Overview

This third edition of Politics in India provides a timely counter‑narrative to pessimistic prognoses about the future of Indian democracy. It focuses on the resilience of India’s democratic political system and its strategic reorientation in response to electoral mandates emerging from the country’s vigorously competitive elections. In a comprehensive analysis of the country’s democratic processes, Mitra brings together political theory and historical perspective in order to provide a comparative analysis and interpretation of issues that have occupied the Indian state since Independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Based on the rationality of the Indian voter and the strategic acumen of the political leaders, this is the first comprehensive explanation of how India has achieved a seamless transition from colonial rule to a robust and resilient democracy. Mitra explains how India has sought to balance development with social justice, consent with force, and pursue strategic autonomy in the global arena. As a result, the book demonstrates that, despite occasional breakdown of orderly rule, the political process consistently restores dynamic equilibrium of the system. The chapters, cross‑referenced, can be read both as stand‑alone essays on specific themes, as well as parts of a single narrative. Supplemented with tables, boxes, illustrations, and comprehensive notes on further reading, the new edition will continue to be an essential reading for students and researchers in Indian and South Asian studies, introduction to political science and world politics, development studies, sociology, comparative politics, and political theory. General readers interested in how the world’s most populous democracy functions on a day‑to‑day basis may find the volume a useful introduction to Indian politics.

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9781032709239

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Politics in India deftly lays out the choices, institutions, process as well as the deeper structures of society, history and culture shaping India’s changing trajectory. It weaves together historical, and contemporary material including public opinion data to build a powerful framework that both surveys while also articulating a set of cogent ideas and concepts that allow us to see the changes and the continuities in India’s trajectory of governance. This book educates the student and teacher but also goes beyond to stimulate the scholar of India. The guide to further reading in chapter 17 enables the reader to go deep if they so choose. The writing is powerful and evocative. This textbook is valuable advance over previous editions and is likely to serve as an important resource for the un-initiated, as well as students, teachers and scholars alike.” -- Aseema Sinha, Wagener Chair of South Asian Politics and George R. Roberts Fellow, Claremont McKenna College, California, USA. ""This is the first-ever comprehensive book on Indian politics which surpasses all existing ones. Majestic in scope and style, it belongs to the grand tradition Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph. Based the application of political scientific tools - yet rare in the genre---it firmly roots understanding Indian politics in history, culture and context of the country. Mindful of the blemishes as well as achievements of the Indian state, the book focuses on India’s resilient democracy, and indigeneity, adaptability and transformability of modern politics in a traditional setting. Original, and path breaking, the book will remain a standard text on Indian politics for students, researchers, rulers, political opinionmakers and the general readers."" -- Harihar Bhattacharyya, Ph. D (LSE), Former Professor of Political Science, the University of Burdwan. ""Systematically exploring the institutional architecture and multifaceted socio-political processes, this volume offers us a deeply reflective and analytically sophisticated assessment of Indian politics. It unpacks the complexities of the contemporary political landscape to map out the dasha (status) and disha (direction) of constitutional democracy in India."" -- Hilal Ahmed, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.

Author Information

Subrata K. Mitra was Head of the Department of Political Science at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany (1994–2014). In the course of his years in teaching, research, and academic collaboration, he has applied his specialisation in rational choice theory and quantitative methods to a diversity of fields which include Indian and comparative politics; democratisation; the post-colonial state and social change; governance; elections and political parties; state-formation and sub-national movements; foreign policy; religion and art history; and transcultural studies. This diversity can be seen in the range of his publications which include India: Statecraft and Foreign Policy (with Jivanta Schottli, and Markus Pauli, 2023), The 2019 Parliamentary Elections in India: Democracy at the Crossroads? (with Rekha Saxena and Pampa Mukherjee, 2022), ‘The 2024 parliamentary elections in India: nation, region and religion’ (with Harihar Bhattacharyya, forthcoming, 2026); Governance by Stealth: The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Making of the Indian State (2021); Kautilya’s Arthashastra: An Intellectual Biography – the Classical Roots of Modern Politics in India (with Michael Liebig, 2017); Citizenship and the Flow of Ideas in the Era of Globalization (2012); Re-use: The Art and Politics of Integration and Anxiety (with Julia Hegewald, 2012); When Rebels Become Stakeholders (with V.B. Singh, 2009) and The Puzzle of India’s Governance (2005).

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