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The importance of Mandate 2004. The Northeast in delightfully jagged drawingsElectoral Politics in Indian States: Lok Sabha Elections in 2004 and BeyondEdited by Sandeep Shastri, K.C. Suri, Yogendra YadavOUP, Rs 795
This book, you might argue, is a little too late, considering that by this Saturday we will be forced to crunch an entirely different set of numbers, make sense of those and then find a new theory or a hypothesis to fit them.
But what makes the book timely is the fact that it outlines the basics in terms of political equations and forces that went on to constitute the momentous 2004 elections. Whatever might happen on May 16, the 2004 results set in motion many things that have enabled Indian politics to come to this pass. They laid the conditions, forcing the Congress to come to terms with coalition politics.
The essays are topical - especially the incisive one authored by Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar called "Ten Theses on State Politics in India". The essay has 10 hypotheses on Indian elections slowly becoming not just a sum of its parts (read states): Indian states, say both political scientists, exude pride, distinctness and confidence in regional identity, but not by opposing the organising principle of the Centre.
Elections this time are being interpreted as 28 sets of elections, a point this book makes continuously, and even in the way it has been conceived. Its essays detail the growth of modern politics in today's India. The chapter on Uttar Pradesh by A.K. Verma and on Andhra Pradesh by K.C. Suri are again exceptional. Some chapters, like "The Elusive Mandate of 2004", have been published before, so avid followers of...