India Since 1980

Ganguly and Mukherji provide a brisk, accessible, and wide-ranging introduction to the momentous changes underway in contemporary India. It is the only single-volume discussion available of four of the largest themes in contemporary India's transformation: deepening democracy, secularism, economic reform, and India's place in the world. It will serve both as an introduction for newcomers and as a starting point for reflection and debate for specialists. - Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President, Center for Policy Research, New Delhi, India The authors of this book have very successfully accomplished the virtually impossible task of analyzing what they describe as four revolutionary transformations of the Indian economy, polity, and society (in particular, its secular values). The transformations have the potential to remake India's socioeconomic strategies and policies in a profound way, including those relating to national security and external relations. In short, eminently readable chapters devoted to each transformation, the authors have succinctly analyzed its characteristics and contents and provided copious references to the literature for a reader to pursue them in greater detail. I highly recommend this book, which provides a brief but deep analysis for anyone with a serious interest in India. - T.N. Srinivasan, Samuel C. Park Jr. Professor of Economics, Yale University India Since 1980 offers a remarkably dense analysis of most topical issues. The main achievements of 'the world's largest democracy' are highlighted, but the challenges it has to cope with - including the crisis of its secularism - are scrutinized too. A must for the noninitiated reader as well as for those who need to put what they know about this puzzling country in perspective. - Dr. Christophe Jaffrelot, Senior Research Fellow, CERI/Sciences Po One of the most neglected stories in world politics in the last three decades has been India's political, economic, social and diplomatic emergence, within the continued framework of electoral democracy. In this pithy, absorbing, and highly original book, Ganguly and Mukherji trace the four transformations that are launching and challenging India in the new century. One can find no better concise guide to this-the world's largest-democracy. - Larry Diamond, Stanford University, and Director of Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law