Thachil, Tariq. "Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India". World Politics, Vol.63, No.3 (2011): 434-469.

Thachil, Tariq. "Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India". World Politics, Vol.63, No.3 (2011): 434-469.

• Having political parties or private nonstate organizations linked to political parties distribute services is an effective tactic in poor democracies of elites obtaining political support from the poor without having to actual implement the poverty relieving policies which would distribute resources away from the elites and therefore cost them political support among elite voters. Distributing services to the poor might attract voters to a party whose policies are otherwise actively hostile, obtaining poor votes without changing the policies which make them popular among elites (435-436).
• This strategy is most successful in poor communities who are not otherwise politically mobilized. In cases where poor communities already have strong class or ethnic political identities, they are less likely to vote for service providing elite parties (436).
• The author argues that this strategy of service provision is distinct from clientist politics because the latter is attached to a political party rather than a private organization, and because clientist strategies explicitly buy votes with favours, whereas services are provided regardless of position in the election cycle or voting patterns, providing social connections which clientelism does not (437, 443, 465). 
• The Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] had a lot of trouble attracting supports from lower caste and poor voters, since its social outlook reinforced an oppressive and hierarchical caste structure and its economic policies are directly opposed to the interests of India's poor. As a result, most of the BJP's base is upper caste and middle class or above (438).
• Despite this political profile, in 2004 the BJP managed to get the votes of 30% of dalit and adivasi/tribal voters, two of the most socially and economically marginalized groups in India (438).
• Scholars have theorized three primary strategies for political parties to appeal to poor voters: programmatic, clientelist, and identity politics. Programmatic strategies involve creating policies that actual address the interests of voters. Clientelist strategies give patronage to groups, especially public sector jobs, to individuals in return for political support (439). An identity-based strategy invokes shared group identity to mobilize voters of different classes (440).
• These strategies have all proved difficult for the BJP to implement. It has been unwilling to implement programmatic changes, instead pushing the liberal economic policies which benefit its middle and upper class base. The fact that system of patronage in India have stratified along caste lines makes this strategy unfeasible as long as the BJP continues to be dominated by high caste politicians. The use of Hindu nationalism to appeal to poor Indians has also been largely unsuccessful as a political tactic (439-441).
• Chhattisgarh was dominated by Congress at the time of its creation in 2000, largely through a system of patronage networks operated by Congress. In the 2003 and 2009 elections, however, the BJP managed to win elections, partially from a significant minority of the adivasi and dalit vote. Over 30% of the population of Chhattisgarh is constituted by scheduled tribes, adivasi, with another 10% of the population being dalit (444).
• The main BJP-affiliated charity in Chhattisgarh is the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram [Association for the Welfare of Tribals], which focuses on tribal areas, while the Seva Bharati [Service to India] also has a presence in other parts of the state. The Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram was founded in 1952 to counter Christian missionary activity and convert advasi to Hindusm (444-445).
• The vast majority of villages in Chhattisgarh receive only very basic services from the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, most famously a system of one-teacher schools which provide the main education for most in the state. Most medical services are basic first aid, with trained doctors only available at certain major centers (445-446).
• The educational and medical services provided by the Ashram, although minimal, are often the best available in the nearby area. Moreover, the schools run by the Ashram are often better than government-run schools and have fewer problems of teacher absenteeism. The better quality of services, not any ideological affiliation, is what engenders support for the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in these communities (447-448).
• The activists and volunteers in Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and other Hindu nationalist organizations report a deliberate strategy of providing health and education to gain support in communities, in the hopes that these communities will then become sympathetic to Hinduism because of this charity (449).
• They also have explicitly political tasks which they perform during election time, such as recording the caste affiliation of families in their village to the BJP or spreading malicious rumors about opponents. This and any campaigning activity is not seen as aggressive or partisan by the villagers, since the vast majority of their other work is not political (451-453).
• The volunteer structure of the Ashram and Seva Bharati have made it possible for tribal politicians to climb the organizational ladder. The politicians produced from the cadres of these organizations are generally much more popular than those chosen directly from the BJP party ranks (450).
• Congress representatives from the tribal regions of Chhattisgarh also recognize the substantial electoral benefit which the charity work of Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and others has had for the BJP. This is contrasted with the total lack of grassroots organizations associated with Congress and its accompanying electoral defeats (451).
• The presence of Hindu nationalist service provider charities and organizations in districts is significantly and positively correlated to the electoral success of the BJP in those regions, despite otherwise similar demographics (455, 464). Analysis of individual voting patterns shows that participating in these organizations strongly correlates with voting for the BJP, while actual political opinions on Hindu nationalism is not at all a significant factor for lower caste voters (458-459, 464).
• Age is also a significant factor in the likelihood of individuals to vote for the BJP, with support of the BJP much more common among those under 29 years of age. This is likely the result of children educated in Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram schools (460).