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Electoral democracy combines the ideas and practices of warfare and welfare, where both work in tandem as near synonyms. India’s robust electoral democracy exemplifies this combination in diverse forms. Critically analysing the 2014 Parliamentary elections beyond the seduction of immediacy and bare cold statistics, this book puts human subjectivity at the centre of election studies and, through an anthropological-sociological approach, makes lives-human and non-human, lived and unlived or unlivable-central to any understanding of elections and democracy.

Crafting a new, comprehensive approach, this volume looks at the 2014 elections in relation to the changing nature and forms of elections and democracy globally. Coming from multidisciplinary backgrounds, the contributors to this volume use ethnographic observations to open up a space for new theoretical and methodological reflections on the role of media in Indian elections, the shift to the right in 2014 and its consequences, the significance of traditional Hindu spaces such as the river Ganga in BJP’s victory, the role of gurus like Baba Ramdev and the electoral choices available to and exercised by the minorities, among others.

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: Democracy and the algebra of warfare-welfare/Irfan Ahmad. 2. Democracy as rumour: media, religion and the 2014 Indian elections/Irfan Ahmad. 3. Modi and the spectre of terrorism: crafting the Hindutva icon/Manisha Sethi. 4. Gurus and the Hindu nationalist politics: the Baba Ramdev-BJP partnership in the 2014 elections/Pralay Kanungo. 5. The Gujarat model and the right-wing shift in 2014/Zoya Hasan. 6. Communal violence, electoral polarization and Muslim representation: Muzaffarnagar, 2013–14/Hilal Ahmed. 7. Does space matter in electoral democracy?: Analysing mother Ganga’s ‘call’ to the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate/Bikramaditya Kumar Choudhary. 8. Caste and cultural icons: BJP’s politics of appropriation in Tamil Nadu/Thirunavukkarasu. 9. Hindutva’s reach out to Muslims in the 2014 elections: a historical analysis/Mohammad Reyaz. 10. Media, corporates and democracy: lessons from the 2014 general elections/Sudhir Pattnaik. 11. On the ground: the unfolding of the 2014 general election campaign/Patrick French. 12. Unity in diversity: democracy and manifestos in the 2014 Indian elections/Irfan Ahmad. 13. On studying elections and democracy: a conversation with T.K. Oommen/Thirunavukkarasu. Afterword. Index.