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TOWARDS A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF STATE POLITICS IN INDIA: SOME
OBSERVATIONS
Author(s): SUDHA PAI
Source: The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jan. - March 1989), pp. 94-109
Published by: Indian Political Science Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41855409
Accessed: 23-01-2016 11:46 UTC
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TOWARDS
FOR
IN
THE
INDIA
THEORETICAL
STUDY
:
OF
SOME
SUDHA
STATE
FRAMEWORK
POLITICS
OBSERVATIONS
PAI
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98
sensus broke down that state parties were able to take advantage
and cut into the strengthof the Congress. But by 1969 it was
apparent that that the result was party fragmentation and not a
true multi-partysystem. By 1972 the Congress under Mrs. Gandhi
forged a new economic and class-based consensus at the national
level which made regional, linguistic and parochial alignmentsirrelevant. Hence Kothari held that electoral politics, the shape
of party system and political processes in the states could be
shaped by changes at the national level. Iqbal Narain's theme
also put state party systems into the All India party system.11
Hence no "independent political space" was accorded in the
1960s to political happenings in the states.
This emphasis on national politics is also seen in many early
writingson Regionalism. Regionalism and the search for regional
identities was seen as incompatible with national intergration,
and transformationand dissolution of traditional ties and parochial values as essential for the emergence of a modern nation
stage.12In the 1970s, looking at regionalism fromthe "periphery",
studies portray a far better realisation of the factors underlying
regionalism and regional movements.
Many type of empirical studies are seen in the 1960s. Since
the shiftto empiricism coincided with the major electoral change
in 1967 in the states, it led to a number of voting behaviour
studies. From 1962 onwards, voting behaviour studies had begun
to appear. Rajni Kothari reduced his developmental framework
into a research design which formed the basis of many voting
behaviour studies conducted by the Centre forthe study of Developing Societies. In this, party system, electoral behaviour and
political development were seen as inter-related. Some of these
ideas were published in Part I of the Valume, Contextof Electoral
changein India: General Elections 1974.13 However, these deal
with the relations of elections to the larger political processes at
the national level, it is only in part II that a survey of the states
is provided. Voting behaviour studies threw light on different
patterns of voting behaviour in differingpolitical and socioeconomic contexts in the various states and the interrelationship
between levels of participation and contextual factors.14 Hence
However,
they added to our understanding of state power.
voting behaviour studies have not been conducted regularly over
a number of state elections. They were rather isolated attempts
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103
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104
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105
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107
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108
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109
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