Articles by K C Suri

A clear majority for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha and its spread across most states in the 2014 general elections marks a departure from the electoral outcomes of almost a quarter century. The BJP's success was made possible, among other factors, due to its electoral strategy of reinventing social engineering in what may be termed as its second transformation. As a result, it secured significant support among the Other Backward Classes as well as scheduled caste and scheduled tribe voters to gain a winning edge. Besides this, its promise of development and the projection of Modi as a strong and decisive leader attracted support among the lower and middle classes. This will have far-reaching implications to the structure of party competition in the coming years and shape the post-Congress polity. However, enthusiastic over-readings of the mandate would pose a challenge to the BJP even as it searches for ways to entrench itself as a dominant national party in India.

The second consecutive victory of the Congress Party in the 2009 parliamentary and assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh does not mean that the political situation in the state is stable or that the status quo will continue undisturbed. Voters did not hand out a big victory to the Congress government, but gave it a second term with a reduced vote and slender majority in the assembly. The fragmentation of the two-party system into a truer multiparty system and the entry of new players were the primary reasons for the outcome. The victory for the Congress can even be interpreted as an opportunity for introspection by the defeated parties with the election results turning out to be an occasion not for dejection, but one of hope.

The reasons for agrarian distress in India lie in the conjunction of the changing nature of agriculture and democratic politics. With cultivation becoming an unrewarding occupation, the growing disparities of wealth between the rural and urban areas, the inability of farmers to unite and bring pressure on the governments and a disjuncture between the interests of the farmers and those of the political representatives, have all led to the neglect of agriculture and deterioration in the condition of farmers.

Success Story?
Decentralisd Administration and Participatory Planning in Kerala by Jose George; Himalaya Publishing House, Mumbai,
K C SURI In recent years, there has been a tremendous revival of interest in decentralised government in developing countries. This was partly motivated by the new paradigms of governance, democracy and development that came to dominate much social science research in the wake of the collapse of the socialist and welfare states in Europe. The supporters of globalisation and liberalisation laid greater stress on the twin tasks of downsizing the centralised states in developing countries such as India, which had hitherto largely followed the path of development through centralised planning, state capitalism and administering welfare, and promoting participatory planning and empowerment of people at the local level. Decentralised government was considered a necessary means to promote democracy and development in these countries. This new thinking motivated new drives in decentralisation, as was evident in the passage in India of the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments and their energetic implementation in several states, as well as a plethora of research reports

The NES data does not enable us to establish causal relations between the impact of reforms and voting behaviour, or arrive at conclusions on what people feel about economic reforms. But the survey provides us with some insights into Indian political economy and focuses our attention on some of the basic issues, tensions and dilemmas in Indian democracy. The aggregate data of the NES on economy-related matters give us a feeling that India is a nation divided and ambivalent as to the path it should take for its development. It shows that there is no consensus on economic reforms, even among middle and upper classes. Opinions are divided across classes, castes, occupations, and locations.