Thread by @akshayalladi

General musings in this thread: The Rajni Kothari approach of influencing policies and ideas/ ideology with movements and an ecosystem linked to factions *within* political parties is highly underrated. (1/n)

India is not non-ideological. But India does have a different ideology space (well described in the book Ideology and Identity by Chibber and @rahul_tverma )- with the classic left- right, liberal- conservative kind of binaries being inapplicable. (2/n)

Also, both ideology AND identity matter (as they do in most heterogenous societies). So the key point is - for most ideologies (other than those defined by India’s unique ideological axes), the fact is people are neither in favour, nor opposed - they are just ...indifferent.(3/n)

This opens up an opportunity. Create movements and ecosystems. Let them translate into factions *within* political parties. They can piggyback on the party winning power based on the few truly salient issues of ideology, and identity. Then swoop in and push agenda (4/n)

The left and communists did this quite well. They accomplished far more of their policy goals- on social issues (such as history) and economic issues through the vehicle of the Congress party, than the Communist parties. Conservatives and classic liberals have also ....(5/n)

...accomplished many policy goals - most notably on economic reforms - more due to well connected an developed policy ecosystems and factions with multiple parties (Congress, BJP, even regional parties). So too for social issues such as cow protection or personal laws...(6/n)

...which have been achieved by Hindu and Muslim social conservatives not by separate parties, but through movements, ecosystems, and factions that influence parties from within. (7/n)

The implication is - if there are a set of policy ideas and even a broader ideology that it coheres into, analytically the partisan fight of politics while interesting is far less important. What is much more important is - how is the movement and ecosystem developing....(8/n)

...And does that translate to a faction with influence within multiple political parties. People whose ideas fall in this indifference space - such as say classical liberals on civil liberties, post Keynesians on economics, Hindu conservatives on say temple de-control....(9/n)

...are better off approaching their ideas that way. Create ecosystems, movements and “sleeper cells” within multiple political parties. Activate them when those factions with sleeper cells get internally powerful for entirely different reasons. (10/n)

So it is a wrong recommendation to say, for e.g., that the INC should become a classical liberal party. Such a party will die- because classical liberalism is not a salient enough ideology in India to sustain a political party. Instead make it an ecosystem and a faction (11/11)