ABSTRACT
Some readers will recall a widely touted explanation for the result of India’s general election in 2004. We were told repeatedly that the Congress Party and its allies had won thanks to a revolt by the rural poor against globalization and the economic liberalization undertaken by the previous government. That was demonstrably false. Congress and its allies did better in urban areas than in rural parts. And several pairs of similar and contiguous states produced radically different results. In, for example, Haryana and Punjab, the rural poor were in roughly similar situations – and yet Congress triumphed in the former and was humbled in the latter. Such marked differences would not have emerged if the rural poor all across India had staged a revolt and turned to Congress and its allies.
