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Battles half won : India's improbable democracy / Ashutosh Varshney.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Varshney, Ashutosh, 1957-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Democracy--India.
- Democracy.
- India.
- India--Politics and government.
- Politics and government.
- Democracy / India.
- India / Politics and government.
- Local Subjects:
- Democracy / India.
- India / Politics and government.
- Physical Description:
- xiii, 415 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
- regular print
- Place of Publication:
- New Delhi : Penguin : Viking, 2013.
- Summary:
- In this lively collection of essays, Ashutosh Varshney analyses the deepening of Indian democracy since 1947 and the challenges this has created. The overview traces the forging and consolidation of India's improbable democracy. Other essays examine themes ranging from Hindu nationalism, caste politics and ethnic conflict to the north-south economic divergence and politics of economic reforms. The book offers original insights on several key questions: how federalism has handled linguistic diversity thus far, and why governance and regional underdevelopment will drive the formation of new states now; how coalition making induces ideological moderation in the politics of the BJP; how the political empowerment of the Dalits has not ensured their economic transformation; how the social revolution in the south led to its overtaking the north; and how the 1991 economic reforms succeeded because they affected elite, not mass, politics. Lucid and erudite, Battles Half Won brilliantly portrays the successes and failures of India's experience in a new, comparative perspective, enriching our understanding of the idea of democracy.
- Contents:
- I Democracy
- 1 The Odyssey of an Improbable Democracy 3
- 2 Why Democracy Survives 45
- 3 Is India Becoming More Democratic? 64
- II Religion, Language, and Caste
- 4 Contested Meanings: India's National Identity, Hindu Nationalism, and the Politics of Anxiety in the 1980s and 1990s 99
- 5 Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond 132
- 6 How Has Indian Federalism Done? 169
- 7 Two Banks of the Same River? Social Orders and Entrepreneurialism in India 204
- 8 Caste and Entrepreneurship in India (with Lakshmi Iyer and Tarun Khanna) 232
- III Economic Development
- 9 Why Have Poor Democracies Not Eradicated Poverty? 259
- 10 Democracy and Markets in India 278.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-402) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780670084289
- 067008428X
- OCLC:
- 869350257
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