gaining political support. According to E. Ramaswami, this is true of areas where working class electorates predominate. Industrial workers, in his view, were certainly not free from the influence of traditional loyalties to the trade unions, and loyalties to fellow workers. B. S. Baviskar highlights the role of the factions in the 1967 elections and writes that the voters in his village treated the elections as one more opportunity for demonstrating support to one or the other factions. Faced with a choice between loyalty to the party and to the faction, people often tended to choose the latter. Similarly, R. D. and Sushila Sanwal observe that caste and regional loyalties exert considerable influence on voting behaviour. Elections offer an opportunity to numerically small and economically dependent castes to feel proud of being associated with the societal power structure. In short, essays on the 1967 elections show a complex interplay of both traditional and modern sources of political support. The contours of Indian politics began to change during the 1971 parliamentary elections. The Congress tried to consolidate its position with promises of radical economic reforms. The internal factions divided the party; the New Congress was led by Indira Gandhi. The opposition parties tried to form a broad coalition. Against this backdrop L. S. Viswanath examines parliamentary elections in a village in Gujarat, and M. S. A. Rao studies a village in the outer Delhi parliamentary constituency. N. R. Singh deals with two villages in the outer Manipur parliamentary constituency. A. Chakravarti reexamines his findings in the same village in Rajasthan. Like Chakravarti, Veena Dua too carries out a resurvey of electoral politics in a neighbourhood in the Jalandhar parliamentary constituency. Chakravarti notes that the voters in his village realised that they have reached a stage where they could respond directly to the electoral appeals of a political party which marked a significant departure from the 1967 elections. Veena Dua observes that in 1971 the Hindus in Punjab realised that the only way to gain power was to align themselves with a secular party like the Congress. The role of the traditional factors was not so crucial in gaining support at the time of the 1971 elections. In recent years, election results in some states showed how poll predictions of psephologists go haywire, and how unreliable opinion polls and exit polls are. We have a long way to go in reading the mind of the electorate. The essays in this book present an alternative approach, and a great deal can be learnt about Indian elections and electorates from the contributions in this volume. The use of rich ethnographic data and detailed analysis shows why these studies are so important in understanding electoral politics in contemporary India.
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IN the 1960s and 1970s,
sociologists at the Delhi School of Economics were engaged in exploring
new areas of research under the guidance of M.N. Srinivas. The study of
electoral politics was one such new area. The findings of the scholars
have come out in a book edited by A. M. Shah which is being reviewed.