New challenges of politics in Indian States / edited by T. R. Sharma

During the last ten years or so politics in various states of India has developed many new con tours and has manifested many new challenges. The present volume attempts to identify and assess the magnitude of challenges that have surfaced in the four states of north-west India: Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. In Punjab, alongwith the mounting tensions on the economic plane which have been generated by the green revolution, there has also developed a strong reserve between the two major communities: the Sikhs and the Hindus. But the economic and communal polarisations do not reinforce each other, rather they cut across. In Himachal Pradesh, the sub-regional identities of the 'old' and the 'new' areas have solidified and a new oligopoly of orchardists has deve loped. Here the sub-regional and economic polarisations strengthen instead of weakening each other. In Jammu and Kashmir, sub regional polarisation has grown along with equally intense communal polarisation but the demographic spread of two communities-Mus lims and Hindus-in the state is such that the sub-regional and communal polarisations rein force each other. In Haryana, there is no polari sation along sub-regional, communal and eco nomic lines. Here the polarisation is on ethnic lines. The present volume attempts to ascertain the manner in which and the degree to which these communal, regional, economic and ethnic polarisations, operating in isolation or in com bination, have affected the politics of each of these states and the challenges that each state confronts.