The New Experts: Populism, Technocracy and Politics of Expertise in Contemporary India

Abstract

Over the last five years, the Indian right-wing has been discrediting left-liberal experts, and encouraging pseudo-scientific religious knowledge systems. Yet, crucially, it has also cultivated its own institutional networks of (those it considers to be) intellectuals and experts: an ostensibly anti-colonial alternative authority to challenge the "hegemony of the progressives" and the "erstwhile custodians of discourse." In this article, I examine the evolution of a shifting network of experts and elites, interrogating what is considered to be expertise in the context of governance. Through a study of Indian think tanks, I show how Prime Minister Modi's government is constructing an ideology that combines populist anti-intellectualism with new forms of technocratic expertise to produce a distinct nationalist agenda. I argue that two forms of political legitimacy govern contemporary India: 1) populist politics, which appeals to the masses/majority by defining nationalism through rigid boundaries of caste, class, and religion; and 2) technocratic policy, which produces a consensus of pragmatism and neutralises charges of hyper-nationalism. I emphasise the relational dynamic between the two: they function through different, often contradictory, logics and content yet are able to work towards the same goals in key moments of mutual reinforcement. Using data from participant observation and over 50 interviews in New Delhi, before and after the BJP's election victory in 2019, this article argues that the BJP's style of populism is distinct from others in its marriage of ultra-nationalism and economic pragmatism.