The Politics of Modern India since Independence

Crispin Bates is Reader in the School of History, Classics & Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, where he teaches modern South Asian history from 1750 to the present day. He is also Director of Edinburgh University’s Centre for South Asian studies, a member of the UK Arts and Humanities Council Research Panel for modern history and the series editor of the Routledge/Edinburgh South Asian Studies series. His recent publications include Subalterns and the Raj, also published by Routledge (2007).  Subho Basu is a Professor at the Department of History, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, US. He has published widely in labor history and contemporary history of Indian politics and is currently completing a book on communist politics in Bengal.

1. Introduction 2. The Birth of the Republic 3. Democratic Socialism in a capitalist economy: the Nehruvian era 4. The Collapse of Consensus 5. Indira Gandhi and the Rise of Populist Authoritarianism 6. Experiments with Coalition 7. The Twilight Years of Congress Hegemony 8. The Beginning of a Coalition Era 9. Opening up the Economy 10. Saffron Waves and Populist Politics 11. Globalisation and the fight for the middle ground in Indian politics 12. Possibilities and Lost Opportunities