Special Issues

This article argues that the deterritorialised politics of affinity generated by swadeshi, over and against the imagined community of the nation, was its greatest legacy. It holds that though the swadeshi agitators have been taken to task for not having a political programme to displace the colonial power through mass mobilisation, they found filiations on an emerging map of freedom the world over. Swadeshi politics thus created nodes, strategies, techniques of power and technologies of the self, and created another paradigm against the dyad of state power versus public representation that the moderates had been trapped in.

This paper points out why at two moments, nearly a century apart, a perceived affinity between anarchism, postmodernism and Hindutva might cause some progressive activists and historians to reject all three as hopelessly entangled. However, while it is important to take note of some commonalities in their jumping-off points and traits of form and sensibility, their differences are equally telling. And it is crucial to note these, if we are to jump in good directions. This is as true within each discourse as between them.

Vernacular political oratory in the Madras Presidency sought to bring the gospel of swadeshi to the common farmer and labourer and this was something entirely new. When police officers took cognisance of these meetings, they began to figure out new modes of surveillance and recording, and it was this that prompted the innovation of vernacular shorthand. By the 1920s, the age of vernacular politics had begun and the police had developed a really workable system of shorthand reporting, which soon had widespread applications in many other spheres of life.

SPECIAL STATISTICS: 2012 STATE ELECTIONS SPECIAL STATISTICS: 2012 STATE ELECTIONS contestants, from 1,045 last time to 1,078 Fourteenth Assembly Elections candidates in this election (Table 1A). As always, the main contest in this in Punjab Aelection was between the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD+/ SAD-BJP) alliance and the Indian National single day poll to elect the 14th women voters at 79% exceeded that of Congress (INC/Congress) which contested Assembly in Punjab was held on men voters by 1 percentage point. There the elections on its own fi elding candi30 January 2012. The election was also an increase in the number of dates in all 117 seats. The Bahujan Samaj witnessed high participation. A record Table 1B: Summary Results: Seats Contested, Won and Votes Secured by Major Parties and Alliances, 79% of a total of 1,76,82,363 registered Compared to the Assembly Election (2007) Seats Seats Won Gain/Loss Vote Share Vote % Per Vote Swing voters turned out to vote, the highest Contested of Seats (%) Seat Contested since 2007ever, and up by 3 percentage points since since 2007 (% Points) the last assembly election. Turnout of Shiromani Akali Dal + (SAD+) 117 68 0 41.91 41.91 -3.46 Table 1A: Summary Electoral Participation: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) 94 56 +7 34.73 42.40 -2.36 Electorate, Turnout and Number of Candidates Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 23 12 -7 7.18 39.73 -1.10 Compared to the Assembly Election (2007) Indian National Congress (INC) 117 46 +2 40.09 40.09 -0.81 Assembly Election Change from

p ercentage points indicating a high seats- Sixteenth Assembly Elections vote disproportionality in SP