India after Gandhi: the history of the world's largest democracy

Preface to the second edition

Prologue: Unnatural nation

Part 1: Picking up the pieces. Freedom and parricide ; The logic of division ; Apples in the basket ; A valley bloody and beautiful ; Refugees and the Republic ; Ideas of India

Part 2: Nehru's India. The biggest gamble in history ; Home and the world ; Redrawing the map ; The conquest of nature ; The law and the prophets ; Securing Kashmir ; Tribal trouble

Part 3: Shaking the centre. The southern challenge ; The experience of defeat ; Peace in our time ; Minding the minorities

Part 4: The rise of populism. War and succession ; Leftward turns ; The elixir of victory ; The rivals ; Autumn of the matriarch ; Life without the Congress ; Democracy in disarray ; This son also rises

Part 5: A history of events. Rights and riots ; A multi-polar polity ; Rulers and riches ; Progress and its discontents ; The rise of the "BJP system"

Epilogue: A 50-50 democracy.