| Political Processes in India

This course will run parallely with Indian Politics Major core 2 and would be in close conversation with it. Both these courses take a look at the same historical events, and political moments from from two different vantage points. If politics major core 1 looks at institutions, Politics major core 2 focuses on political processes. The argument being, that institutions are embedded in the social and the political and they mutually constitute one another. For example, The institutional decision to divide the country into two has long term implications on the Indian society which goes on to inform later institutional decisions and affect the form and the nature of Indian politics for decades to come. Some may argue that we are still not out of the shadows of partition.

This course looks at Indian politics in action. It is an introduction for undergraduate students to develop an understanding of dynamism of Indian Politics. How does caste shape Indian politics? How have social movements given rise to political demands and later political parties? If India is made up of diverse regions and states with languages, practices and political aspirations that are polar opposite to each other, what does it mean for India’s political life? This course is geared towards familiarising students of politics with some of these important events and phenomena but also give them an analytical lens through which to assess not just their past but also their present. This course would make use of conventional academic texts, but also historical material like speeches and archival material as well as popular media for students to appreciate the complexities of Indian politics.

Course Objectives

1) To familiarise students to historical events and phenomena and how they shaped Indian politics.

2) To be able to appreciate the relationship between politics and society and that there is a mutually constitutive relationship between the two.

3) To get students to appreciate the regional diversity of Indian politics and historical ways in which they have emerged.

4) To build a historical as well as a theoretical understanding of our present.