The Rise of the Right in Modernizing India

• In Event: Electoral Politics and Voter Preferences in India

Abstract

This paper studies when and why right-wing parties win. It is motivated by twin empirical puzzles: the recent consolidation of India’s party system and the remarkable national growth of the elite-oriented, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). I argue that an important and understudied cause of these seismic political shifts is rooted in the ongoing transformation of Indian society as a result rapid economic growth. In particular, the Hindu caste system, while still a defining feature of social and political life, is weakening in its bastion of North India. Rising education, labor mobility, and income among historically disadvantaged caste groups mean that caste is less predictive of individuals’ economic status. A more homogeneous Hindu electorate enables the elite-based BJP to efficiently compete against parties that represent particular caste groups that are themselves more internally heterogeneous, while excluding downwardly mobile religious minorities. I test this social theory of the rise of the right in India against major alternative explanations by using three decades of data from over twenty thousand state assembly election results and nationally representative economic surveys with more than half a million households, an original survey, qualitative interviews, and secondary literature. The theory and empirical results speak to central questions in scholarship on parties, voting behavior, and political development, and shed light on the trajectory of fast-growing developing democracies more generally.

Author

• Gautam Nair, Yale University