Since the 1960s a new assertiveness has characterized India's formerly silent majority, the lower castes that comprise more than two-thirds of the population. Today India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is controlled by lower-caste politicians, as is Bihar, and lower-caste representation in national politics is growing inexorably. Jaffrelot argues that this trend constitutes a genuine "democratization" of India and that the social and economic effects of this "silent revolution" are bound to multiply in the years to come.
Price: $80.00
Pages: 500
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Publication Date:
24 April 2003
ISBN: 9780231127868
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
HISTORY / Asia / General, HISTORY / Asia / South / General
Building on his brilliant study of Hindu nationalism, Jaffrelot has established himself as one of the leaders of a new generation of Western scholars whose work will be essential reading for India specialists, practioners, and scholars concerned with problems of democratic transition and consolidation. Essential.
Christophe Jaffrelot is director of the Centre d'Etudes et Recherches Internationales (CERI), part of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He is the author of The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, which the New York Review of Books hailed as "a scholarly tour de force."
Part One
1. Congress Domination and Conservative Democracy
2. The Ideological Roots of Indian Democracy's Social Deficit
3. Discourses and Practices
4. Congress: Party of the Intelligentsia or of the Notables?
5. The Co-option of Scheduled Caste Leaders and the 'Coalition of Extremes'
6. Indira Gandhi and the Aborted Reform of Congress
Part Two
1. The Second Age of Indian Democracy
2. From Reluctant to Compelling Cast-Based Affirmative Action
3. Two Strategies: Quota Politics and Kisan Politics
4. The Janata Dal and the Empowerment of the Low Castes
5. The BSP: Not Just a Dalit Party
6. The Upper Castes' Political Resilience: Congress and the BJP Coping with the Manda Commission
