The Cambridge Companion to Indian Politics and Society

This edited volume assembles over 40 thematic articles on the institutions, mobilisations, and ideas that have shaped India since 1989.

Celebrated as the world's largest democracy and a fast-growing economy, India is often reduced to polarised narratives that obscure its social and political transformations since 1989. This volume offers nuanced, research-based perspectives, introducing students, scholars, and others to cutting-edge approaches to Indian political and social life.India has been underdoing widespread and far-reaching political and social transformation since 1989. Such shifts require us to seriously consider novel approaches to the study of political institutions, social mobilizations and ideas of India. The institutions that framed Indian politics and society since Independence have been challenged through patterns of mobilization and new forms of elite capture. Economic liberalization, anti-caste mobilization and Hindu nationalism have transformed the ideas that once underpinned political institutions and social mobilisation, requiring a change in the way we understand India. This companion aims to offer readers new theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches to studying politics and society in India. It introduces readers to key transformations in the study of institutions, mobilizations and ideas pertaining to India. The contributions are interdisciplinary, given that no single discipline can exclusively explain the complexities of ongoing political and social change in India.