Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, author, political scientist, scholar of South Asia with a keen understanding of India’s political landscape, speaks to The Wire’s editor, Seema Chishti.

Read the full transcript below.

Seema Chishti: Hello, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot and a very warm welcome to The Wire on a very dramatic day.

We’ve had extensive deliberations and debates in the House of Parliament and the Lok Sabha, which is suddenly debating three bills that have just been hurled, almost kind of spirited out of nowhere, that say that the women’s reservation – that is already a constitutional amendment, agreed unanimously in 2023 – needs to be expedited and put on a speed bill, really. And for that, India needs to undergo immediate delimitation based on the 2011 census while the new census is on.

So suddenly the Indian polity is looking at the prospect of 850 Lok Sabha seats drawn on the basis of an old census, while the new census is happening, only because we’re told women’s reservation needs to get off the ground. So there’s plenty to pick from all of that. A very warm welcome to you again, Professor Jaffrelot. He is, we’re very proud to say, a columnist at The Wire. He’s the Avantha Chair and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s India Institute, London.  And he’s also the research head at King’s College, London. And he teaches South Asian politics at Sciences Po, Paris, from where he’s joining us today. So, welcome.

Professor Christophe Jaffrelot: Thank you, Seema, for this kind invitation and introduction.

SC: So, Christophe, we see that some very obvious things that are coming out about why the BJP may have chosen this very sudden route to do something so dramatic, which will leave its footprint on generations of years, on several years and decades of Indian politics and society. One we can see is that there is a Hindi heartland skew, which would result from a 2011 pure population count or a delimitation of seats, which will suit the BJP. So as Yogendra Yadav says, it’s more about political reservation for the BJP than women’s reservation. And number two, 850 seats probably allow for more gerrymandering, if you like, or more seats to be fiddled about with, and you can fix things. Those are the two things. So I wanted to get first thoughts from you on what you think are the reasons why this has suddenly been kind of bounced upon India.

CJ: Well, I think what is happening in India is also a reflection of what we see in the rest of the world. When we see on the one hand, Viktor Orban losing after 16 years, when we see Erdogan, his back to the wall, forced to put opponents behind bars, when we see so many authoritarian figures realising that elections are dangerous and you have tried hard in the past to transform the field into a really uneven playing field by saturating the public space, by the media, by getting much more money than any other party. But well, in 2024, it was not enough. It could not save the skin of the BJP fully. So things are getting even worse on the economic scene. The crisis that is coming because of the war against Iran is definitely there for staying and it will have a major impact on the state........

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