Sanam Roohi gives a working paper on 'Multi-scalar approach to transnational political activism: Bring Babu Back Campaign and the 2014 Election in Andhra'

After a prolonged political impasse following the death of its chief minister within months of being elected in 2009, the state of Andhra Pradesh had plunged into deep political uncertainties. Multiple changes in the leadership, the breaking up of the ruling party, the ultimate bifurcation of the state after a protracted agitation and the imminent loss of the capital city to the newly carved state of Telangana exacerbated these uncertainties in the state. Simmering caste and regional contestations came out to the fore reverberating amongst the stratified Telugu diaspora in the US as well. Therefore, 2014 was a crucial election year for the state, as it held the promise of bringing some stability. The ‘Bring Babu Back’ campaign–a political campaign to lead the Telugu Desam party and its leader Chandra Babu Naidu to victory – emerged within this backdrop. Narrativized through the language of ‘need for change’, ‘risk’ of ‘irreversible loss’ and a call to act with ‘urgency’ brought hundreds of engineers from Andhra and the USA together to fight for ‘stability’ and ‘development’ of the truncated state. Joining causes with the national election that year that used similar rhetoric, the campaign converged and diverged in different ways. Using multi-scalar approach as a methodological and empirical tool, the paper analyses how the regional, national and transnational intersected in creating a political discourse that culminated in a successful transnational political mobilization. Moreover, it allows us to grasp how the campaign was refashioned and articulated to suit itself to a caste inflected and globally connected Andhra, while strategically aligning itself to national political discourse.