Politics and the State in India

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: the political career of the state in Independent India/Zoya Hasan. 2. The modern state in India/Sudipta Kaviraj. 3. The political culture of the Indian state/Ashis Nandy. 4. The social character of the Indian state/Achin Vanaik. 5. Development planning and the Indian state/Partha Chatterjee. 6. The state in India’s economic development/Prabhat Patnaik. 7. The political economy of reform in India/Pranab Bardhan. 8. The decline of the moderate state/Rajni Kothari. 9. Centralization and powerlessness: India’s Democracy in a comparative perspective/Atul Kohli. 10. Decline of a social order/Francine R. Frankel. 11. Changing terms of elite discourse: the case of reservation for ‘Other Backward Classes’/D.L. Sheth. 12. Religion and politics in a secular state: law, community and gender/Zoya Hasan. 13. ‘I am the Government labour officer…’: state protection of the rural proletariat of South Gujarat/Jan Breman. 14. Blurred boundaries: the discourse of corruption, the culture of politics and the imagined state/Akhil Gupta. Index.

"The series entitled Readings in Indian Government and Politics focuses on significant themes in contemporary Indian Government and politics. This, the third volume in the series, deals specifically with the state. It brings together seminal articles by a range of experts from the fields of political science, sociology and economics, which provide important insights into the processes of state formation, as also its consolidation and erosion.

Zoya Hasan’s introduction explores the social and political dynamics of the state and the major developments influencing the formation and transformation of the state in independent India. The essays that follow explore a wide range of major issues including.

The historical trajectory of the modern state and its role as the central actor in economic development;
The relationship between class and state power, the constrains on state intervention, and the challenges to the state from liberalization and globalization;
The political culture of the state, the ideological and institutional crisis of the state, the tension between the centralizing and decentralizing tendencies of Government, the restructuring of dominance and state power, and changes in the elite and policy discourses in the realm of affirmative action and secularism; and
Ethnographies of the state, particularly the ineffectiveness of Government control, the privatization of public functions, and the corruption in the everyday practices of local level bureaucracies.
"With its broad and insightful coverage of many topical issues, this collection will be essential reading for those in the fields of political science, sociology, democratic governance, and economics. It will serve as a text for M.A. students of Indian Government and politics while bureaucrats, politicians, planners and policy-makers will also find it of use."

[Zoya Hasan is Professor at the Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.]