What factors do you believe led to the shift in voter behavior that caused the BJP to lose its majority in the 2024 elections? Were there significant changes in the way key voting blocs, such as rural voters or the middle class, responded to the BJP’s policies?

When we think about electoral performances, we often think about voter blocs. We can think about these in terms of gender, religion, caste and class, or in terms of rural or urban. However, for a country as big as India, to generalize is always very difficult. 

In this election, voters voted in ways that were sometimes not aligned with the models we have. We saw voters voting in directions that had not been predicted, and that's a sign of a healthy democracy. Certainly, the BJP has certain traditional bastions. We know that one bastion is in north India, in the Hindi belt. In the 2024 elections, its vote share declined close to about 6% in this region, but it made gains in other parts where it does not have such a significant footprint. For example, in the south, in parts of the East, in Orissa, its vote share went up from the previous election. The number of seats that the BJP lost in the North from the previous election was the result of this shifting vote share. The vote share gain doesn’t always translate into seats, however, because of India’s specific “first pass the post" system. 

Moreover, while there was rural discontent in the north, the urban middleclass areas support for the BJP was solid and persistent. But nationally, it's very difficult to see one dominant trend across India.

Based on your book "Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements," how have political parties in India adapted their strategies in the 2024 elections to appeal to marginalized groups, and has this led to any substantive changes?

My book documents a story of mobilization of Dalits across India. Since the book came out, that process of mobilization among Dalits has not stopped. Even though the political configuration has changed, wherein we are experiencing the third term of a BJP government and the political moment has shifted. We had 30 years of coalition politics, followed by BJP majority governments from 2014 until 2024. Now, we have a coalition government again, although the BJP is still a dominant party. 

So what has really changed? One shift that happened is that during the period of coalition governments, there was party system fragmentation. Essentially, that was triggered by the decline of Congress. After the coalition period between the 1980s to 2014, the opportunities for mobilization to get converted into successful political parties declined. Small parties have not vanished, but it is more difficult for such parties of any variety to succeed. If you look at the BSP, or the Lok Jan Shakti party, or Dalit parties in the West and in the South, it's a more difficult terrain because you don't have political opportunities of the same type. As a result, we've seen these parties struggle for resources at times. They are very reliant on the major parties. 

But, the mobilization through social movements, through campaigns and protests, continues. National parties as well as state-based parties today are far more attentive to Dalit politics. They acknowledge them and use their symbols. For example, the wide usage of Dr B.R. Ambedkar as a symbol is not confined to just Dalit parties; whether it's the Congress or the BJP or their leaders, they all embrace him. Dalit festivals are acknowledged throughout the country by all political parties. Thus, even though the opportunities for small Dalit parties to succeed have declined, the symbolic acknowledgement of Dalits is still very robust. It's being channeled through mainstream, major national and state-based parties.

Your book highlights how political competition increases when marginalized groups do not vote en bloc for ethnic parties. How has this competition shaped the broader political landscape in India, particularly in terms of policies aimed at Dalit welfare and social justice?

One of the implications in my book is that we've had historical Dalit mobilization in the southern states and in the West, in Maharashtra; and if there's a place where we would expect their parties to succeed in a moment of opportunity, it would be in these states. Yet, in Northern states, Dalit mobilization was weaker in terms of social movements. But, it's in these Northern states that Dalit politics and Dalit parties appear, and are also electorally successful.  

Interestingly, Dalit voters told me in my interviews that once they began supporting their Dalit political party in large numbers in the North as a bloc, other parties stopped visiting their neighborhoods and their villages. They didn’t campaign to them, because they assumed that these voters would always go vote for their ethnic party. 

The result is that the competition for the vote goes away, and the group which most needs state support loses that key leverage of democracy, which is contest for its electoral support. If some parties think that Dalits are never going to vote for them, then they're not going to campaign to them, and they are not going to put their demands on their agenda or even acknowledge Dalits. This was one paradox that emerged. Dalit parties succeeded because of bloc voting, but that made Dalits somewhat irrelevant to other political parties. 

Now, we are in a different political moment in which the BJP is a prominent player and national parties are dominating. Congress is trying to recover ground. Other state-based parties are asserting themselves, while Dalit parties are not growing. In some cases, they have declined. I think that as long as Dalits are voting for different political parties, no party is going to take their support for granted. For example, if you look at how Dalits have voted in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 and 2024, it becomes very clear that some of that support shifts to and away from the BJP. This sends a signal that this vote can move away when it is concerned or dissatisfied. This generates an expectation that if the BJP wants to retain Dalit support and if the Congress Alliance wants Dalit support, they will have to compete for that support. So as long as that competition is there for their vote—even if their own Dalit party is not as strong—Dalits still have leverage in politics. They have a voice in politics. In other words, the decline of Dalit parties doesn't mean the decline of Dalit politics, as long as there is competition for their support. Now, if there were only one dominant party, that leverage goes away. 

And then you can take certain groups for granted simply because, as a group, they are relatively poorer. They have fewer means to hold a government accountable. They don't get to publish op eds in newspapers. They are rarely on television. Their concerns are almost always on the back burner. For them, the only way they have a voice is through protesting when they can, or during elections when different parties come knocking on their doors.

With increasing global concerns about electoral integrity and democratic backsliding, how do India’s election systems, which manage large-scale, complex elections, ensure democratic participation and fairness? Are there lessons for other democracies?

There has been a lot of concern about democratic backsliding in India. However, if there's one reassuring thing from the recent elections, it is that people are still voting in large numbers and they viewed the elections as mostly free and fair. The ranks of the opposition have been bolstered. There is a robust opposition in the parliament. All of this should encourage us. If you think about the Indian elections, in terms of the mechanics of it, the sheer scale is absolutely staggering. There were 960 million eligible voters and 640 million voted. There were 5 million electronic voting machines, 1 million polling stations, 15 million officials, and seven phases of elections over a number of weeks. It's a large operation. 

Hence the time period when there has been supposed backsliding, is the period during which participation rates in India have actually gone up. Over the last three elections, there are two trends that become clear. Firstly, people have voted in larger numbers than in previous elections. It's a substantial jump:, with 65-66% on average for the last three elections. Secondly, it is interesting that the gender gap has closed and is almost zero now. There is a lot of enthusiasm when it comes to participating, and it's not confined to just one gender. Despite all the pessimism and the concerns around the quality of democracy in India, it is not all doom. But I don't think there is a system out there that can claim to be all Goldilocks. 

Are there lessons for other countries? In comparison to other countries in South Asia, India dodged the bullet in many respects because of its democracy. There's been a long set of elections and the results have been accepted. Recently, there have been real concerns about the quality of democracy. In the past, democracy was suspended between 1975 and 1977. But on the whole, it's a popular exercise. People participate, which means there is faith in it. 

India has avoided the kind of breakdowns seen in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, or Sri Lanka, like civil wars and military coups. Democracy requires a degree of patience. The entire exercise of seeking a mandate from the people and mobilizing people around different causes gives a level of political legitimacy to the system, which provides long term stability. The system is re-legitimized through every election.  

In regions where Dalits have been politically mobilized but have not succeeded in winning elections, have their movements still managed to influence state policies or legislative outcomes? How does mobilization translate into concrete political gains for marginalized communities?

There are different ways of looking at it. When you have a group that is historically marginalized and been treated as an outcast group, it has very limited economic resources. It is subject to social coercion. Now, if that group can begin to assert itself, even locally, if it can stand up to acts of injustice at the local level, things begin to shift. We see that in the case of Dalits asserting themselves, but also standing up to atrocities being committed against them. Larger social movements sometimes don't have to translate into political parties. Dalit movements put pressure on parties and make them attentive to Dalit concerns. Sometimes, when these movements turn into parties, those parties may just be marginal, smaller parties. As long as politics is competitive and those parties are needed, they can still nudge the system. For example, in Tamil Nadu, the Dalit party has been harassing its own coalition partner about the attention they have paid to Dalit issues and the kind of representation Dalits have in the cabinet. We've seen the needle move there, and today there are a substantial number of Dalits in the cabinet of the Tamil Nadu government. In this example, the Dalit party is not at the center of power; it is instead a small part of the Alliance. And yet you can look at this outcome in terms of representation and say that some things have changed. It provides an example to other parties who are hoping to mobilize Dalits. It sets a certain benchmark for Dalit groups, for Dalit organizations in the movement to demand these things saying “Look, if Tamil Nadu can do it, so can you.” 

We see that where Dalit movements have remained assertive and their footprint is large, they have a large following for their concerns. All parties pay attention to Dalits. We are talking about historically marginalized groups, and what they're demanding is not just state resources. Dalits or Adivasis don’t simply want reservation(quotas) in jobs. Reservation is actually a very small part of what they're demanding. A lot of times, they're asking for the end of social discrimination. They want to be treated as equal, and have social economic opportunities for upward mobility. That is something that does not happen in a day, or over the term of one government. In that sense, if you look at India's record, it has taken this issue of historical discrimination seriously and it has tried to address it. These efforts have been constrained and limited. At the end of the day, though, this is one aspect of representation. Delegitimizing caste and class hierarchy is an issue the Indian democratic experiment can be proud of. It has acknowledged and tried to address this issue, and whether it's their participation in movements, or the enthusiasm Dalits have for participating in the electoral process, it really speaks well of the democratic experiment in India. One thing is clear, though, historically marginalized groups do not get taken seriously in democratic politics unless they mobilize themselves.

As Modi approaches a decade in power, what do you think his long-term legacy will be for Indian democracy and governance? How might this shape the post-Modi political landscape in India?

Legacies are difficult things to speculate on. For example, Dr Manmohan Singh was in office for 10 years, and the finance minister before that. Some people would say that he's the one who in some ways, brought in economic reform and India's economic liberalization. But to know how well that project has gone, we still have to wait for some time to think about it objectively and clearly. Any policy has intended and unintended consequences, and both must be considered. Thus, it's too early to think about the legacy of the Modi government, or the tenure for which Mr. Modi has been in power. There will be some good things and some bad things. The same is true for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The things that were launched with a lot of fanfare, with a lot of promise, with a lot of hope, may not turn out to be what we thought they would be and similarly, things that we were very skeptical and worried about could actually produce some interesting results.