Theorizing Populism in India

Abstract

Right-wing populism has managed to turn traditional progressive political practices on their heads. A critique is absorbed or resignified from its original meaning. Significant political categories within the repertoire of progressive politics, including ideas of welfare, rule of law, secularism, equality, liberty, and justice, have been significantly resignified in public discourse, emptying them of their ‘original’ meaning to produce a distinctly conservative public morality. As Chantal Mouffe suggests, it is imperative to decode the structure and the nature of consent for such a morality, not through moral rejection of the process, but through political intervention. The relevant question today for progressive politics is to create a social narrative that can overturn ‘conservative populism’ by fusing subalternity and democracy.

Glossary

Demonitisation

It was a monetary policy announced by Prime Minister Modi that invalidated rupees 500 and rupees 1000 notes as legal tenders. This was promised to be a mode of fighting black money/economy by invalidating `black money` stored as cash.

Intermediary Castes

Jats, Patidars, Marathas, Kapus are agrarian intermediary castes. They are landed and politically powerful but belong to the `Shudras` in the varna-system of Hinduism. They are considered to be low on ritual-hierarchy but economically and politically belong to the dominant castes.

Dalits

Dalit is a political expression for the former untouchable castes, also known as Scheduled Castes. They constitute about 15% of Indian population and Indian politics, since the colonial times has witnessed many resistance movements by them. The Chairman of the drafting Committee of the Constitution-making body was headed by DR.B.R.Ambedkar, who belonged to the Mahar caste from Maharashtra.

NREGA

National Rural Employment Gurantee Scheme. It is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work‘. It aims to provide 100 days of employment to every rural household in a financial year. It is widely believed that the UPS (United Progressive Alliance) lead by the Congress party came back to power in 2009 due to the popularity of this welfare policy to meet the rural distress.

Encounters

In popular parlance in India encounters refer to extra-judicial killings by the police and armed forces. Government of Uttar Pradesh since 2017 according to a few estimations have eliminated closed to 1200 individuals.

Durga

Refers to a Hindu goddess who according to popular mythology is considered as a Goddess against evil. She waged valiant battles against the asuras or demons of evil.

Bhima-Koregaon

The Battle of Koregaon (also called the Battle of Koregaon Bhima, after the river Bhima that flows close to it) was fought on 1 January 1818 between the British East India Company and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha Confederacy, at Koregaon Bhima. The commemoration of this battle in 2018 by the Dalits lead to a clash between the Dalits and the Marathas in Maharashtra.

Bharat versus India

Shard Joshi explained his formulation of Bharat versus India, as`’India’ is that notional entity, largely Anglicised and relatively better-off, that had obtained the succession of colonial exploitation from the British; while ‘Bharat’ is largely rural, agricultural, poor and backward that was being subjected to colonial-like exploitation even after the end of the Raj. Many have erroneously interpreted the expression to denote the urban-rural divide. That was far from my mind. In fact, I made it explicitly clear, even in those early stages, that the relatively opulent segment of the rural society that derived its incomes from non-agricultural activities under state-protection were a part of ‘India’ while the slum dwellers and the footpath occupants of cities were, in fact, refugees from ‘Bharat’ to ‘India’ in search of livelihood. https://www.reddit.com/r/bharat/comments/1602ah/bharat_vs_india_sharad_joshi_who_coined_the_term/

Other Backward Classes

Other Backward Class (OBC) is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are educationally or socially disadvantaged. It is one of several official classifications of the population of India, along with Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs and STs). The OBCs were found to comprise 52% of the country’s population by the Mandal Commission report of 1980, a figure which had shrunk to 41% by 2006 when the National Sample Survey Organisation took place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Backward_Class.

Acche Din

Achhe din aane waale hain (Hindi: अच्छे दिन आने वाले हैं।, English: “Good days are coming.”) was the Hindi slogan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2014 Indian general election. The slogan was coined by the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, with the intention of conveying that a prosperous future was in store for India if the BJP came into power (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achhe_din_aane_waale_hain).