India is frequently hailed as the world’s largest democracy, but it is rarely studied as a case that can shed light on central questions in comparative politics. In this book, Pradeep Chhibber interrogates the conditions under which Indians feel represented. To answer this question, he engages debates about representation, party systems, party organization, religion, identity groups, and civil society. Surprisingly, he finds that when Indians engage in religious practices, they feel represented by politicians, parties, and democracy. He suggests that because Indian society is so deeply hierarchical, religious practice is one of the only arenas in which the mighty and the meek, the rich and the poor, engage as equals. This equality is based on the shared submission before the divine and generates what he calls identic ties. Thus, the experience of equality in this arena provides the basis for feeling a sense of efficacy vis-à-vis democracy.
Chhibber argues that this approach to studying religion (religion as practice) rather than religion as belief or behavior, which generates trust, is a more fruitful approach to understanding how religion relates to democracy. He also argues that looking at religion as denomination is not very helpful, as the varieties of understanding within denominations is as great as it is between them. He is rightly skeptical of those who seek to connect religious beliefs to antidemocratic or democratic tendencies. Ultimately, there is nothing particularly “religious” about why religious practice in India leads to greater support for democracy. Instead, it is the shared experience of being equal supplicants before the divine that connects voters and rulers.
Religious Practice and Democracy in India begins with a presentation of the major finding and concludes with a discussion of how it relates to the literature on religion and politics more broadly. But most of it consists of chapters in which Chhibber attends to various other demographic and political factors that could shape support for democracy besides religious practice.
The chapter on caste and political representation makes some very important and convincing arguments about how caste affects politics in contemporary India. Chhibber shows that the treatment of caste as an interest group or ethnic group is problematic because it treats castes as horizontal identity groups. Caste, in fact, is a system of hierarchical domination, and to make sense of how caste shapes political behavior, especially voting patterns, we must first establish what the hierarchy looks like within the political unit under investigation. The author finds that dominant castes are better represented by political parties, but even among members of a dominant caste, those who engage in more religious practice are better represented. These findings run counter to both popular and scholarly assumptions that caste is the primary determinant of political participation in India.
Another chapter on civic associations makes the counterintuitive claim that participation in civic associations is largely a characteristic of the already well-off and well connected within Indian society. That is, civic life reinforces inequality in access to representation, rather than providing a leveling mechanism.
The discussion of political parties—their ideology, organization, and finances—all leads to the conclusion that parties that are dynastic are less representative than nondynastic parties. This makes sense, but in the Indian context, it surprisingly reveals that regional parties and multiparty systems are not more representative than national parties within two party systems. Thus, the book makes significant contributions to our understanding of Indian politics, to our study of the relationship between religion and politics, and how we might think about the literature on social trust and politics.
In terms of Indian politics, the book intervenes in debates over the role of caste in politics, the effects of dynastic organization on political parties, and the relative representativeness of regional and national parties. It provides evidence of state capriciousness and the gap between the promise of democratic governance and its reality for most citizens.
The field of religion and politics within comparative politics has grown increasingly sophisticated. Too often, though, it remains driven primarily by hypotheses based on Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, Christianity). The value of Religious Practice is that by using the public nature of much religiosity in India, Chhibber crafts an independent variable that is about religion as interpersonal experience. It links the micropolitics of religious practice to the macro-level concerns about the legitimacy of democracy as a system of governance.
Finally, the literature on civil society, social capital, and trust has long assumed that being active in associations creates a habit of mind or generalized trust that is then transferred to the political system. Chhibber suggests that we need not assume that civic associations are equalizers, whether they are bridging or bonding institutions. He also shows that the value of associating with others in religious practice is not the creation of greater trust in general. Instead, we can see what happens within religious practices of worship and discourse as directly shaping politics.
Methodologically, the book is based largely on a series of surveys. By combining data from national surveys, censuses, and regional surveys, the author can present a compelling volume of evidence for these claims. Critically, these surveys include Muslims as well as Hindus. One could be tempted to think that greater religious participation builds the kind of in-group bonds that can also strengthen xenophobia and majoritarianism. Chhibber’s inclusion of non-Hindus in his samples helps to make his findings more robust and helps to set aside the denominational argument that being more Hindu makes people more democratic. He shows that mobilization based on religious practice is possible, but is best understood in terms of the political context, rather than the religious.
The evidence for the creation of identic ties is drawn primarily from accounts by anthropologists, historians, and scholars of religion. As a result, the work is marked by the absence of the voices of real people. Some investment in interviews and participant observation to illuminate people’s experiences would have made the argument more compelling and memorable. Some of the empirical and theoretical findings in the book are based on work that Chhibber has previously published on his own or with coauthors. Bringing them all together in connection with the literature on religion and democracy is useful. Religious Practice will certainly be a key text for students of Indian politics. It should also be read carefully by scholars of religion, civil society, and democratic legitimacy.
