Jati Aur Chunav : Jatiyon Ka Loktantra

This book aims to understand Indias electoral democracy and the role of caste within it. This is a difficult task, as understanding caste itself as a social force is not easy. Despite the global expansion of modernity, education, and understanding, caste remains where it was in Indian society. Indeed, it is now emerging with greater confidence. Its decisive role in elections is now universally acknowledged; there are talks of a caste-based census; new polarizations are emerging along caste lines between political parties, leaders, and voters, both breaking down and re-forming. Therefore, it is natural to wonder whether there is a pattern to this political activism of caste, whether there is a way to understand how the constantly dynamic electoral coalitions of castes work. Clearly, in a country with over four and a half thousand communities, delving into society with this question is like wading into the ocean. Senior journalist Arvind Mohan has done just that in this book. Drawing on his nearly four decades of experience in journalism and election studies, he attempts to understand the changes of the past 76 years and highlight some seemingly decisive trends in this book. He conducted this complex and extensive study based on a state-by-state analysis. This reveals that the electoral geography of not only Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, but almost the entire country, is shaped by caste.