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CASI Election Conversations 2024: Pavithra Suryanarayan on the BJP, “Social Status,” and Anti-Redistributive Politics

Pavithra Suryanarayan & Rohan Venkat
Monday, April 29, 2024

Questions over redistribution and social justice politics versus religious fault-lines seem front and center once again in India’s ongoing general elections. How is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—which has historically been ambivalent about social justice politics—mobilizing poorer voters, especially among the upper castes? What role does “social status” play in how voters choose their candidates? And when do anti-redistributive politics become salient?

Rohit Mujumdar

Rohit Mujumdar is a student of Southern cities and urbanization. His current research attends to the myriad ways in which monsoons' everyday wetness and extreme events weave into the urban majority’s life in India’s coastal monsoonal geographies, and explores the possibilities of decolonizing and democratizing climate change action through multimedia storytelling.

CASI Election Conversations 2024: Rachel Brulé on the Promise and Pitfalls of Gender Quotas in Indian Politics

Rachel Brulé & Rohan Venkat
Monday, April 22, 2024

There are more women holding elected office in India than anywhere else in the world. Much of this is due to quotas, instituted three decades ago, that reserved 33 percent of seats in local offices for women. In 2023, India’s Constitution was amended to extend those path-breaking quotas to the Indian Parliament and state assemblies—a development that will usher in a massive infusion of women politicians at the highest levels of government. Yet, questions have been raised about whether reforms like these lead to just token representation or have deeper effects on governance itself.

CASI Election Conversations 2024: Yamini Aiyar on the BJP’s “Techno-Patrimonial” Welfare Model

Yamini Aiyar & Rohan Venkat
Monday, April 15, 2024

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s success over the last decade of Indian politics—and its frontrunner status in this year's Parliamentary elections—has often been ascribed to its welfare policies. How does this "new welfarism" differ from the rights-based approach that preceded it? Where do technological mechanisms, from Aadhaar to cash transfers, fit into this model?

Rachael Dougherty

Rachael Dougherty is CASI's Administrative Coordinator as of April 2024. They started at Penn in July 2021 as a Financial Administrative Coordinator and have an associates degree in digital media and bachelor's in communication studies with an art minor from Rowan University.

Lalitha Kamath

Lalitha Kamath is an urbanist and planner working at the intersection of urban infrastructure, urban planning and governance, and the environment. She writes on dominant forms of urban transformations in the Global South – both the structural violence of spatial transformation and processes of slow violence to urban environments.

CASI Election Conversations 2024: Louise Tillin on How Indian Federalism Has Evolved Under the BJP

Louise Tillin & Rohan Venkat
Monday, April 8, 2024

Why are debates over federalism and centralization particularly relevant in India’s 2024 general elections? How have quotas for women representatives—which will soon be in place at the national level—altered Indian politics? What are the elements of India’s “techno-patrimonial welfarism,” which has been a key plank of the current government’s success? What do we now know about how misinformation is used by political players in India?