| December 15, 1997 | ||
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 Poll Posers In psephological jargon they call it realignment. After several routine elections there comes a "critical" election which redefines the basic pattern of political loyalties, redraws political geography and opens up the frozen political space. On a strict definition, none of the recent Indian elections qualifies as a "critical" election. Rather, since 1989, there have been a series of semi-critical elections. These have contributed to a decade of realignment or, rather, reconfiguration in the polity. To a future historian, the 1998 election may not look like anything more than one step in this reconfiguration, just one link in the chain of elections through which the basic ground rules of Indian politics were renegotiated. Sections of the underprivileged began entering the political arena and determining the fate and agenda of parties. Consequently, the focus of the polity moved from nation to state. Electoral upheavals are symptomatic of this period of social turmoil. A large number of Indians are rethinking political affiliations, reshaping interests and reinventing identities. All these larger historical developments unfolded -- as such things always do -- through a series of "accidents" in which a bunch of self-seeking political entrepreneurs sought to advance narrow interests by pursuing collectively disastrous designs. But it is important to look beyond the sometimes farcical, sometimes tragic rise and fall of regimes and beyond the number games to ask some big questions. Psephologist and political analyst Yogendra Yadav, director, Lokniti -- a research programme of the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) -- takes a look at some of these questions, with research and software support from Sanjay Kumar, Himanshu Bhattacharya and Kanchan Malhotra of the CSDS data unit. The 1971 and 1996 survey data are from the CSDS National Election Studies. Can the
next election yield a different verdict? |
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