India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

From one of the subcontinent’s most important and controversial writers comes this definitive history of post-Partition India, published on the 60th anniversary of Independence

Told in lucid and beautiful prose, the story of India’s wild ride toward and since Independence is a riveting one. Taking full advantage of the dramatic details of the protests and conflicts that helped shape the nation, politically, socially, and economically, Guha writes of the factors and processes that have kept the country together, and kept it democratic, defying the numerous prophets of doom.

Moving between history and biography, this story provides fresh insights into the lives and public careers of those legendary and long-serving Prime Ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi. Guha includes vivid sketches of the major “provincial” leaders, but also writes with feeling and sensitivity about lesser-known Indians—peasants, tribals, women, workers, and Untouchables.

Massively researched and elegantly written, this is the work of a major scholar at the height of his powers, a brilliant and definitive history of what is possibly the most important, occasionally the most exasperating, and certainly the most interesting country in the world.

Amagisterial account of the pains, the struggles, the humiliations, and the glories of the world's largest and least likely democracy, Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi is a breathtaking chronicle of the brutal conflicts that have rocked a giant nation and the extraordinary factors that have held it together. An intricately researched and elegantly written epic history peopled with larger-than-life characters, it is the work of a major scholar at the peak of his abilities.

“…magisterial…” - John Leonard, Harper's Magazine

Guha sees India as well on its way to finding its rightful place in the sun - Christian Science Monitor

“Excellent . . . witty and eloquent . . . as interesting and fascinatingly distinctive as India itself. - Library Journal (starred review)

“Startlingly ambitious political, cultural and social survey . . . Guha’s magisterial history of India . . . comes not a moment too soon.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)