Studies in Indian Politics

This article explores legislator behaviour during the Question Hour in the lower house of India’s parliament (the Lok Sabha) over a 30-year period (1980–2009). It establishes that there is considerable variation in the volume of legislator activity, with some Members of Parliament (MPs) remaining silent throughout their tenures (even as opposition MPs over full Lok Sabha terms), while others use the Question Hour much more effectively. Surprisingly, the activity of government backbenchers is only a little behind that of opposition MPs. The article constructs stylized facts regarding the relationship of three sets of covariates with the number of parliamentary questions asked by legislators: personal characteristics of MPs, legislative roles of MPs and the states represented by the MPs. The picture which emerges is that there is a disjuncture between symbolic and substantive representation. Despite increased symbolic representation, some groups—such as women and Scheduled Tribe MPs, but not Scheduled Caste MPs—still participate below par. At the same time, Question Hour is used more effectively by other groups—men and upper caste MPs, but also younger MPs and those with college education. Further, we uncover some puzzling state patterns: MPs from Orissa, Gujarat and Maharashtra seem to participate more than MPs from Punjab, Tamil Nadu and the Northeastern states.

The Indian Forest Policy of 1988 and the subsequent government resolution on participatory forest management emphasized the need for people’s participation in natural forest management. This article lays out the institutions that emerge from this strategy and their involvement in decentralized Forest Resource Management. It also traces the inter-linkages between them in the governance of the forest resource in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.

 Two levels of inquiry have been undertaken, one at the institutional level and the other at the household level. Based on data collected, using quantitative and qualitative methods, it is found that the presence of civil society organizations (CSOs) have an effect on the functioning of government institutions. The article informs the assessment that decentralization has a two-pronged function of bringing governance closer to the people and to also bring more political will to the people.

The armed struggle launched by United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) since the late 1970s for Swadhin Asom (independent Assam) and its reaction, appreciation, endorsement and critique in the civil society is an interesting case for investigation on how civil society works in India’s Northeast. Historically, civil society in Assam has been a domain of manifestations of grievances against the state, particularly, against the Government of India (GoI). As a result, the civil society in Assam has almost been overtaken by the passion of the ULFA, which steered armed struggle for Assam’s independence. Although the civil society did not endorse the path of violence pursued by ULFA for its proclaimed goal of Assam’s independence, a comprehensive critical voice against the militancy and violence pursued by it, has been almost absent. Only a few individuals consistently maintained a critique on ULFA from its inception.

In more than three decades of ULFA–GoI conflict, the civil society has undergone through different experiences—from being overtaken by collective passion for the cause raised by ULFA to complete subjugation and marginalization under coercion both by the Indian state and the ULFA, and to that of gradual revival as a critical domain to question both the state and ULFA. The present article is an attempt to examine this trajectory of the civil society in Assam vis-à-vis ULFA.

It is often assumed that civil society’s influence on governance can only be complementary to the state and that it must be exercised through conciliatory approaches. But contrary to that assumption, a study of civil society organizations in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh shows that the civil society may attempt to influence governance process through multiple strategies. These include conciliatory approaches, adversarial approaches and a combination of both, depending on the issue or policy on which the influence is sought to be exercised. This article illustrates this by taking the examples of two intermediary NGOs: one from Karnataka and the other from Andhra Pradesh. The question this article raises is: in the context of globalization and the supposedly prominent role of civil society, how effective are they? This article argues that they still happen to be subsidiary partners in the paradigm of ‘governance-through-networks’. By and large, public policy still happens to be influenced by, first the state, and second, multilateral donor organizations as well as multinational companies, although civil society activism itself should be welcome and need not be viewed with scepticism.

What explains the pattern of communist vote across rural India? One explanation is that landless populations will vote for left parties because they are more willing to engage with risky groups. But does land reform change the risk structure for rural voters and how does this change affect the viability of left parties? This article uses Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to understand what percentage of communist vote can be explained by landlessness in three of India’s Lok Sabha elections. Analysis finds that landlessness is still a significant explanation of communist vote across India but not when controlling for left strongholds in West Bengal and Kerala, meaning that structural variables are moderated by the duration of communist regime. This finding lends evidence to the idea that long term communist regimes can successfully redistribute wealth in a society to reduce structural differences among peasants. Changes in land tenure increase economic risk for peasant voters, and as recent elections have shown, decrease the viability of communist parties. To further this point, I supplement my results by case study analysis of West Bengal and Kerala, thus explicating the mechanisms leading to the more recent upheaval of communist support.

The outcome of the assembly elections held in November 2013 in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi could possibly be summarized in one sentence: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and the incumbent Indian National Congress (INC) lost power in Rajasthan and Delhi. It was a 4–0 defeat for the Congress. What explains the Congress’ rout in these four states? Moreover, why did the BJP do well? And how did a new political outfit—Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)—manage a stunning debut in Delhi within a year of its formation? Using data from the pre-poll and post-poll surveys from the above mentioned states, we find that there was a visible dissatisfaction with the Congress-led UPA government at the centre and that led to the party’s debacle during the elections. We suggest that the interaction of two variables—temporal proximity of state assembly elections to Lok Sabha elections and nature of party competition in the state— determines when national-level factors would play important role in influencing electoral outcomes in state elections.

Achin Vanaik, ed., ICSSR Research Surveys and Explorations: Political Science. Four Volumes: 1. The Indian State (175 pages) 2. Indian Democracy (287 pages), 3. Indian Political Thought (276 pages), 4. India Engages the World (567 pages). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2013. ₹ 3,995.

Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, eds, Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for other Developing Countries. New York, NY: Public Affairs. 2013. 302 pages. US$ 28.99.

Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, eds, An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2013. 446 pages. US$ 22.95.

Ajay Gudvarthy, ed., Reframing Democracy and Agency in India: Interrogating Political Society. New Delhi: Anthem Press. 2012. 322 pages. ₹ 595.

Ajay Gudavarthy, ed., Politics of Post-Civil Society: Contemporary History of Political Movements in India. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. 2013. 263 pages. ₹ 695.