State Politics in Contemporary India

This fine collection of essays shows how far India has evolved since the early days when the mere assertion of regional aspirations used to create the spectre of balkanisation. It explains how the countervailing forces emerging from regions keeps the centre in check; promotes self-rule and shared rule; and helps keep Indian democracy robust, vibrant and resilient.

- Subrata Mitra, emeritus professor, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

This is a careful, well-researched and timely study of state politics in India. The analyses are deftly located in a stream of prior literature, they highlight developments that have taken place over the past few decades, and they are lucid and cogent. Scholars who are interested in the study of contemporary Indian politics and are not content with seeing India as a unitary state will find these contributions to be most invaluable.

- Sumit Ganguly, Senior Fellow and Director of the Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India relations, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

“State politics in India has remained an understudied domain of inquiry, even as the significance of state politics is undeniable. With the decline of the Congress party and the end of centrally controlled planning, states became units of politics in a way that was not true earlier. The post-2014 BJP era has sought to push a centralizing drive, but state specificities refuse to die. India’s proverbial diversities can’t disappear.

This volume casts fresh light on state politics. It reframes the older issues, and also focuses on the newer questions. Are BJP-dominated states different from those where the BJP is not a big player? How is new welfare politics redefining centre-state relations? Is Muslim politics primarily national in orientation, or state-based? Are regional parties doomed to family-based, oligarchic politics, or is internal democracy a possibility? How has the role of the governor changed? How should one think of union territories?

An exploration of these issues, and more, advances our understanding in serious ways. This volume deserves our close attention!

-----Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Golman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, and Professor of Political Science, Brown University, USA

‘State politics’ is an area of research that is expanding in recent times as far as the study of Indian politics is concerned. The present volume, State Politics in Contemporary India, brings together three strands of studies of State Politics: the complex theoretical aspect of the relationship between the national and subnational levels of politics; the changing nature of politics in some key states and the state-specific issues that spill over from the state to the all-India terrain. These diverse but interrelated scholarly contributions will help students of Indian politics better understand contemporary State politics and its implications for national politics.

--Suhas Palshikar, Formerly Professor of Political Science, Savitribai Phule Pune University

Currently Chief Editor, Studies in Indian Politics, SAGE Journal