This volume deals with minority discourse - in terms of region, religion, caste, gender and culture. It uses these entry points to explore interactions with state and society. While dealing with five macro categories at micro levels, the book attempts to highlight the fluid and interdependentnature of these.

This is the first volume of an important and rigorously planned four-volume series that aims to close the gap between empirical observation and analysis and understanding in the study of political processes and their ramifications within the framework of Indian society and the post-Independence Indian state. This volume explores the dynamics of the state structures of contemporary India as products of the colonial and post-colonial eras. Various political and constitutional aspects of state formation in India are looked at by a distinguished panel of specialists from the perspective of the historic and dominant role played by the Indian National Congress. The main conclusions of this volume stem from the failure of the Indian Constitution to deliver on the promises contained in its provisions in critical spheres of politics such as the relations between the Centre and the States, relations between the bureaucracy and elected officials, access to opportunity for deprived members of society, and the removal of gender inequities and oppression.

The authors succeed in presenting very detailed findings from a post-election study of the electorate using a theoretical approach that accounts for the most worrying phenomena in contemporary Indian politics' - John Hickman, Contemporary South Asia Drawing on a 1996 nationwide post-election survey of 10,000 people, this book analyzes the process and progress of democratization in India. It begins with a discussion of some of the major schools of thought in the area of social change. This is followed by a description of the survey findings on how Indians view their state, how they judge those who govern them and how they understand their society. The authors provide an important analysis of the findings, providing answers to questions such as: - are there generational differences in the views expressed? - does the rhetoric of regionalization find resonance in the views of the people surveyed? - is India truly a nation or merely an accidental geographical assemblage of separate communities? Using innovative statistical analysis, the authors explore the relative success of Indian democracy in coping with the processes of modernization and social change.

Focusing on politics and society in India, this book explores new areas enmeshed in the complex social, economic and political processes in the country. Linking the structural characteristics with the broader sociological context, the book emphasizes the strong influence of sociological issues on politics, such as social milieu shaping and the articulation of the political in day-to-day events. Political events are connected with the ever-changing social, economic and political processes in order to provide an analytical framework to explain ‘peculiarities’ of Indian politics. Bidyut Chakrabarty argues that three major ideological influences of colonialism, nationalism and democracy have provided the foundational values of Indian politics. Structured thematically and chronologically, this work is a useful resource for students of political science, sociology and South Asian studies.

The book, on the basis of empirical and historical investigations, convincingly demonstrates that the process of change in India involved a great degree of ambivalence, but there is no clear-cut indication except that various strategies have tended to strengthen the position of the already privileged sections of the society. The underprivileged are the last to benefit.