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This essay draws a parallel between the political and social dynamics of Hindu nationalism in India under Narendra Modi and the policies of racial segregation of the Jim Crow era in the United States (from approximately 1880 to 1965). As with the marginalization of black Americans based on race during Jim Crow, Hindu nationalism aims to marginalize Muslim Indians based on religion. Methods similar to those used in the Jim Crow South—including exclusionary laws, segregation, and vigilante violence—are now being deployed in India to subdue Muslims. Such actions go against the principles of equality established by India's 1950 Constitution. As in the Jim Crow South, the judiciary in India has proven slow to play its assigned role as guarantor of liberal constitutionalism. Friends of liberal, constitutional democracy will be wise not to count on judges to salvage the situation. In the end, only the voters can decide to stop Hindu nationalism, or else underwrite its final advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's democratic backsliding began with the rise to power of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 elections. Five years later, the party won an even bigger parliamentary majority. The BJP now runs not only the central government, but also all but ten of the 28 states, whether on its own or allied with other parties. Though India has not regressed democratically by the criteria of electoral contestation and participation, it has failed to ensure that the rights of Muslims and other minorities are respected. It has also impaired freedom of expression and freedom of association. Electoral democracy is thus coming into conflict with the broader notion of democracy, electoral as well as nonelectoral, that India's 1950 Constitution enshrines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents findings from the first-ever survey of populist attitudes in India. Historically, the Indian usage of the concept of populism was mostly confined to the fiscal handouts of governments for the lower-income groups, something that is viewed as part of left-wing populism elsewhere in the world. The idea of right-wing populism, which equates popular will with the interests of the ethnic/racial/religious majority, is something relatively novel at the highest echelons of the Indian polity. Its emergence coincides with the rise of Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to national power since 2014. However, our survey finds, first, that at the level of mass attitudes, populism and Hindu nationalism are quite distinct phenomena. Those who can be called populists are not Hindu nationalists and vice versa. This finding, second, also leads to our argument that while right-wing populism has emerged in India as a leadership discourse, it is still to take roots at the level of popular attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both populism and nationalism are rooted in the idea of popular sovereignty. They look alike when populism gravitates towards the right, identifying "the people" with an ethnic or racial majority, and when nationalism turns against the minorities. But populism can also go towards the left, embracing the low-income citizenry as the nation's "true people," just as nationalism can include ethnic and racial diversity under its umbrella. Some other key differences are also noteworthy. Populism is inevitably defined as an anti-elitist doctrine, whereas nationalism is often led by the elites. Moreover, embedded as it normally is in state institutions, laws, school textbooks, museums and maps, nationalism can be a state ideology, taking routinized forms. In contrast, populist politics thrives on a virtually relentless mobilization of popular energy. Nationalism acquires this fervent form mainly under two conditions: when it is secessionary, trying to break states up, or when it becomes majoritarian, attacking internal minorities. Otherwise, nationalism can easily exist in a quieter register. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article refers to the growth of Hindu majoritarianism and illiberal democracy after the reelection of Narendra Modi as the Indian Prime Minister in 2019 Indian general election. Topics include the ideology of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and their dominance in the Indian politics; their unpredictable win because of poor performance score to uplift unemployment distress and agricultural sector issue; and ignorance for the rise of social and religious issues caused by Hindu extremists.

The article talks about the growth, inequality and nationalism in India after India's democracy at 1970, which mention about growth rate of India in term of economics and population, and it also mention about noneconomic side of politics for the political success of political parties in India.

The essays in this symposium are longing for completion. A heavy Indian shadow hangs over them. Asian democracy is the overall theme of the symposium, but India, Asia's biggest “democratic behemoth,” to use Edward Aspinall's phrase, is more or less missing. Why is a discussion of Indian democracy necessary for this symposium? What would it add to the arguments made here and the themes discussed? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article assesses the popularity of Hindu nationalist ideology in India. Topics covered include the comparison of Hindu nationalism with democracy as well as the remarkable results and highlights of the 16th general election in the country. Also mentioned is the support of over 100 million for the election and position of the urban middle class in the issue of democracy in the country.

The last decade has witnessed an extraordinary spate of scholarship on the ethno-communal violence that swept through Indonesia following the collapse of the Suharto regime. Yet we know very little about how these large-scale violent conflicts subsided and the patterns of post-conflict violence that have emerged since. We introduce evidence from an original dataset to show that the high violence period lasted till 2003, after which violence declined in intensity and scale. Despite this aggregate decline, we find that old conflict sites still exhibit relatively high levels of small-scale violence. We conclude that Indonesia has moved to a new, post-conflict phase where large-scale violence is infrequent, yet small-scale violence remains unabated, often taking on new forms. Finally, we propose that effective internal security interventions by the state are a key reason, although not the only reason, why large-scale violence has not emerged again despite the continued prevalence of low-level violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]