India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

by Ramachandra Guha

Notably, while Nehru always wanted Kashmir to be part of India, Patel was at one time inclined to allow the state to join Pakistan.

India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be the road to the salvation of a soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.

The radical changes in the Hindu law pertaining to marriage and property were principally the work of two men: Jawaharlal Nehru and B. R. Ambedkar.

Eighteen applications were received for a licence to make small cars; only that of the prime minister’s son was approved, despite his having no past experience in this regard. The Congress chief minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal, gave Sanjay’s Maruti car company 300 acres of land at a giveaway price.

Were they given the option, a majority of the inhabitants of the Naga hills as well as the Kashmir Valley might very well have chosen independence rather than statehood within India.

when one views the prime minister’s career in the round, Sanjay and the emergency should be said to mark not a radical departure from past practice, but a deepening of it.

Where the advantage rests squarely with Nehru is with regard to the processes and procedures of democracy.

Unlike the Congress, the BJP was a party that took decisions on the basis of discussion and debate, not through the whims of a single individual or family.

Gandhi and company have been widely praised for preferring peaceful protest to violent revolution. However, they should be equally commended for having the wisdom to retain, after the British left India, such aspects of the colonial legacy as might prove useful in the new nation.

is easy enough for Indian patriots to compare our democratic record with other ex-colonial nations in Asia and Africa; but tougher, and more necessary, to compare it with the countries of Western Europe and North America.