• ISBN13: 9788126939770
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: Politics and Current Affairs
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd
• Publisher Imprint: Atlantic
• Publication Date: May 17, 2024
• Pages: 408
• Original Price: INR 795.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 440 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Political Process / General

The spectacular victory of Narendra Modi and the BJP in 2014 and again in 2019 demands a nuanced exploration of the factors that led to it. Though the role of the middle class and the media in the making of what is called the ‘Modi Wave' is often talked about, a clear-eyed and unbiased look at how they transformed the political landscape in post-liberalized India is still lacking. This book studies how the Indian middle class, once seen as politically indifferent, has gradually become a player of importance. This change, which slowly began in the 1990s, has now reached a crescendo, and Modi has become the icon of the changing economic demands of the middle class and their ideological rightward shift. The new middle class played a decisive role in the electoral outcomes of 2014 and 2019—two elections that have undoubtedly changed the way India imagines itself and how the rest of the world sees India. Modi’s management of mainstream and social media—primary consumers of which are the ever-growing middle class—has played a key role in his emphatic victories. This book will help the reader understand the arsenal that Modi used in these elections and is amust-read for scholars of politics, media studies and sociology.

Nagesh Prabhu is Deputy Editor, _x0003_The Hindu, Bengaluru, and the author of Reflective Shadows: Political Economy of World Bank Lending to India (2017).

• List of Abbreviations ix
• Foreword by R. S. Deshpande xiii
• Acknowledgements xvii
• Introduction: Middle Class, Media and Modi
• Ascending the Power Steps xxi
• 1 The Nebulous Domain of the Middle Class 1
• 2 Indian Middle Class: British Raj to Post Emergency 30
• 3 Birth of the New Middle Class during Liberal Raj 69
• 4 Middle Class, Media and the BJP 100
• 5 Middle Class and Narendra Modi 150
• 6 Manoeuvring the Middle Class 184
• 7 Managing the Unmanageable: Media and Modi 249
• 8 Modi’s Ride to Power on Social Media 294
• Epilogue 331
• Bibliography 335
• About the Author 367
• Index 369