Parties and Electorates from Raj to Swaraj: An Historical Analysis of Electoral Behavior in Late Colonial and Early Independent India

Abstract

Fascination with elite recruitment, ideology, and political strategy in the Indian nationalist movement has given rise to a wide range of scholarly studies about these phenomena. An extraordinarily rich literature has also developed dealing with provincial political movements during both the nationalist and postindependence periods. More recently a literature concerning local, “peoples’” history has started to develop and flourish, the most influential genre being the self-styled subaltern studies (see Guha, 1984–86; also Guha, 1983). Missing in the historiography of this vast and complex region are studies of those institutions that constituted the core of successive nationalist demands made for political reform—elections and representative institutions. Our study is a preliminary venture into the world of elections to provincial legislative institutions in late colonial and early independent India. The place of elections is not only important in understanding the decolonization process in India; it is of broad comparative interest in enhancing understanding of the democratization of regimes.