Introduction
Indian party politics is typically characterized as centered around leaders, based on social cleavages, and not ideological. This book challenges those views and asserts that, as in many other parts of the world, a deep ideological divide frames the Indian party system. It claims that the paradigm of state formation based largely on class politics is not entirely applicable to many multiethnic countries in the twentieth century. In more diverse countries, the most important debates center on the extent to which the state should dominate society, regulate social norms, and redistribute private property and on whether and how the state should accommodate the needs of various marginalized groups and protect minority rights from assertive majoritarian tendencies. These two issues—the state’s role in transforming social traditions, and its role as accommodator of various social groups—constitute the dimensions of ideological space as it exists in Indian party politics today.