Since the early 1980s, two significant trends have confronted anyone who deals with India's society and politics. The first is the media revolution: newspapers in India's major languages have trebled their penetration, and television has become a mass medium. Second, the Bharatiya Janata Party, with its aim of making India a "Hindu state", has trebled its vote in national elections and become the country's governing party.
Can an explanatory bridge be built to connect these two phenomena? If so, out of what? By mapping the media revolution and the growth of BJP support, it is perhaps possible to try and gauge the connections between them.
The role of India's media revolution in transform ing society and politics is the most fascinating question one can ponder about modern India. Others think so too. From Kirk Johnson's Television and Social Change in Rural India, which looks up from a village in Maharashtra, to David Page's and William Crawley's Satellites over South Asia, which takes an earth orbiting view, scholars, marketers and media moghuls— witness the efforts of Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer— strain to understand what media change means for India. "This TV," an elderly villager tells Johnson, "is the most significant thing that has happened to our village ever".
Since the early 1980s, two significant trends have confronted anyone who deals with India's society and politics. The first is the media revolution: newspapers in India's major languages have trebled their penetration (Table 2), and television has become a mass medium. Second, the Bharatiya Janata Party, with its aim of making India a "Hindu state", has trebled its vote in national elections and become the country's governing party.