Social Science Research Council

“The Saffron Wave Meets the Silent Revolution: Poor People's Hindu Nationalism in India”

In my IDRF-sponsored fieldwork, I examine the conjuncture of two significant developments in Indian politics: the mercurial growth of Hindu nationalism termed ‘the saffron wave’, and ‘the silent revolution’ of the country’s most marginalized populations increasingly participating in democratic politics. Specifically, I examine the variable success of the party of the Hindu elite in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in courting the country’s poorer lower caste voters. While engaging with a specific puzzle for scholars of Indian politics regarding lower caste and tribal support of the BJP, and why that support varies across India, I hope to also address a major theoretical question concerning how elite conservative parties win the support of poor voters, particularly in regions where class distinctions remain sharp.  
    
I employ both statistical and qualitative methodologies to test various possible explanations for the BJP’s varying success. These include more conventional arguments of ‘unnatural’ poor voting patterns relying on theories of social polarization, increasing religiosity, or the abilities of influential ethnic elites. I also examine my own hypothesis which argues that parties like the BJP, which are embedded in larger social movements, can benefit or lose from the activities of its organizational affiliates in that movement under certain conditions. Specifically, I believe the BJP will be most successful with poor voters where both the government and autonomous civil society groups have been most negligent in addressing their basic social needs, creating a void for the BJP and its organizational affiliates to fill. I hope that this research will not only add to our specific understanding of the relationship between Hindu nationalism and lower caste voters, but will also serve to highlight more generally how state inaction and the energies of certain civil society actors are central to constructing the political conditions which enable parties with religious nationalist ideologies to expand their support base.