Trust and Tolerance in India: Findings from Madhya Pradesh and Kerala
by Sten Widmalm

Trust and tolerance have far less in common than is often assumed. Evidence from India on party support indicates that while supporters of different political parties may be similar in their trust of members of their own community and across groups, they may behave differently in terms of tolerance. Consequently, the current emphasis on social capital as an explanation of India’s democratic path needs to be complemented with a greater emphasis on studies on tolerance. Tolerance may also be a much more precise and direct measurement of democratic performance than social capital.

Institutional Attempts to build a “National” Identity in India: Internal and External Dimensions
by Katharine Adeney and Marie Lall

This article examines the different ways in which two very different versions of national identity were structured in India, both internally and externally. In ethically diverse states, issues of “who belongs” and how they belong come to the fore. Constitutions and laws structure the nation by defining rights, obligations and representation in the institutions of the state. The interaction between the internal and external dimensions reveals much about a government’s articulation of the “national identity” which can, and often does, change over time. This article concentrates on the policies adopted by the “Secular Nationalist” Congress compared to the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. It analyzes the gap between ideology and practice but also addresses the changes in the challenges and opportunities that Indian governments have had to face over time.

Banking on India’s States: The Politics of World Bank Reform Programs in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka
by Jason A. Kirk

The World Bank has taken structural adjustment lending to the state level in India. This essay traces the implementation of World Bank-sponsored reform programs in the neighboring states of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Karnataka from the late 1990s to the early aftermath of electoral turnovers in both states in May 2004. Although Karnataka’s reform process has been much less contentious and its continued implementation appears more secure, the Bank put more money and emphasis into the AP program, largely on account of the state’s special importance to India’s ruling coalitions during the period. In lending more heavily to AP and in adopting a softer stance on its government’s diverges from its reform promises, the Bank may have inadvertently undermined broader support—both from other states and from the center—for its bold new strategy of selectively subnational reform lending in India.

 

Review Essay: Elections and the Negotiation of Ethnic Conflict: An American Science of Indian Politics?
by Subrata K. Mitra

If consent is seen as the exclusive basis of legitimacy, then elections should be ideally placed to generate this much sought after totem of democratic order. However, as the continued stream of bad news from Iraq after the election makes it eminently clear, negotiated solutions to democracy and order in ethnically divided societies is far more complex than the one-shot approach of election enthusiasts. Compared to the conventional scholarship, these studies employ rational choice, linked to general models of voting behavior in their innovative approach to the problem. Instead of platitudinous references to goodwill, they suggest that the ethnically handicapped might accelerate democratic transition by drawing on their identity and social network, transformed into votes, and trade these in for greater security and welfare. Drawing insights from rational choice, these two books, relevant both for comparative politics and area studies, generate new data and original insights into the complex process of social choice.

 

Review Essay:Subverting Caste: Revisiting Ambedkarite Equality
by S. Japhet

This essay is a reading of Christophe Jaffrelot’s book, Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Caste System in the socio-political spatial time in which the book is published. The essay uses some of the major arguments put forward by Jaffrelot in constructing a narrative of Ambedkar’s intellectual and political life, and examines these in the context of the emergence of Ambedkar as a pivotal political and cultural symbol for Dalit empowerment on one hand and vote mobilization on the other, across the social, political and cultural imagination of the Indian polity. The essay also tries to bring out the tensions that arise therein, especially amongst various political streams trying to co-opt Ambedkar for their own purposes, and their root in the peculiarity of the caste system and its underlying politics.

Research Note: Policing Elections in India
by Arvind Verma

Elections in India involve extraordinary policing arrangements due to the large number of voters. Elections are also marred by growing violence and deliberate attempts to prevent voters from exercising their rights. The competitive democratic process is abused by all political parties that hire hoodlums to capture the booths and cast illegal votes. Moreover, the campaigning process presents several situations where policing arrangements involve extraordinary discretionary judgments. These decisions affect the electoral process and influence the final results. This research note examines the policing of elections and their implications for free and fair exercise by the people of India.