By Scroll Staff
Vote bank politics in India is associated with “minority appeasement” and makes political parties “disregard the principles of equality of all citizens”, according to the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s updated Class 11 political science textbook for the academic year 2024-’25, reported The Indian Express.
An earlier version of the textbook’s section on vote bank politics, for the 2023-’24 academic year, did not include the words “minority appeasement”, reported the newspaper. The revised text is part of a section on “criticism of Indian secularism”.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training said that the revisions were made as the older version “only intends to justify vote bank politics”, and that the newer version makes the section a “relevant criticism of Indian secularism”, reported The Indian Express.
Both versions of the textbook contain the paragraph: “If secular politicians who sought the votes of minorities also manage to give them what they want, then this is a success of the secular project which aims, after all, to also protect the interests of the minorities.”
It also says: “But what if the welfare of the group in question is sought at the cost of the welfare and rights of other groups? What if the interests of the majority are undermined by these secular politicians? Then a new injustice is born.”
The revised version of the textbook says that while there may not be anything wrong with vote bank politics in theory, its practice distorts electoral politics by leading to the mobilisation of a social group to vote en masse for a particular political party or candidate, according to The Indian Express.
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