ABSTRACT
The demise of the modernist vision of the secular republic of India has fundamentally transformed the modes of political incorporation that govern Indian politics. Gone (in principle – not in practice) is the paternalist bureaucracy and with it its étatist idea of the volontée generale that promised ‘development for all’. Gone, too, is the so-called Congress system (even when the Congress Party has come back) that incorporated local patronage systems and transported that ‘Idea of India’ (Khilnani, 1999) into the furthest reaches of the country. It was precisely the idea of the Indian state as envisioned by Nehru’s modernist ideology, however, that underlay the ‘democratic revolution’ (Hansen, 1999) that led to its demise: its promises of ‘development for the people’ have determined expectations towards state agencies and their practices; and it has generated those demands to access and participation that, translated into practices, have changed the face of Indian politics. The democratisation of Indian democracy has seen the pluralisation of political mobilisation and the inclusion of hitherto underrepresented groups into the electoral fray. In the ensuing struggle for a reconfiguration of legitimate control over state resources competing ideas of entitlement all pose the question: whose state is India?
