Understanding Contemporary India

This book is designed to introduce students to India by providing overarching accounts dealing with India's geography, history, politics, international relations, economy, environment, women, religion, caste, and the arts.

An interdisciplinary book designed for use both as a core text for "Introduction to India" and "Introduction to South Asia" courses and as a supplement in a variety of discipline-oriented curriculums.

Chronic Hindu-Muslim rioting in India has created a situation in which communal violence is both so normal and so varied in its manifestations that it would seem to defy effective analysis. Paul R. Brass, one of the world’s preeminent experts on South Asia, has tracked more than half a century’s riots in the north Indian city of Aligarh. This book is the culmination of a lifetime’s thinking about the dynamics of institutionalized intergroup violence in northern India, covering the last three decades of British rule as well as the entire post-Independence history of Aligarh. Brass exposes the mechanisms by which endemic communal violence is deliberately provoked and sustained. He convincingly implicates the police, criminal elements, members of Aligarh’s business community, and many of its leading political actors in the continuous effort to “produce” communal violence. Much like a theatrical production, specific roles are played, with phases for rehearsal, staging, and interpretation. In this way, riots become key historical markers in the struggle for political, economic, and social dominance of one community over another. In the course of demonstrating how riots have been produced in Aligarh, Brass offers a compelling argument for abandoning or refining a number of widely held views about the supposed causes of communal violence, not just in India but throughout the rest of the world. An important addition to the literature on Indian and South Asian politics, this book is also an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the interplay of nationalism, ethnicity, religion, and collective violence, wherever it occurs.

Edited by Neera Chandhoke and Praveen Priyadarshi, Contemporary India addresses issues facing the nation-state and civil society from diverse perspectives: those of political science, sociology, economics and history. The book is thematically divided into three parts Economy, Society, and Politics and includes discussions on topics as wide-ranging as poverty, regional disparities, policies, social change and social movements, the elements of democracy, dynamics of the party system, secularism, federalism, decentralization, and so on. The common thread of democracy, which strings together different aspects of contemporary India, serves as the framework of understanding here and underlies discussions in all the chapters. The book includes 23 original, well-researched and up-to-date chapters by authors who teach different courses in the social sciences. Without compromising on the complexity of their arguments, the authors have used a lucid, conversational style that will attract even readers who have no previous knowledge of the topics. The contributors have also provided a glossary, questions and further readings lists with students examination needs in mind.

This volume analyzes centre-state dynamics in India placed against the backdrop of the election of a Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata (BJP) government to central power in 2014. It reflects on how centre-state relations have been shaped by the legacy of nearly two decades of broad-based coalition government at the centre and the concurrent and ongoing liberalization of the Indian economy. To this purpose, the volume engages with several relevant questions linked to the political economy of Indian federalism and its ability to manage ethno-linguistic difference. Did liberalization strengthen the economic or political autonomy of the Indian states? What impact did party system change have on the capacity of parties in central government to influence the actions of state governments? How did party system change and liberalization influence the fiscal and financial autonomy of the states and the capacity of the centre in planning and social development? Did both processes strengthen the autonomy of Chief Ministers in foreign policy-making? What are the strengths and weaknesses of Indian federalism in ethno-linguistic conflict management and what do the recent split of Andhra Pradesh or the proposed formation of Bodoland tell us about the dynamics underpinning the management of ethno-linguistic difference in contemporary India? The chapters originally published as a special issue of India Review.