Election Study and Methodological Pluralism

Suhas Palshikar

There are often two responses to doing ‘election surveys’. One would believe surveys to be the be-all and end-all of studying elections while the other will always find out ways to doubt the usefulness of the method. Long after the battles were fought in North American academic circles, India’s political science community remains deeply divided on this issue (albeit without much explicit debate on the issues involved). The casualty is of course the ability to develop a robust understanding of the processes of democratic competition. It is necessary therefore, to argue in favour of developing multiple tools to understand electoral politics. One could think of at least three different ways besides surveys for ‘doing election study’. (It is useful to remind ourselves that Lokniti’s NES programme is not just National Election Survey but National Election Study.Read Through

In response to the last editorial Rethinking the curriculum of comparative politics Rajeshwari Deshpande writes

On behalf of the group in Pune I want to share with all of you some of our initial efforts in this respect that we have initiated at the Department of Politics, Pune University since December last year.

In December 2009, we (Suhas Palshikar and Rajeshwari Deshpande) had organized an international seminar titled ‘Maharashtra Contextualized: Towards Comparing Indian States’ at the Department .The seminar was occasioned by Maharashtra completing fifty years of its existence as a language based state in May 2010. We thought that this occasion calls for a review of Maharashtra’s achievements, failures and limitations. The seminar proposed to do this by taking a comparative perspective. The main idea was to compare Maharashtra with other Indian States in order to arrive at a better academic understanding of the social and political developments of the State over the past fifty years. Read through

Lokniti Steering Committee Meeting

The Annual meeting of the Lokniti Steering Committee was held on the 4th September 2010 at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Members of the Lokniti Steering Committee Prof. D.L. Sheth, Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed, Prof. V.B. Singh, Prof. Suhas Palshikar, Prof. Yogendra Yadav and the Deputy Director of Lokniti Sanjay Kumar were present in the meeting to overview the activities of the past one year and draft a work plan for the coming year.

Workshop on Study of Social Sciences

Lokniti organised a three day Workshop on Study of Social Sciences from 25-27th September 2010 at CSDS for twenty selected students from the Department of Political Science, Dyal Singh College, Karnal, Haryana. The Workshop was supported by the UGC Developmental Grant to Dr. Kushal Pal, Head, Department of Political Science, Dyal Singh College, Karnal,Haryana. Dr.Anita Aggarwal and Dr.Pawan Sharma, faculty in the same department also attended the workshop.

The workshop was conducted in the format of presentations by resource persons from the Centre followed by an open discussion with the students.

Divya Vaid presented on Survey Research and Educational Inequality, Md. Sanjeer Alam presented on National Data Sources, Rahul Verma presented on Electoral Politics in India, Ravi Kant delivered a lecture on The relevance of Social Science, Sanjay Kumar presented on Youth In India and Democracy and Electoral Participation and Yogendra Yadav conducted a session on Why Study Political Science

Workshop on Questionnaire Designing

A batch of 24 students of M Phil Political Science (Batch 2010), Delhi University had a three hour session with Yogendra Yadav, Sanjay Kumar and Rahul Verma on the nuts and bolts of Survey Research at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies on 28th September 2010.

They were introduced to fundamentals of survey research and sampling techniques. The Pre and post poll sample for ongoing Bihar state assembly election studies was used as an example to practically demonstrate how sampling is done. Draft questionnaire for pre poll study was used to discuss how to design a questionnaire for a large scale survey research.

Fellowship/ Appointment Publications

Rekha Chowdhary

The Second Uprising
Economic and Political Weekly September 25, 2010 Vol XLV No 39

Signs of simmering discontent have been visible in Kashmir since early 2007 after a series of civilian killings in fake encounters by security forces and in the Amarnath land row agitation of 2008. Contrary to what New Delhi may have been led to believe, separatist politics has acquired a more intense and aggressive form in the Valley by the participation of youth. Exploring the manner in which assertions of separatist politics have changed since 1989-90, this article argues that separatism is now driven by street responses of the youth and is witnessing a shrinking space for moderation.Read full article

Ashutosh Kumar

Book Review, Contemporary South Asia, Volume 18, Issue 3, September 2010 . Manali Desai (2007): State Formation and Radical Democracy in India, London, Routledge

Studies that employ inter-state comparative method in the arena of state politics have gained momentum with the realisation that India provides an ideal environment for comparative political analysis. The diversity of these states can be balanced against their development in the same evolving framework of the Indian federal system. India is also an ‘ideal ground for comparative analyses’, as Desai puts it, for ‘holding constant certain factors such as its position in the sphere of international relations, geography, ecology, religion and early political formations’.Read full article

Rahul Verma

Last year’s story? The Indian Express Sep 22 2010

The Congress resurgence in Uttar Pradesh in last year’s general election has generated hope among the party faithful in Bihar. Following Rahul Gandhi’s message at a Bihar rally — “what we did in UP, we will also do here” — party workers almost believe that this election could end their two decades of political oblivion in the state. It would be naïve to not recognise the dangers of overinterpreting the UP Congress revival saga. Notwithstanding the specificities of the two states, the Congress should not expect a replay of UP results in Bihar, for four reasons.Read full article

Sanjay Kumar

Mahilayo ke matoun ka bhi hai apna ganit (In Hindi) Prabhat Khabar 27th September 2010 Read article

Lokpriyata ke dam par laut payenge Nitish (In Hindi) Prabhat Khabar 23rd September 2010 Read article

Ghhata Matadan Chinta ka visai (In Hindi)  Prabhat Khabar, 20th September 2010 Read article

Nirnaayak ho sakte hai Chunaavi Gathbandhan, (in Hindi) Prabhat Khabar, September 7, 2010

Hame Hinsa Nahi, Vikas Chaahiye (in Hindi) Prabhat Khabar, September 6, 2010

Yogendra Yadav
Unke Kishan Ji, Mere Kishan ji aur Aapke? (In Hindi) Prabhat Khabar 27th September 2010 Read article

Workshop participation/ Presentations/Lectures