Indian Politics

A Summer Selection, Part 4

Essays

Mathieu Ferry, "Cow Terrorism"
The sacredness of the cow and the religious proscription against the consumption of beef were invented as late as the medieval period, and have since represented powerful unifying forces among the Hindu community. Today, the wave of lynchings the country has experienced shows how these notions continue to be instrumentalized by the nationalist extreme right. Read the essay→

Jules Naudet & Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal, "Where Does the Left Stand in India?"
In India as in Europe, the left wing is struggling. Looking beyond the financialisation of the economy and disparities in social conditions, this essay sheds light on other factors explaining the weakness of the Indian left wing, from electoral dynamics to the criminalisation of the political class.
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Reviews

Smriti Sharma, "Gods and Rupees"
What can economics teach us about belief systems? As an institution, religion has implications for education, social cohesion, and politics, all of which are linked to economic growth and inequality. Sriya Iyer uses the tools of economics in an expansive study of one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world— India.
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Olivier Roueff, "Participation Against Democracy"
The historically informed study of participatory mechanisms in the Indian capital, New Delhi, shows that democracy resides less in procedural engineering, whether participatory or electoral, than in the mobilizations that take advantage of it.
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