The Indian State Since Independence : 70 Years

Contents: Preface.  1. Seventy Years of Indian State (1947-2017): An Introduction. 2. Global Capitalism and Peripheral Capitalist Democratic Nation-State Systems. 3. The State in Contemporary India. 4. Constitutional Democratic State of India: A Critique. 5. Indian State, Social Classes and Secularism. 6. Culture and Democracy: Will India Become a Hindu State?. 7. The Indian State: Conflicts and Contradictions. 8. Political System: Nature of Contradictions. 9. Political Economy of the Indian State: 1991‑1996. 10. New Economic Policy: Indian State and Bureaucracy. 11. Globalization, Liberalization and Welfare State. 12. Globalization, Market and the State. 13. Globalization, Liberalization and Institutions for Governance in India. 14. Grappling with Globalization. 15. Political Economy: Pluses and Minuses. 16. Is the Indian State Really Ruthless?. 17. Years of Indian Democracy. 18. Federalism in the Age of Globalisation. 19. Perils of Regionalism. 20. Naxalism and the Indian State. 21. Hindutva and the Indian State. 22. Indian Transition. 23. Maoism: Responses of the State. 24. Globalised Monopoly Capitalism and Indian Society and State.25. The Making of a Hindu State. 26. The Making of Personality Cult. 27. Explaining the Rise of Rightwing Social Forces in India. 28. Fight the Attack on Constitutional Values. 29. Communalisation of the State Apparatus.
Index.

Gradual evolution of the state of independent India has been divided into three inter-related phases: the nationalist leadership during Phase I (1947-1991) had made every effort to build a modern, democratic, secular, capitalist state of India; during Phase II (1991-2014), the ruling classes had abandoned the earlier independent path of capitalist development in favour of integration with transnational finance capital and also opted for American model of market-led capitalism. What are the explanations for these ‘shifts’ from Phase I to Phase II? The third phase beginning with 2014 has witnessed a complete break with the past and the ruling social forces are attempting to establish Hindu Ideological State guided by the doctrines of Brahmanical Hinduism. An effort has been made to explain this new development beginning with 2014. Chapters in the book have dealt with all these three phases of seventy years of the Indian state. (jacket)