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"Ideology and Identity: The Changing Party Systems of India" by Pradeep K. Chhibber and Rahul Verma provides a detailed examination of India's political evolution, highlighting how contemporary parties have their roots in the Congress party. As Congress's influence declined, new forces emerged, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which advocates Hindu nationalism, and regional parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which challenge Congress's centralist policies and represent specific regional interests.
The book categorizes leaders into transactional, transformative, and accidental types. Jawaharlal Nehru is highlighted as a transformative leader, whose vision and policies shaped modern India against daunting odds. Democracy in India, adult suffrage, a sovereign parliament, a free press, and an independent judiciary stand as lasting monuments to Nehru's legacy. Rajiv Gandhi is described as an accidental leader, thrust into power unexpectedly after his mother's assassination, leading to significant but unplanned reforms such as technological modernization. M. Karunanidhi and Prakash Singh Badal are cited as transactional leaders. Karunanidhi, of the DMK, was known for his adept coalition-building and negotiations, while Badal skillfully maintained power in Punjab through pragmatic alliances and strategic maneuvering.
Additionally, the book explores the social changes occurring as India becomes more urbanized and its economy becomes further delinked from the state. It underscores that the ideas structuring multi-ethnic countries like India are different and cannot simply borrow from Western models. The Western European worldview of logical ideas is limited, borne out of very different historical experiences. To suggest that voters in the Global South are not creatures of ideas negates the historical experiences and the nature of conflicts that have shaped the politics and party systems across Africa and Asia. Furthermore, the book distinguishes populism as an electoral strategy, setting it apart from patronage and clientelism, emphasizing its unique role in shaping contemporary Indian politics.
Indian politics defies Western dualities such as state vs. church or working class vs. masters, center vs. peripherals, being shaped instead by a complex interplay of caste, religion, region, and language. The state's efforts to manage this diversity, including policies like affirmative action, have sometimes led to appeasement politics, which, in turn, has resulted in high levels of corruption. This environment of corruption and ineffective governance contributed to the Congress party's significant decline and loss of public trust. The 2014 BJP victory, under Narendra Modi's leadership, marked a decisive shift from Congress's historical dominance, reflecting a desire for new leadership and a break from the entrenched political issues of the past.
