From Raj to the Republic: A Political History of India, 1935-2000

Because the story of modern India begins then, with the last British charter. By virtue of the G. O. I (1935) Act, London opened wide the field to Indian political parties and their first ever competition for the votes of 30 million men and women at the 1937 elections. At a stroke it introduced into the body politic of an ancient nation, endowed with an age-old heritage of civilization, the virus of modernity.Thus undivided India entered the faithful transition from an old regime–where politics are the business of a few–to the modern age—where they become the concern of many, which culminated into Partition. Neither absurd nor unavoidable, Partitition has been the "mother of events," never to be forgotten, the original sin of India and Pakistan. But history is also the unpredictable game of actors grafting with the forces and the constraints operating within a system of which they are the protagonists and very often, the victims. In its fifty years course, the Indian democracy has gone over many such trials and crises–in times of peace and war–every one of which the author has been keen to scrutiuize, ponder and explain, for our greatest pleasure. He also brings to Indian affairs a distinct French view and does not balk at new interpretation and thought-provoking insight.