India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy [Paperback]

Ramachandra Guha (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 2008

Amagisterial account of the pains, the struggles, the humiliations, and the glories of the world's largest and least likely democracy, Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi is a breathtaking chronicle of the brutal conflicts that have rocked a giant nation and the extraordinary factors that have held it together. An intricately researched and elegantly written epic history peopled with larger-than-life characters, it is the work of a major scholar at the peak of his abilities.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. India is the country that was never expected to ever be a country. In the late 19th century, Sir John Strachey, a senior British official, grandly opined that the territory's diverse states simply could not possess any sort of unity, physical, political, social or religious. Strachey, clearly, was wrong: India today is a unified entity and a rising global power. Even so, it continues to defy explanation. India's existence, says Guha, an internationally known scholar (Environmentalism: A Global History), has also been an anomaly for academic political science, according to whose axioms cultural heterogeneity and poverty do not make a nation, still less a democratic one. Yet India continues to exist. Guha's aim in this startlingly ambitious political, cultural and social survey is to explain why and how. He cheerfully concludes that India's continuing existence results from its unique diversity and its refusal to be pigeonholed into such conventional political models as Anglo-American liberalism, French republicanism, atheistic communism or Islamist theocracy. India is proudly sui generis, and with August 15, 2007, being the 60th anniversary of Indian independence, Guha's magisterial history of India since that day comes not a moment too soon. 32 pages of b&w illus., 8 maps. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Historian Ramachandran Guha, the author of Environmentalism: A Global History (1999) and The Unquiet Woods (1989), among others, and a current resident of Bangalore, writes of what he knows. Weighing in at nearly 900 pages, India After Gandhi successfully clarifies the convoluted history and contradictions of the world's second most populous nation. That Guha leaves questions unanswered in a book of this scope, as one critic asserts, might be considered nit-picking. To be sure, the author does choose his questions-giving particular attention to Nehru, India's first prime minister-and he doesn't shy away from offering his (mostly optimistic) opinions on important issues throughout. Still, critics agree that Guha's effort succeeds in putting a face on a country whose political and economic history, despite its size and growing influence in the "flat-world" model, remains virtually unknown by many outside India.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 944 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (August 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330505548
• ISBN-13: 978-0060958589
• ASIN: 0060958588
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > History > Asia > India

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57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rare comprehensive history of modern India, August 20, 2007

By 

Frank J. Wassermann (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (Hardcover)

India after Gandhi

The author alerts his readers early on that for many Indians "history" ended with independence. Apparently, there have been practically no general histories of India as a nation-state. Thus this book fills a serious gap for those Westerners, especially, who want to understand more about the second largest country (by population) and largest democracy in the world.

The author is an articulate and erudite guide, giving us a traditional chronological story through the administration of Rajiv Gandhi, and then a more or less thematic exploration of India's more recent developments. This works well as the last of Nehru's descendants to rule marks something of a watershed in Indian politics. The new system of highly fragmented regional and caste politics, leading to largely non-ideological coalition governments in Delhi, has persisted and grown since 1989. That has made Indian democracy in some ways stronger but also more cynical and corrupt. The author cites polling in which some 90% of the Indian electorate considers their political leaders corrupt, and he estimates that half or more of Indian politicians are on the take, large or small. Overall, he judges that India is "50% democratic and 80% united." (The corruption undermines the democracy; marginalized minorities resist governmental authority in remote and poorer regions of India.)

Indeed, the challenges of unity and democracy are the central concerns of the Indian story. The author has culled from a trove of eminent pundits predictions throughout India's history of its demise as a democracy or as a unified state. Virtually all underestimated the resilience of India's vast amalgam of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groupings, and ultimately their appreciation of Winston Churchill's aphorism--that democracy is "the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Near the end of the volume, the author quotes an anonymous essayist who wrote about India's political future in 1958:

The prestige that the [Congress] party will enjoy as the inheritor of the mantle of Gandhi and Nehru will inhibit the growth of any effective or healthy opposition during the first few years. In later years as popular discontent against the new generation of party bosses increases, they will, for sheer self-preservation, be led to make to make increasing attempts to capture votes by pandering to caste, communal [i.e. sectarian] and regional interests and ultimately even to "rig" elections.

Heavy state involvement with the economy gave the State "glittering prizes to [offer to] the business community as well as the managerial classes, [so that] the monied interests are bound to infiltrate sooner or later into the ruling cadres of the party in power." Finally, the writer predicted that growth of caste, sectarian, and regional identity politics would lead to an "increasing instability of government first in the states, then at the Center." This instability would in turn lead the parties to rely increasingly on the politics of fear.

This assessment came closest to the truth of the many predictions, and may serve as a summary for much of what most ails India's politics today. Yet an outside Western observer must come away nevertheless impressed with an experiment which, the author points out, actually anticipated the pan-European movement in the postwar era. In effect, India is composed of the equivalent of at least a dozen or more nations analogous to the nations of Europe. They were connected loosely by a history of Hindu religion, migration, and invasion by Muslim peoples and then cobbled together administratively under the British raj. Their ability to cohere for sixty years now with an "Indian" identity is, as the author observes, a truly unique development in modern history.

Some suggestions for a second or revised edition - an index of maps and tables, a glossary for Western readers, a time line of key events, an expanded "Cast of Principal Characters" and a few more maps of physical features and political history to help orient the many readers coming to the history of India for the first time in depth. Providing a little more background on Hindu culture, the caste system, and pre-independence Hindu-Muslim relations would also help the general reader considerably. But at 893 pages, one might assume that is where the editor drew the line. However, I would have traded most of the chapter on "people's entertainments" for such background.

An excellent companion book to read is -- In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce, a British citizen and correspondent married to an Indian. If possible read Guha first and then Luce for a more detailed and vivid look at contemporary India as shaped by the history portrayed in Guha's book.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Achievement, September 9, 2007

By 

C. Baker "cbaker" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (Hardcover)

This is an extremely well organized, readable, informative, and insightful history of India after independence. Guha details the political and socio-economic history of India from August 15, 1947 to today. The author does an outstanding job of bringing such a voluminous amount of material and a somewhat chaotic history with many, many themes into a coherent whole. To date this is the best writing I've seen on post-independence India.

49 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From Katherine Mayo to Thomas Friedman: evolution of modern India, July 29, 2007

By 

T. R. Santhanakrishnan "trsfmly" (Chennai, Tamil Nadu India) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (Hardcover)

Ramachandra Guha, Stanford/Yale professor turned writer, has done an outstanding job covering the history of India since 1947. The book is very engaging and informative. If you want to understand the evolution of modern India, you ought to read this book.

India's journey in the last sixty years could be described as a journey between two books: from Katherine Mayo's "Mother India" (dismissed by Mahatma Gandhi as a drain inspector's report) to Thomas Friedman's "The World is flat" (with adulations about a confident and growing economy).

The journey has several good and bad milestones:

(a) Good news: The country dealt with the messy partition - a great human tragedy that displaced 8 million people. Handling the bi-directional migration in Punjab was easier than the uni-directional immigration in Bengal.

(b) Good news: India, the political entity was created by unifying the various bits of the jigsaw puzzle left behind by the British; a country that the nation never had in several thousand years of history .

(c) Good news: A style of government based on rule of law, secular principles and a stable constitution was fashioned. A constitution based on liberty, democracy, emancipation and equality was created. Democracy has been the biggest strength of India in the last 60 years.

(d) Good news: The country was re-organized into linguistic states. Linguistic bonding created strong states under a federal structure and is one of the reasons why democracy has had a deep rooted existence in India.

(e) Good news: Nehru set in place political sensitivity that a heterogeneous population requires to hold the country together. Muslims in India went on to play a great role in India.

(f) Good news: Nehru laid the foundation for democratic traditions by conducting general elections every five years by universal adult franchise. Popular mandate dictated public policy and politics. Transfer of government from one administration to another was civilized.

(g) Good news: The Hindu personal code was reformed and standardized; a true revolt against the oppressive features of the Hindu society. Nehru/Ambedkar achieved in 17 years what could not be achieved in the preceding 1,700 years.

(h) Bad news: Nehru empathized with but desisted from reforming Muslim code; he preferred to leave it for a later day and to Muslim leadership. The Supreme Court judgment in Shah Bano case offered an opportunity. Muslim leadership was in support of this reform. However, Rajiv Gandhi, fearing electoral defeat, reversed the judgment by legislation in spite of the protest and resignation of his Muslim minister Arif Mohammed Khan.

(i) Good news: India got the ruler of Kashmir to sign on to join India when Pakistan sent "trained insurgents" to take Kashmir by force. Nehru got the popular Muslim leader Sheikh Abdullah to support accession to India. Nehru held general elections in Kashmir to ensure governments in Kashmir were backed by popular mandate.

(j) Bad news: Democratic principles and civil liberty were severely challenged by Indira Gandhi.

1 Constitutional rights and civil liberty were suspended for two years. However, these were restored by a wiser government that followed.

2 Political leadership in opposition was imprisoned but opposition leadership rose to the challenge; and the electorate rejected Indira's actions by voting her out; her defeat was near total.

3 Political leadership in Congress party itself was weakened; inner party democracy weakened and power shifted to a coterie of advisors and members of the family. The party is yet to recover from this; however, the weakening of the Congress party has strengthened Indian democracy. Since 1989 no party has been able to form government on its own and coalition governments have come to stay widening and deepening democracy but rendering public policy slightly incoherent.

4 Political leadership at state level was weakened; and nominees of "high command" were "elected" by obedient legislatures to power as Chief Ministers. However, strong leaders like N T Rama Rao rose to protect "Teluguwala gopatnamu" and brought back pride to leadership at state level.

5 Government executives were pressured to be "committed" to political agenda (instead of being neutral in a multiparty democracy). Government executives were too glad to co-operate and several of them have turned to political careers after retirement.

6 Judiciary was pressured to be "committed" to political agenda. Though there have been a few instances of favored promotions, the Judiciary has substantially held its independence.

7 Gag rules were enforced on press for two years by Indira Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi attempted, in response to stories of corruption, legislation to jail editors for "scurrilous publication". Fortunately protests in Parliament prevented the legislation.

(k) Bad news: Corruption became endemic in the system. State's control over economic assets, and State's leverage over private enterprise were enhanced ostensibly to fight the rich on behalf of the poor; but with a more obvious consequence of decision-makers in government being able to convert their influence over the direction and timeliness of the decisions into personal or political wealth.

(l) Bad news: India saw two pogroms. Against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984. Against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Both arose due to willed breakdown of law. The PM in Delhi and the CM in Gujarat issued graceless statements that in effect justified the killings. Very unfortunately both reaped electoral rewards.

(m) Bad news: Rising Religious fundamentalism, by Hindus and Muslims, affected peaceful co-existence. A sixteenth century mosque around a Hindu sacred site has been a trigger for religious divide in India for long. Destruction of the mosque by Hindu fundamentalists stepped up the divide. Mahatma Gandhi's advice to a pluralistic society to not seek benefits for the maximum; but maximize benefits for all was sadly forgotten.

(n) Good news: Backward castes who benefited economically from land reforms have started asserting themselves politically (Karunanidhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav). Dalits found new leadership in Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. Increasing political assertiveness would influence the differences to vanish in the long run.

(o) Bad news: Territorial integrity of India saw a few challenges that stemmed from:

1 Departing British rulers encouraging princely states and hill tribes to remain independent and have a dominion status with Britain so that the empire survives the Raj. Churchill's support to Hyderabad and Nagaland are examples.

2 Political insensitivity of federal government to the pride, claim to common resources, border or leadership as in the case of Punjab

3 Pakistan's agenda to avenge the loss of Bangladesh by supporting religious divide and sponsoring terrorism.

4 Kashmir.

(p) Bad news: The economy was mismanaged for first 35 years and is dogged by a "blow hot blow cold" view for next 25 years.

1 Indian economy, second largest in the world from time immemorial to 18th century stagnated with zero growth from 1857 to 1947 thanks to inept British rule.

2 The young nation pursued socialism (centralized planning, state ownership of big ticket industry, state control over private enterprise etc) for two reasons: Nehru truly believed in it; Indira Gandhi saw an opportunity in it to get defined as pro-poor and win elections. End result: Economy grew at a stately pace of 3.5% pa for the first 35 years.

3 The mid sixties famine was a shock to India. However, the "green revolution" helped India achieve self sufficiency in food production. Wheat production doubled. Rice production grew 50%.

4 Rajiv Gandhi started with right ideas by liberalizing trade, reducing duties, incenting exporters, simplifying license regime, lifting curbs on businesses and reducing tax rates; but reverted to populism closer to election time. (He did not win, however).

5 The 1987 drought affected 200 million people and entailed a few starvation deaths.

(q) Good news: A severe economic crisis forced politics to take back seat and introduce economic reforms in India that pushed India into a growth path.

1 The coalition governments inherited a crisis and had to take "significant" steps in opening up the economy, inviting foreign investment, and liberalizing trade.

2 However, there is a continuing debate between "reformers" and "populists".

3 Economy is growing at a faster 6-8% in the last ten years.

4 There were success stories. The software service exports, aided by Nehru's education system and linguistic policy, Rajiv's emphasis on telecommunication and George Fernandes expulsion of IBM giving rise to indigenous players, grew from $ 0.1 billion in 1990 to $ 13.0 billion in 2004.

We have today a confident and rapidly growing India; well integrated with global markets for goods/services and capital. Democracy has taken a deeper root and some tradition in the country. Several malaises prevail and pose challenges.

Will India survive?

So long as the democractic traditions remain, secularism prevails, citizens remain free, market is respected and civil service/army remain; and Hindi film songs are sung, India will survive" says Guha.

Let me add my contribution to India with a Hindi film song: "so jo kabi aisa ho to kya ho?"

Just dont miss the book. If possible recommend the book to a young Indian.