India’s democratic polity—thriving amidst enormous social and cultural diversity and persistent inequalities—has long been an anomaly in democratic theory. In the context of India’s increasing ascendancy on the global stage, it has also become a subject of widespread popular interest.

The Oxford Companion to Politics in India addresses this interest by presenting a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of politics in India today. It covers a gamut of issues that are organized thematically under eight broad rubrics: Institutions; Social Cleavages, Identity, and Politics; Political Processes; Social Movements and Civil Society; Ideological Contestations in Indian Politics; Politics and Policy; India and the World; and Ways of Looking at Indian Politics. About forty essays encompass a vast range: from elections to economic reforms; business and politics to redistribution and social justice; coalition politics to judicial activism; and from India’s foreign policy to the use of data in explaining Indian politics.

Incorporating the best social science research on each theme, the Companion presents incisive analyses of the central issues in India’s democratic polity. The contributors, leading academics from around the world, provide a masterly overview of each domain of study, evaluating key theoretical positions and intellectual debates, and presenting their own analytical perspective interwoven with a narrative of political developments.

Contributors
• Kanti Bajpai • Sanjib Baruah • Amrita Basu • Amita Baviskar • Pratap Bhanu Mehta • Partha Chatterjee • Neera Chandhoke • Stuart Corbridge • Jean Drèze • Sumit Ganguly • Niraja Gopal Jayal • Ramachandra Guha • Gopal Guru • John Harriss • Zoya Hasan • Vernon Hewitt • Christophe Jaffrelot • Rob Jenkins • Surinder S. Jodhka • Devesh Kapur • Sudipta Kaviraj • Sunil Khilnani • Atul Kohli • Anirudh Krishna • James Manor • Alistair McMillan • Uday S. Mehta • Subrata K. Mitra • Bishnu N. Mohapatra • Dilip Mookherjee • Rahul Mukherji • Sudha Pai • Malte Pehl • Shirin M. Rai • Lavanya Rajamani • Anupama Roy • Lloyd I. Rudolph • Susanne Hoeber Rudolph • Arghya Sengupta • Aseema Sinha • E. Sridharan • Arun R. Swamy • Steven I. Wilkinson • Yogendra Yadav

Written in a lucid and accessible style, this comprehensive analytical reference work will be indispensable for political scientists, economists, sociologists, and those interested in India’s international relations and domestic policymaking.

‘This is a landmark publication. In thirty-eight sweeping essays some of the world’s leading scholars describe, dissect and analyse the many-layered polity that is India. At a time when every aspect of India is getting rapidly and intricately inter-woven with the global, this book will be an invaluable guide to not just political scientists but also economists, sociologists and anybody interested in the strategic analysis of India’s international relations and domestic policymaking.’ —Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Government of India and Cornell University

‘This splendid collection shows that the study of Indian politics is essential for comparative politics and political theory. Jayal and Mehta have assembled a stunning group of authors, the best that can be imagined today, and have designed the volume in an impressively thoughtful way, covering institutions, political processes, social groups, and the politics of class, religion, gender, caste and region. Written with flair and fully accessible to non-experts, the essays should put the study of India where it belongs, in the forefront of political science.’ —Martha Nussbaum, The University of Chicago

‘This companion really does justice to its subject, covering a range of issues from social cleavages at one end of the spectrum to the problems of applying quantitative techniques to the masses of raw data on Indian political life at the other. It is built on firm historical foundations and is extremely sophisticated about the ways in which India is and is not an “exceptional” case among modern democracies. It will be immensely useful to readers both within India and beyond.’ —Alan Ryan, University of Oxford ‘This companion will undoubtedly become indispensable to academic research on Indian politics as well as compulsory reading on university courses. It will also be an invaluable introductory resource for the study of comparative international politics, with India now a subject of scholarly enquiry as a successful democracy, amidst persistent inequality and social and cultural diversity. With growing interest in India as a global power in the twenty-first century, the book will be of relevance to a worldwide audience of lay readers, policymakers and economic analysts, seeking to understand the complexities of Indian politics.’ —Nandini Gooptu, University of Oxford