Dalit Social Mobilization and Bloc Voting

Abstract

The availability of ethnic blocs is a prerequisite for the success of an ethnic party. This chapter illustrates how Dalits’ historical social mobilization weakens bloc voting. Dalit social movements generate mobilizers and mobilization symbols that increase competition for Dalit votes at the locality-level, lower the utility of caste for differentiating among parties, shift the emphasis to material goods over symbolic goods, and split Dalit voters’ party preferences. Non-movement states were denied these electoral effects of Dalit social mobilization and hence preserved the possibility of bloc voting. The chapter concludes by reconsidering some of the explanations for ethnic party success.