Why Development Defines India’s Elections Today
Subir Sinha is Senior Lecturer in Institutions and Development in the SOAS Department of Development Studies. His recent research has focused on decentralised development in India, early postcolonial planning, and on the global fishworkers’ movement. He Tweets at @PoMoGandhi. Social science wisdom has long held that Indian elections are determined by ‘primoridial’ collective identities of caste, religion and region. Certainly, all political parties combine these elements in their election calculus, from