India @ 75 by Choudhary, Sunil K;

Short description:

India @ 75: A Changing Electoral Democracy explores India’s democratic journey from Nehru to Modi, focusing on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and beyond. Blending history, analysis, and theory, it offers fresh insights into the evolution of electoral politics in the world’s largest democracy.

Long description:

Examining the relationship between elections and democracy, this book attempts to study the transformative nature of India’s electoral democracy during 75-year of its working. Amidst celebrating 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav', the book highlights the changing politics and the political cultures as manifested in transforming nature of parties and party systems from 1950s till contemporary times, thus covering the First Lok Sabha election to the Seventeenth Lok Sabha 2019 amidst continuities, conformities and changes in India’s electoral landscape.

Marking a shift from Nehru’s Modern India to Modi’s New India, the book underlines the realigning vote, voter and voting at the backdrop of transcending issues and narratives along with changing modes of electioneering that have shaped the nature of government on the one hand and democratic governance on the other. Presenting India’s electoral democracy from the perspective of new directions, dimensions and developments linking it to nation’s key democratic upsurges with new conceptualizations, theorizations and generalizations, the book could be seen as a Grammer of Indian Polity.

This title has been co-published with Aakar Books. T&F does not sell or distrubute the print versions in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, and Maldives.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction

PART I: Changing Politics and Political Climate

1. First Democratic Upsurge: Assembly Elections, National Reflections

2. Second Democratic Upsurge: Appropriating Religion, Agitating Reservation

3. Third Democratic Upsurge: Competing Electoral Market and ‘Catch’ All Conclave —The Changing ‘M Phenomenon’

PART II: Transforming Parties and Party Systems

4. The Congress and Its Extending Dominance

5. The Janata and Its Experimenting Coalitions

6. The BJP System and Its Expanding Horizons

PART III: Electrifying Elections and the Electoral Process

7. Electoral Fray: Critical Constituencies, Crucial Contestations

8. Transcending Issues, Transforming Narratives

9. War of Words: Changing Modes of Electioneering

PART IV: Realigning Vote, Voters and Voting

10. Diverging Demography, Diversifying Democracy

11. From Floating Voters to Silent Voters

12. Increasing Voting, Changing Trends

PART V: Converging Leaders and Leadership

13. Government Formations and Coalitions: Rebuilding Electoral Trajectory

14. Ushering a New Era: Modi’s New India

The Way Forward
Bibliography
Index