India after Gandhi: the history of the world's largest democracy

Born against a background of privation and civil war, divided along lines of caste, class, language and religion, independent emerged, somehow, as a united and democratic country. The story of its making has never been told before. Now, in this remarkable book, we have an epic account of the world's largest and least likely democracy. As Ramachandra Guha points out, may sometimes be the most exasperating country in the world but it is always the most interesting. 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, kept it democratic, and defied the numerous prophets of…