As India steadily ascends the global ladder toward superpower status, questions are emerging about the internal fault lines being manipulated, amplified, and perpetuated, often through seemingly academic and data-driven sources. Among the most significant of these is the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), a Delhi-based think tank that has, for decades, been publishing post-election surveys categorising voters by caste and religion. These surveys, funded by organisations like the Ford Foundation, are not just influencing political analysis—they are shaping the very lens through which Indians view each other.
The problem with CSDS surveys
After every election, a familiar cycle begins: newspapers, magazines, television debates, academic journals, and even PhD theses cite CSDS data to explain which caste or religious community voted for which party.
These numbers are then used to draw sweeping conclusions:
Yadavs voted this way; Kurmis that way.
Muslims supported Party X; Banias leaned toward Party Y.
Brahmins “flipped” their vote; Dalits were split by sub-caste.
This isn’t just about data. It’s about the narrative this data produces and the social consequences that follow.
For the next five years, these caste-based interpretations dominate the political and social discourse. The result? Caste consciousness deepens. Social trust erodes. Suspicion grows between communities, urban and rural alike. Political parties begin to avoid investing in areas where survey data claims they didn’t get votes. Instead of governance, the focus shifts to vote-bank engineering.
The Ford Foundation link
Why is an American foundation like the Ford Foundation funding such data collection? What stake does it have in India’s internal voting patterns? There’s a deeper question here: Who benefits from an India divided along caste and religious lines?
Senior journalist and author Dilip Mandal, in a post on X, wrote, “A fractured India cannot become a global superpower. A divided society is a distracted society, one that is constantly fighting within rather than focusing on innovation, development, or global leadership. The suggestion here isn’t conspiratorial for its own sake; rather, it highlights a pattern of foreign-funded projects that centre caste, religion, gender, and identity in ways that seem to undermine national cohesion. Environmental activism, LGBTQ advocacy, caste discourse, and religious freedom discussions, all important topics in their own right, are being weaponised through foreign money to provoke division instead of fostering progress”.
Mandal further added,” It is time to rethink the role of caste- and religion-centric electoral surveys in Indian democracy. These surveys do not merely reflect voter behaviour—they shape it, weaponise it, and deepen fault lines that India’s Constitution seeks to heal. The Election Commission of India should step in and ban such surveys. Academic freedom and data collection should not become tools for social fragmentation”.
