Studies in Indian Politics

Ambedkar has been a desired figure in Indian space with figurations that are varied. In spite of his overwhelming recognition, there have been many misunderstandings about him. One such misunderstanding is about the question of Marxism and Buddhism in his writings. Importantly, this aspect has been found predominantly on the reading and reception of Ambedkar’s text, supposedly titled Buddha or Karl Marx. The misunderstanding has incubated an ‘or’/‘and’ controversy, the ‘or’ Ambedkarites pitted against the ‘and’ Ambedkarites. This article first traces a possible origin of the ‘or’/‘and’ controversy. It then clarifies the naming of the titles of the text and argues that there are four texts (and not one) in Ambedkar’s writings on the question. The article also clarifies that the case is not about the binary positions (as has been portrayed). Instead, Ambedkar retains both ‘or’ and ‘and’, in which spiritual elements of Buddhism suture with the secular aims of Marxism.

The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the early 1990s has been a dominant theme in both policy and scholarship, often foregrounding the experiences of those who fled the Kashmir Valley. However, a small segment of the community—non-migrant Pandits—chose to remain. This article interrogates how state interventions, shaped around displacement-centric logics, have inadvertently marginalized this group. By drawing on James Scott’s theory of legibility, Robert Putnam’s concept of social capital and Oliver Richmond’s peace formation theory, the study examines how relief policies—such as the Special Package (1996), Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Programme (2004) and Comprehensive Package (2008, 2015)—have excluded non-migrants from both aid and recognition. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative interviews, surveys (n = 120) and policy analysis, the study reveals how bureaucratic frameworks erase complexity, treating ‘non-migrants’ as conceptually invisible. It also highlights secondary marginalization, cultural erosion and legal vulnerability, including for women. The findings call for the policy reform that recognizes the distinct experience of non-migrants, positioning them not as a negation of migration but as resilient citizens whose presence complicates dominant state narratives of victimhood and recovery.

The decline of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) in the ethno-religious political ground of Assam in the 2024 parliamentary election was surprising. This necessitates a critical engagement with the recent developments leading to the party’s sharp decline. The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and its avowed Hindu right nationalist agenda with context-specific modifications accommodating regional indigenous concerns have been major developments in the state’s politics. Such a phenomenon resulted in competitive mobilization benefitting both AIUDF and BJP initially. But in recent times, AIUDF has faced a major setback, whereas BJP’s tally has kept growing. The failure of AIUDF to withstand what we have termed in the article as the politics of ‘ethnic transactionalism’ pursued by BJP while relying heavily on religious polarization alone has been central to the decline of the former. The Indian National Congress (INC) struggles to regain its indigenous heartland where BJP holds the key, while minority belts are swinging along INC, AIUDF and NDA. In this study, data provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI); State Election Commission, Assam; and Lokniti-CSDS have been used. We engage analytically with the reconfigured ethnic concerns, religious fervour and changed alliance dynamics of Assam politics. We argue that the uncoalitionable nature of the AIUDF, stemming from both internal and external factors, and its fading support base are the two major causes of its decline.

Rammanohar Lohia (1910–1967) is one of the rare thinkers who made caste central to Indian politics in the early years of independence. Yet when compared to figures like Ambedkar, Phule or Periyar in the same tradition, Lohia stands nowhere in terms of academic reception. The question is, why? This article attempts to offer a comprehensive understanding of Lohia’s omission from anti-caste discourses and the alleged lack of radical anti-caste movements in Northern India. It challenges the prevailing omission of Lohia from anti-caste discourses, arguing that he holds a significant position as an anti-caste thinker within the Hindi public sphere. By delving into Lohia’s relationship with Ambedkar and Periyar, the article claims that the dominant template of rejecting Hinduism as the core criterion for being anti-caste has foreclosed the possibility of appreciating Lohia’s anti-caste thoughts. It claims that even the Dalit politics of present times is closer to Lohia than to Ambedkar.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has succeeded in going beyond its constitutionally mandated role of preparing the electoral rolls and conducting free and fair elections. In its seven and a half decades of existence, the ECI has succeeded in making the electoral process increasingly more accessible, inclusive and participative despite facing challenges such as geographical variance, illiteracy, poverty, social heterogeneity and traditional hierarchical social order. What has enabled the ECI is the broad nature of its constitutional framework, which not only gives it a ‘solid underpinning’ but also allows for flexibility in being able to interpret and enforce its mandate.

The institution has also been strengthened during the period by the supportive role of the judiciary, civil society groups and the ‘activism’ of certain ‘entrepreneurial’ chief election commissioners. An empowered ECI has played a proactive role in laying down its own new rules, protocols and procedures, whenever the legislative bodies have been ‘slow to give guidance’. Of late, however, grave concerns have been raised about the perceived failure of the ECI in ensuring its institutional autonomy and neutrality, and for good reasons.

Women’s reservation policies have substantially expanded female political participation in India, yet the representation of Muslim women continues to remain disproportionately low across levels of governance. Drawing on detailed administrative data from the 2016 and 2021 Panchayat elections in Bihar, this study examines the institutional, structural and behavioural mechanisms that shape Muslim women’s political inclusion. Using a supply-side framework, the analysis formalizes two key determinants of contest entry, past co-ethnic competitiveness and demographic potential, and shows how these factors jointly influence women’s decisions to contest elections. The results highlight the central role of institutional design and strategic expectations in shaping minority women’s political agency, even in communities where demographic conditions appear favourable for political representation.

This article examines the Manipur crisis from 2023 to the present as a structurally rooted crisis of state authority rather than a spontaneous ethnic conflict or episodic law-and-order failure. It argues that the immediate violence was triggered by the judicial intervention of the Manipur High Court directing consideration of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the Meitei community, which destabilized already fragile ethnic, legal and territorial equilibria. Situating this trigger within Manipur’s long-standing hill-valley-divided, differentiated land regimes and asymmetric federal governance, this article demonstrates how ethno-territorial institutional arrangements have fractured sovereign authority. Drawing primarily on Manipur-specific legal, demographic and institutional evidence, rather than on excessive global abstraction, this article shows how competing Meitei, Naga and Kuki territorial projects have produced de facto partition, parallel governance and erosion of the state’s monopoly of violence. Framing Manipur within broader debates on ethnic federalism, frontier governance and state fragility, this article highlights the importance of rethinking institutional designs that merge ethnicity with territory in regions marked by deep pluralism and historical contestation.