Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizens, and Democracy in South India.(Review) (book review)

American Political Science Review, March, 2001 by Baruah, Sanjib

Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizens, and Democracy in South India. By Narendra Subramanian. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999. 371p. $59.95.

These two books are about two powerful regional political forces in India--the Shiv Sena of Maharashtra (with a focus on the city of Mumbai) and the Dravidianist parties of Tamil Nadu. Many readers of this journal may know these places by their older names: Mumbai is Bombay, and the state of Tamil Nadu and its capital city were once known as Madras.

Both books, not coincidentally, have much to say about the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, which is perhaps the most dramatic change in the Indian political landscape in recent years. That, indeed, is the central theme of Banerjee's...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.