Mobile-izing: Democracy, Organization and India’s First “Mass Mobile Phone” Elections ROBIN JEFFREY AND ASSA DORON We argue that the 2007 state elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’ s largest state, were the first “mass mobile phone” elections in India. The paper charts the spectacular growth of the cheap cell phone in India and in Uttar Pradesh, documents the organizational strengths of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and explains how a party once based on Dalit (ex-Untouchable, or Scheduled Caste) support was able to cooperate with Brahmins. In these processes the mobile phone acted as a remarkable “force multiplier” to the existing BSP organization and helped party workers to circumvent the general hostility of mainstream media. The paper does not contend that the mobile phone won the 2007 elections; rather, it argues that the BSP was able to exploit a potent new tool, ideally suited to poor people who often were limited in their ability to travel. The paper points to similarities with the Obama campaigns of 2008 and notes that though other political groups in India attempt to imitate the methods, they may lack the essential organization and dedicated workers. I N THE FIRST SIX months of 2012, the largest state in India’ s federation, Uttar Pradesh (UP or “northern province”), will go to the polls at the end of the five-year term of office of its elected government. UP is so populous that if it were sovereign, it would be the sixth largest country in the world. 1 For the five years between 2007 and 2012, a single party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), founded on the support of Dalits or “untouchables,” 2 formed the state’ s government. The 2007 election victory of the BSP was a landmark in India’ s social and political history as the first occasion on which the potential of the Robin Jeffrey (isasrbj@nus.edu.sg) is Visiting Research Professor in the Institute of South Asian Studies and the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. Assa Doron (assa.doron@anu.edu.au) is a Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture, History and Language, The Australian National University, Canberra. 1 UP’ s population was 200 million in 2011. Only China, the USA, Indonesia, Brazil and India itself are more populous. 2 The practice of “untouchability” has been outlawed in India since the 1950s, and Dalits or “Sched- uled Castes” have seats set aside for them in legislatures and quotas for jobs and educational places. However, discrimination remains widespread. “Dalit” today is the name preferred by “untouch- ables” to describe themselves. It can be translated as “oppressed.”“Scheduled Caste” is the admin- istrative term used in official documents. M. K. Gandhi coined the word “Harijan,”“children of god,” now often considered patronizing and somewhat offensive. The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 71, No. 1 (February) 2012: 63–80. © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2012 doi:10.1017/S0021911811003007 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911811003007 Published online by Cambridge University Press