Anil M. Varughese

The number of international students from India in Canada has increased rapidly in the last five years. Students from India now comprise 34 percent of Canada’s international students. This article places the remarkable growth of Indian international students within the broader context of Canada’s internationalization of higher education. Drawing from a national survey, qualitative interviews, and secondary data, it examines the changing profile of Indian international students and the major trends and challenges experienced by Indian international students in Canada during COVID-19. The paper identifies a recent trend of “vocationalization” of Indian international students and several associated vulnerabilities due to the increasing commercialization of international education. Our findings also point to the complex intersections of psychosocial, academic, and economic disruptions during the pandemic, exacerbating the precarious position of Indian international students.

This volume focuses on the dynamic, distinctive and diverse aspects of political campaigning in India’s varied information ecosystems during the 2019 Lok Sabha election. This introductory essay reviews important research in the field of political communication and campaigning, and distinctive forms of campaigning in historically important Indian elections, before discussing innovations and technologies in political campaigning in India since the 1950s. Greater access to low-cost smartphones and the internet since 2016 has meant that in most of the states studied in this volume, social media played a larger role in 2019 than previously. This volume brings together empirical evidence in two thematic case studies–one on how parties use massive campaign rallies to impact prime-time news agendas and another on misinformation on social media – along with five case studies on the most distinctive forms of political campaigning in the varied subnational contexts of West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. The concluding essay compares highlights from these case studies, discusses campaign research methods, and identifies opportunities for future research on political campaigning in India.

This study offers an overview of Kerala's party-system development, media landscape and campaign dynamics against the backdrop of the 2019 parliamentary election. The 2019 election was widely predicted to be a golden opportunity for the BJP to secure its first parliamentary seat from Kerala, with the highly emotive and polarizing ‘women’s entry into Sabarimala temple’ becoming the most salient campaign issue. The study situates this key campaign issue and its mobilisational potential in Kerala’s party-system and hybrid media environment. Drawing from pre-election field research, it argues that the BJP’s framing of the Sabarimala verdict, its use of religiously-coded campaign messaging, and its ability to adapt the form and style of campaign communication for the digital era enabled a sizable consolidation of the Hindu vote behind the BJP, moderately threatening the stability of Kerala’s entrenched bi-polar party system. Yet, the Sabarimala issue did not deliver the anticipated electoral results for the BJP due to Kerala’s unique political context. The residual effect of the Sabarimala issue in the 2021 legislative assembly election is discussed in conclusion.