GV4N7      Half Unit
Politics of India

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

India is the world’s largest democracy and its second most populous country. This course introduces core issues in the study of contemporary Indian politics. The class is organized around the following topics:

 - Colonial institutions and India's journey to Independence;

- The consolidation of democracy in the early decades;

- The relationship between the state and the economy;

- The state’s institutional architecture;

- How political parties and electoral campaigns operate; 

- The role of caste, religion, gender and the urban/rural divide in shaping politics;

- Affirmative action and the rise of development in India; and

- The issues of corruption, criminality and dynastic politics.

The focus is on building knowledge and understanding of the Indian case. But we will also consider to what extent India’s experience is reflective of more general theories of politics, and how theories might change in order to accommodate what India can teach us. Class sessions will be interactive, with plenty of opportunity for group discussion.

20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Report (1000 words)

Abstract (250 words)

One 1,000-word response paper written for the week that the students serve as discussant in class. The lecturer will assign which week the student will write about.

One 250-word abstract for the final essay. In the last class meeting of term, each student will give a 5-minute overview of their plans for the final essay to solicit feedback from the class.

• Wilkinson, Steven. 2015.  Army and Nation - The Military and Indian Democracy since Independence. Harvard University Press. Chapter 1.
• Potter, D. (1996) India’s Political Administrators. Chapter 1.
• Prakash, Gyan (2019). Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point. Princeton University Press. Chapter 5, “Lawful Suspension of Law". 

• Kothari, R. (1964). "The Congress' System in India." Asian Survey: 1161-1173.
• Desai, M. (2001). “Party Formation, Political Power, and the Capacity for Reform,” Social Forces, 80(1): 37-60.
• Sridharan, E. (2002). "The Fragmentation of the Indian Party System, 1952-1999: Seven  Competing Explanations." in Jayal and Mehta (eds.) The Oxford Companion to Politics in India.
• Chhibber, Pradeep, Francesca Refsum Jensenius and Pavithra Suryanarayan (2014). "Party Organization and Party Proliferation in India," Party Politics, 20(4): 489-505.
• Weiner, Myron. 2001. “The Struggle for Equality: Caste in Indian Politics,” in Atul 
Kohli, Ed. The Success of India’s Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
pp. 193-225. 

• Chandra, K. (2000). "The transformation of ethnic politics in India: The decline of Congress and the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Hoshiarpur." Journal Of Asian Studies-Ann  Arbor, 59(1): 26-61.
• Huber, John and Pavithra Suryanarayan. Ethnic Inequality and the Ethnification of Political Parties: Evidence from India. Manuscript.

Essay (100%, 4000 words) in Spring Term Week 1

The summative assessment comprises a 4,000-word final essay based on a topic on India.