Divided We Stand: India in a Time of Coalitions

526 Pages·2008·1.7 MB·English

by  Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

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
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Published by Vivek Mehra for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in
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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