ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the tension present in two seemingly different understandings of politics and the selection of leaders in contemporary India, namely competing notions of democratic and divine election. Instead of assuming these two forms as distinct and formed through a struggle of a modern, rational political system versus a traditional religious worldview, I argue that there is significant overlap between the two ways of viewing election that is based on the development of political theories and theologies in the late early modern and early colonial period. Using the court of Mysore during the reign of Kṛṣṇarāja Woḍeyar III (1799–1868) and its continuities into contemporary politics as a case study, I argue that a political theology of India sovereignty was developed in negotiation with British political and administrative practice that ran parallel to the emerging theories of national sovereignty. Through this process, Indian sovereignty was reconceptualised during the transition from kingdoms to princely states under British control, a period that has had a profound impact on the assumptions about election in contemporary Indian politics.
