The Politics of India Since Independence

426 Pages·1994·33.636 MB·English

by  Paul R. Brass

The first edition of the Politics of India since Independence
argued that the Indian state, society, and economy were in the
midst of a systemic crisis produced by the centralizing drives
of a national leadership determined to transform the country
into a modern, industrialized, militarily strong state. In the
three years since this edition was published, this crisis has
intensified, revealing itself in secessionist movements and in
increased inter-caste conflicts. The country has witnessed the
rise of Hindu nationalism and the worst communal massacres
since Independence following the destruction of the mosque in
Ayodhya. The issue before the country now is whether or not it
can find within its own traditions the moral and material
resources and the leadership to restore a political and communal
balance in state and society.

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF INDIA
The politics of India since
Independence
THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA
General editor GORDON JOHNSON
President of Wolfson College, and Director, Centre of South Asian Studies,
University of Cambridge
Associate editors C. A. BAYLY
Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge,
and Fellow of St Catharine's College
and JOHN F. RICHARDS
Professor of History, Duke University
Although the original Cambridge History of India, published between 1922 and
1937, did much to formulate a chronology for Indian history and describe the
administrative structures of government in India, it has inevitably been overtaken
by the mass of new research published over the last fifty years.
Designed to take full account of recent scholarship and changing conceptions of
South Asia's historical development, The New Cambridge History of India is
pubHshed as a series of short, self-contained volumes, each dealing with a separate
theme and written by a single person, within an overall four-part structure.
The four parts are as follows :
I The Mughals and their contemporaries
II Indian states and the transition to colonialism
III The Indian empire and the beginnings of modern society
IV The evolution of contemporary South Asia
A list of individual titles already published and in preparation will be found at the end of the volume.
THE NEW
CAMBRIDGE
HISTORY OF
INDIA
IV-1
The politics of India since
Independence
SECOND EDITION
PAULR. BRASS
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
AND SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
ww w. Cambridge. org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521453622
© Cambridge University Press 1994
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1990
Reprinted 1991
Second edition 1994
Reprinted 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Brass, Paul R.
The politics of India since independence / Paul R. Brass. - 2nd ed.
p. cm. - (The New Cambridge history of India : IV, 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521 45362 3. - ISBN (invalid) 0 521 45970 2 (pbk.)
1. India - Politics and government - 1947- I. Title. II. Series.
DS480.84.B67 1994
320.954 - dc20 93-30782 CIP
ISBN-13 978-0-521-45362-2 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-45362-3 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-45970-9 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-45970-2 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2006
For SU,
with my love

CONTENTS
List of figures and tables page x
Preface xiii
List of abbreviations xvii
i Introduction: continuities and discontinuities between pre-
and post-Independence India i
PART I POLITICAL CHANGE
Introduction 31
2 Political change, political structure, and the functioning of
government 35
3 Parties and politics 67
4 State and local politics 116
PART II PLURALISM AND NATIONAL INTEGRATION
Introduction 151
5 Language problems 157
6 Crises of national unity: Punjab, the northeast, and Kashmir 192
7 Communal and caste conflict: secularism, Hindu
nationalism, and the Indian state 228
PART III POLITICAL ECONOMY
Introduction 269
8 Politics, economic development, and social change 273
9 Political aspects of agricultural change 303
10 Conclusion: problems and prospects 336
Bibliography 368
Index 387
IX