Showing all 6 books
Where is India headed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi? What are the contours of the 'new' India he has promised to build? Is his promise of 'development' real or a cover for a hidden agenda? Who are the stakeholders in his idea of the state? Making Sense of Modi's India debates the future of the nation, bringing together a cross-section of leading voices from the academia, media and politics to examine the factors behind the dramatic resurgence of Hindu ...
What makes India a nation? What has held its many disparate societies with their diverse, sometimes conflicting, narratives together for more than sixty years? What has allowed India to sustain its commitment to the democratic process, given its location in a region that is largely undemocratic? In this magisterial analysis of the last five hundred years of Indian history, Meghnad Desai looks at India’s colonial past, its struggle for independence and its ...
For the Right Honourable Harry White, Britain's charismatic and politically savvy prime minister, it is a busy day like any other at 10 Downing Street. Every minute is packed with politics, people and policies, and the odd flirtation. There is a peremptory invitation to lunch with megalomaniac media lord Matt Drummond, a parliamentary rebellion to be batted away, an urgent call from the White House about a crisis in the Middle East. Until, finally, Harry ...
Renowned development economist, and peer, Lord Meghnad Desai has been one of the foremost observers of India and its economy in the last forty years. Passionately written and decidedly non-neutral in tone, his essays, collected here for the first time, constitute perhaps the most significant statement linking policy choices and outcomes on independent India. This volume retells the story of India as one of unexpected surprises and unfulfilled expectations. For ...
The second book in the Cross-border Talks series examines why India is a democracy while Pakistan is not. Meghnad Desai identifies the revolutionary decision of the constituent assembly to adopt universal adult franchise as the key to the survival of democracy in India. The overwhelming desire of the leaders of the independence movement, many of whom were educated in England, was for a Westminster-style democracy. The adoption of this model led to demands for ...