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Divided We Stand: India in a Time of Coalitions PDF

526 Pages·2008·1.7 MB·English
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DIVIDED WE STAND 2 DIVIDED WE STAND DIVIDED WE STAND India in a Time of Coalitions Paranjoy Guha Thakurta Shankar Raghuraman Copyright © Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Shankar Raghuraman, 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo- copying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 2007 by Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd B1/I1, Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 www.sagepub.in Sage Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 Sage Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP Sage Publications Asia-Pacifi c Pte Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Published by Vivek Mehra for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in 10/13 pt Stempel Garamond by Star Compugraphics Private Limited, Delhi and printed at Chaman Enterprises, New Delhi. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Guha Thakurta, Paranjoy. Divided we stand: India in a time of coalitions/Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Shankar Raghuraman. p. cm. Includes index. 1. Political parties—India. 2. India—Politics and government—1977– I. Raghuraman, Shankar. II. Title. JQ298.A1G84 324.254—dc22 2008 2007036647 ISBN: 978-0-7619-3663-3 (Hb) 978-81-7829-829-0 (India-Hb) The Sage Team: Rekha Natarajan, Meena Chakravorty and Rajib Chatterjee Praise for the Book A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand ‘… a book that will be indispensable for specialist and lay persons alike. Where the book really succeeds is in evolving a framework that organizes complex events in a simple pattern.… The reader is left wanting more, especially about the interest groups and lobbies that are so crucial to the making of economic policy’. —Mahesh Rangarajan, Seminar ‘… a well-written and well-researched book on contemporary Indian politics…. Specially useful is the graphic mapping of the last three general elections.’ —Jawed Naqvi, Business World ‘This is a book written by political scientists working with theory, gut feeling and journalistic experience applied to empirical data. Timely, informative, well argued in easy-fl ow journalese.’ —Monojit Majumdar, The Hindustan Times ‘… it is one of the most intellectually stimulating books of our times, will rarely be challenged by anybody … informative, factually accurate, politically sophisticated, intellectually challenging and richly stimulating in its wisdom, its logic, its structure and even in its tentative conclusions, which are arrived at with due humility and not a little self-examination. It spares none as none should be spared, which is what gives to it credibility even if it invites anger and derision from those criticized. What it does is to tell the truth—and isn’t that what history is all about?’ —M.V. Kamath, Free Press Journal 6 DIVIDED WE STAND ‘The 400 page book is packed with information and analysis about the current political scenario. Serious work, yet not stodgy or pompous.’ —Ravi Shanker Kapoor, The Financial Express ‘While the book’s preoccupation is with the workability of coalitions as a governing arrangement, the authors have given a rather compre- hensive account of the political developments in the last fi ve years, as seen through the performance of various political parties’. —Harish Khare, The Hindu ‘Published at the completion of the fi rst non-Congress coalition government that has lasted its full term, and at the beginning of yet another experiment, this book is a pioneering project in the analysis of coalition politics in India’. —Ajit Kumar Jha, India Today ‘The strength of the book lies in its enormous empirical data, which are very useful to understand the rise and consolidation of the coalition experiment in India. It is a readily available reference book for those seeking to lay hands on the nature and dynamics of coalition in a society torn by divides of religion, region and caste. The authors therefore deserve to be complimented for having set the ball rolling in a fi eld that is empirically rich but theoretically developing.’ —Bidyut Chakraborty, The Book Review ‘… this book arrived at certain inferences about the future course of Indian politics, that stand up rather well to subsequent events’. —Sukumar Muralidharan, Biblio ‘The book scores brownie points with its in-depth analyses of coalition politics and brings to readers information and analyses in a lucid manner’. —Santanu Nandan Sharma, The Economic Times Contents List of Abbreviations 8 Preface 13 Acknowledgements 33 1. Introduction: India in a Time of Coalitions 39 2. UPA Government: Peaceless Coexistence 72 3. Indian National Congress: Alive, but Not Quite Kicking 106 4. Bharatiya Janata Party: Coping with a Power Cut 156 5. Hindi Heartland: Asserting Caste Identities 240 6. Regional Parties: Increasingly Infl uential 300 7. Left Parties: Barking and Biting 389 8. Friends in Need: Pages from the Past 420 9. Friends in Deed: Governance and Stability 447 10. Economic Policies: Pulls and Pressures 460 11. Looking Ahead 508 Index 514 About the Authors 525 List of Abbreviations AASU All Assam Students’ Union ABCD Akhil Bharatiya Congress Dal ADB Asian Development Bank AGP Asom Gana Parishad AIADMK All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam AITUC All India Trade Union Congress AJGAR Ahirs (Yadavs), Jats, Gujjars and Rajputs APM Administered Pricing Mechanism AUDF Assam United Democratic Front BALCO Bharat Aluminium Company BAMCEF All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees’ Federation BCCI Board of Control for Cricket in India BHEL Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited BJD Biju Janata Dal BJP Bharatiya Janata Party BJS Bharatiya Jana Sangh BKU Bharatiya Kisan Union BLD Bharatiya Lok Dal BMS Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh BNP Bangladesh National Party BPCC Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee BPCL Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd BPPF(H) Bodoland People’s Progressive Front (Hargrama faction) BSP Bahujan Samaj Party CFAR Centre for Advocacy and Research List of Abbreviations 9 CFD Congress for Democracy CPI (M) Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI Communist Party of India DMDK Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam DMK Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam DS-4 Dalit Soshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti EPF Employees’ Provident Fund EPFO Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation EVR E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker FDI Foreign Direct Investment FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry FIIs Foreign Institutional Investors FIR First Information Report HPCL Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd HVC Himachal Vikas Congress HVP Haryana Vikas Party IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency ICHR Indian Council of Historical Research ICSSR Indian Council for Social Sciences Research IMDTA Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act IMF International Monetary Fund INC Indian National Congress INLD Indian National Lok Dal INTACH Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage IOC Indian Oil Corporation IOU Index of Opposition Unity IPCL Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited IRDA Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority ISI Inter-Services Intelligence IUML Indian Union Muslim League JD (U) Janata Dal (United) JD Janata Dal JKD Jan Kranti Dal

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This topical and absorbing book, written by two eminent journalists, explains why India has entered a new era of coalition politics. It analyses the consequences and implications of this relatively recent phenomenon. India has come a long way from the time since the Congress dominated the country's
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