Interview: Rank, social status and how BJP balances upper-caste appeasement with its welfare push

Questions over redistribution and social justice politics versus religious fault-lines seem front and centre once again in India’s ongoing general elections.

How is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – which has historically been ambivalent about social justice politics – mobilising 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?

In the fourth interview of the CASI Election Conversations 2024, CASI Consulting Editor Rohan Venkat speaks to Pavithra Suryanarayan, Assistant Professor in the Government Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science, about her research into the awakening of “social status” as an identity category, when social justice politics leads to a backlash that ends up hollowing out the state, and what other big questions about Indian politics she would like to see studied.

Could you tell us what you’ve been seeking to understand in your research?

I broadly work on three topics. First, I study how people’s identities shape vote choice and their attitudes toward redistribution. Second, I study the politics of building state capacity. The third is an area of research that I have developed with a co-author, Francesca Jensenius, which focuses on party organisation and party systems in the...

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