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

Ramachandra Guha

Harper Collins, Jul 24, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 893 pages

Born against a background of privation and civil war, divided along lines of caste, class, language and religion, independent India emerged, somehow, as a united and democratic country. This remarkable book tells the full story—the pain and the struggle, the humiliations and the glories—of the world's largest and least likely democracy.

Ramachandra Guha writes compellingly of the myriad protests and conflicts that have peppered the history of free India. But he writes also of the factors and processes that have kept the country together (and kept it democratic), defying numerous prophets of doom who believed that its poverty and heterogeneity would force India to break up or come under autocratic rule. Once the Western world looked upon India with a mixture of pity and contempt; now it looks upon India with fear and admiration.

Moving between history and biography, this story of modern India is peopled with extraordinary characters. Guha gives fresh insights on the lives and public careers of those long-serving prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. There are vivid sketches of the major "provincial" leaders whose province was as large as a European country: the Kashmiri rebel turned ruler Sheikh Abdullah; the Tamil film actor turned politician M. G. Rama-chandran; the Naga secessionist leader Angami Zapu Phizo; the socialist activist Jayaprakash Narayan. But the book also writes with feeling and sensitivity about lesser known (though not necessarily less important) Indians—peasants, tribals, women, workers and musicians.

Massively researched and elegantly written, India After Gandhi is at once a magisterial account of India's rebirth and the work of a major scholar at the height of his powers.

Contents

• Unnatural Nation: 1
• PICKING UP THE PIECES: 17
• Freedom and Parricide: 19
• The Logic of Division: 41
• Apples in the Basket: 51
• A Valley Bloody and Beautiful: 74
• Refugees and the Republic: 97
• Ideas of India: 115
• NEHRUS INDIA: 135
• The Biggest Gamble in History: 137
• Home and the World: 160
• Redrawing the Map: 189
• The Conquest of Nature: 209
• The Law and the Prophets: 233
• Securing Kashmir: 249
• Tribal Trouble: 267
• The Southern Challenge: 287
• The Experience of Defeat: 306
• Peace in Our Time: 342
• Minding the Minorities: 365
• THE RISE OF POPULISM: 387
• Leftward Turns: 417
• The Elixir of Victory: 445
• The Rivals: 466
• Autumn of the Matriarch: 491
• Life Without the Congress: 519
• Democracy in Disarray: 542
• This Son Also Rises: 569
• Rights: 597
• Riots: 624
• Rulers: 651
• Riches: 682
• A Peoples Entertainments: 709
• Why India Survives: 733
• Acknowledgements: 761
• Index: 859

About the author

Ramachandra Guha has taught at the University of Oslo, Stanford, Yale, and the Indian Institute of Science. His books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages, and his prizes include the UK Cricket Society's Literary Award and the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History.

Bibliographic information

• Title: India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy
• Author: Ramachandra Guha
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2007
• ISBN: 0060198818, 9780060198817
• Length: 893 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Historical; History / Asia / General; History / Asia / South / General; History / Modern / 20th Century / General; History / World; Political Science / World / Asian