How identity politics plays a significant role in general, state elections

For years political scientists have struggled to understand the correlation between caste and election. A new 2018 study suggests a majority of Indians prefer political leaders from their own caste, indicating how identity politics plays a significant role in the general and state elections. This was more prevalent among illiterates across caste and religious groups.
 
Across eight states — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana — 55 Indians out of 100 would prefer a political leader from their own caste and religion, found the study, ‘Politics And Society Between Elections 2018’, carried out by the Azim Premji University (APU) and Lokniti (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, or CSDS) in 22 assembly constituencies with 16,680 respondents.
 
No more than 10 per cent would actively choose a political leader from a different caste. A little more than a third of those surveyed said the caste (35 per cent) of their political leader would not matter. “There is a distrust of leaders from outside the community across all classes, and all caste-class intersections,” the study said. “The upper castes in general express the lowest trust in leaders from outside their own.”
 
While 55 per cent of all respondents expressed a bias for a political leader from the same caste, these results varied between states.

About two-thirds of those surveyed in Madhya Pradesh revealed a desire for a leader from the same caste (65 per cent) — the highest among states included in the study; states expressing the lowest such desire were Andhra Pradesh (43 per cent for caste) and Telangana (48 per cent for caste). “This suggests some obvious homogeneity between these two contiguous states, only reinforced by the information that they constituted a single territorial entity till mid-2014,” the report said.
 
Jharkhand and Rajasthan had the most respondents (10per cent) who said they would actively choose a leader from a different caste.