Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 576
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195647653
Description
This timely book brings together landmark essays which collectively present an overall view of Indian politics as it stands fifty years after Independence.
It scrutinizes India's major political institutions, and analyses processes of domination and resistance that play a central role in Indian politics. Some readings present a view of the development of the party system, the electoral system, the judiciary. Others give a sense of the institutional 'crisis' since the late 1980s, and examine current possibilities of institutional change. Some other essays aimed at understanding India's political dynamics examine the state as a site for contestation of power and look at the recent social movements which contend with the general structure of political institutions.
This selection of writings will be invaluable for college and university students and also for journalists and the interested general readers.
REVIEWS:
This collection of essays, comprehensive in its scope .. Is invaluable to any student of politics. - - The Telegraph
The book uses some interesting intellectual styles which try to map politics through music, films and law . . The volume is essential reading for anyone studying the dynamics of politics in contemporary India. - - Seminar
What strikes me in this book is the effort to overcome as well as to fully utilize the chronic and usually debilitating tension between 'theorists' and 'empiricists'.
Contents
Figures
Introduction: A Political History of Independent India
THE SYSTEM
A Critique of the Passive Revolution
THE INSTITUTIONS
Parties and the Party System
India Decides: Elections 1952-1995
Reconfiguration in Indian Politics: State assembly elections 1993-1995
Evolving Trends in the Bureaucracy
Impact of Centre-State Relations in Indian Politics:
An interpretative Reckoning 1947-1987
THE POLITICAL PROCESS: DOMINANCE
National Power and Local Politics in India:
A Twenty-year Perspective
From Breakdown to Order: West Bengal
Culture and Subaltern Consciousness: An Aspect of the MGT Phenomenon
When Local Riots are Not Merely Local: Bringing the State Back in, Bijnor 1988-1992
THE POLITICAL PROCESS: RESISTANCE
Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
India’s Minorities: Who Are They? What Do they Want?
Politics of Subnationalism: Society versus State in Assam
Protecting Women against Violence? Reviews of a Decade of Legislation, 1980-1989
A Bibliographic Guide