Jeffrey Craig - India Today: Economy, Politics and Society

INDIA TODAY

INDIA TODAY

Economy, Politics and Society

Stuart Corbridge, John Harriss
and Craig Jeffrey

polity

Copyright Stuart Corbridge, John Harriss and Craig Jeffrey 2013

The right of Stuart Corbridge, John Harriss and Craig Jeffrey to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-6535-1

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Preface and Acknowledgements

India Today builds upon and yet is significantly different from another account of contemporary India that was written by two of us, Stuart Corbridge and John Harriss, just over a decade ago. Reinventing India (Corbridge and Harriss, 20003) presented an analytical history of colonial and post-colonial India. It argued that economic liberalization and ascendant Hindu nationalism in post-1980 India could be understood as elite revolts against earlier assertions of popular (or subaltern) democracy.

India Today involves three authors in equal measure and is cross-sectional in its main design. Each of its substantive chapters seeks to answer a question. When and why did India take off? How did a weak state promote audacious reform? Is government in India becoming more responsive (and to whom)? Does India have a civil society? Has the rise of Hindu nationalism halted? Will India reap a demographic dividend? And so on. There are many more questions that we would like to have asked and answered.