Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 4

Editor’s Introduction
Indian Politics & Editor’s Policy Introduction
• Vol. 1, No. 1 • Spring 2018
This is the inaugural issue of Indian Politics and Policy. The editors collectively
decided to focus on the Modi regime’s performance in a number of
key policy areas during its span of nearly 4 years in office. To that end, the
journal commissioned papers from a number of senior and junior academics. The
papers deal with the regime’s performance in the arenas of foreign, economic, social,
counterinsurgency policy, and federalism.
In the realm of foreign policy, Chris Ogden of the University of St Andrews
argues that the regime has focused on India obtaining recognition as a great power,
pursuing a multipolar global order, and setting in motion a more robust engagement
with Southeast Asia. These goals, while they do not amount to a wholly new
foreign policy doctrine, nevertheless represent a tonal shift and an acceleration of
certain foreign policy objectives.
Vijay Joshi of Merton College, Oxford argues that the regime was the beneficiary
of weak global oil prices and sandbagged with an inherited “twin balance
sheet problem.” Its responses to these two legacies were respectable but not impressive.
Joshi concludes that the government’s performance was excellent with
regard to the continuation of a few major market reforms, but mostly failed to
address the problems related to “deep fiscal adjustment.” In summary, he contends
that the performance of the regime was good in parts but mostly underwhelming.
Chanchal Kumar Sharma of the Central University of Haryana and Wilfred
Swenden of the University of Edinburgh contend that despite the claims of the
Modi regime to place “center-state relations on an even keel,” Indian federalism
has become more centralized. Yet this process of centralization has hardly been
uniform. It is strongest in the political domain but weakest in fiscal matters.
Two contributions, one from Amrita Basu at Amherst College and another
from Maya Tudor at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University,
discuss different aspects of social policy under the Modi regime. Basu specifically
deals with the growth of executive power, heightened nationalism, and the attrition
of key institutions. She argues that the populist orientation of this government
has attenuated democracy because of its rejection of the values of pluralism, diversity,
and political contestation.
The second contribution, that of Maya Tudor, suggests that Indian nationalism
was historically inclusive and had sought to protect democratic institutions
during political crises. However, she believes that a newly hierarchical Indian nationalism
is justifying the marginalization of minorities and is therefore inimical
to Indian democracy.
Finally, Subhasish Ray of the National University of Singapore assesses the
current regime’s counterinsurgency policy. Through an examination of two cases
1
doi: 10.18278/inpp.1.1.1