The politics of names and numbers

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 2 focuses on ethnic politics in Jharkhand, explaining why elections reveal a stable social system in which the ethnic identity of candidates at the constituency level remains constant, even though the governing political party may change. This ethnic political system is rooted in local justification relations, whereby social groups identify with political leaders based on the ethnic group to which they belong. Expressive partisanship excludes certain groups who are socially or economically marginalized, and this has been the substance of different expressive articulations of Adivasi identity and other marginalized identities across the region—explained as the micro-level relations between differently positioned ethnic groups in the five divisions that comprise Jharkhand. Focusing on how political parties have responded to changes in the ethnic demography of Jharkhand by accommodating more ethnic groups within party structures, the chapter reveals the consequences of these changes to the relationships between identity and political representation in Jharkhand.