Republished with a new introduction - one of the key books on modern India

‘A rich analysis of contemporary India … spirited, combative and insight-filled’ Amartya Sen, TLS

The Idea of India was originally published to mark the 50th anniversary of India’s independence and has since established itself as a uniquely valuable and authoritative book on a key subject. At the heart of India’s self-image since independence has been ‘the idea of India’ - modern, technocratic, egalitarian, secular - but the tensions between the idea and the reality have become almost intolerable.