Atul Kohli - Routledge Handbook of Indian Politics

Indias growing economic and socio-political importance on the global stage has triggered an increased interest in the country. Now available in paperback, this Handbook is a reference guide, which surveys the current state of Indian politics and provides a basic understanding of the ways in which the worlds largest democracy functions.

The Handbook is structured around four main topics: political change, political economy, the diversity of regional development, and the changing role of India in the world. Chapters examine how and why democracy in India put down firm roots, but also why the quality of governance offered by Indias democracy continues to be low. The acceleration of economic growth since the mid-1980s is discussed, and the Handbook goes on to look at the political and economic changes in selected states, and how progress across Indian states continues to be uneven. It concludes by touching on the issue of Indias international relations, both in South Asia and the wider world.

The Handbook offers an invigorating initiation into the seemingly daunting and complex terrain of Indian politics. It is an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, policy analysts, and graduate and undergraduate students studying Indian politics.

Atul Kohli is David Bruce Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, USA. His principal research interests are in the areas of comparative political economy with a focus on the developing countries.

Prerna Singh is Mahatma Gandhi Assistant Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs and faculty fellow at the Watson Institute, Brown University, USA. Her research interests are in the areas of comparative politics, development, identity politics, and South and East Asia.

First published in paperback 2016

First published 2013

by Routledge

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2013, 2016 Atul Kohli and Prerna Singh

The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, withoutpermission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Routledge handbook of Indian politics / edited by Atul Kohli and Prerna Singh

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. IndiaPolitics and government. I. Kohli, Atul. II. Singh, Prerna, 1979

JQ231.R685 2012

320.954dc23

2012025039

ISBN: 978-0-415-77685-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-67919-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-07590-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Taylor & Francis Books

Atul Kohli and Prerna Singh

Maya Tudor

Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd I. Rudolph

Jivanta Schoettli

Niraja Gopal Jayal

Rani D. Mullen

Amrita Basu

Suhas Palshikar

Christophe Jaffrelot

Hugo Gorringe

Ronald J. Herring

Gurpreet Mahajan

Ashutosh Varshney and Joshua Gubler

Paul Staniland

Jennifer Bussell

R. Nagaraj

Vivek Chibber and Adaner Usmani

John Harriss

Stuart Corbridge

Prerna Singh

Emmanuel Teitelbaum

Sudha Pai

Patrick Heller

Adam Ziegfeld

Manali Desai

Jeffrey Witsoe

Baldev Raj Nayar

Lawrence Sez

Sumit Ganguly

Kanti Bajpai

Vipin Narang

Devesh Kapur

Kanti Bajpai is Professor in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. His research interests are international security and Indias foreign policy/national security. He is currently writing a book on India-China relations and on Indias strategic thought.

Amrita Basu is the Paino Professor of Political Science and Womens and Gender Studies at Amherst College. Her main areas of research are religious nationalism, social movements and womens activism in India. She is the author, editor or coeditor of seven books.

Jennifer Bussell is an Assistant Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. Her research focuses on the political economy of development and she is the author of Corruption and Reform in India: Public Services in the Digital Age (2012). She received a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Vivek Chibber was born in Delhi and teaches sociology at New York University. He is author of Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India (2003), and Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (2013).

Stuart Corbridge is Pro Director for Research and External Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he is also Professor of International Development. His latest book, with John Harriss and Craig Jeffrey, is India Today: Economy, Politics and Society (2012).

Manali Desai is a faculty member at the Department of Sociology in the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research is in the areas of parties and social movements, welfare regimes, neoliberalism, and ethnic violence. Her publications include State Formation and Radical Democracy in India, 18601990, and several journal articles.

Sumit Ganguly is a Professor of Political Science, holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington, and is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. His most recent book (with Rahul Mukherji) is India Since 1980.

Hugo Gorringe is a senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research interests include caste, social movements and political sociology. He is author of Untouchable Citizens: The Dalit Panthers and Democratisation of Tamilnadu (2005), and articles on Dalit politics, violence, identity politics, and protest policing.

Joshua Gubler is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University. His research focuses on intergroup cooperation and conflict, with particular emphasis on ethnic riots, civil war, and the individual-level determinants of aggression. His work recently appeared in the Journal of Conflict Resolution.

John Harriss is Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University, Canada, having previously researched and taught at the universities of Cambridge and East Anglia and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His publications include