India is a federal parliamentary republic with over 1.3 billion people from diverse religious and linguistic backgrounds. It gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947 after decades of non-violent resistance led by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Since then, India has established itself as the world's largest democracy, though it faced a period of emergency rule in the 1970s and recent declines in democratic norms and civil liberties under the current government.

1. Politics
of India

2. Republic of India
• A federal republic with a parliamentary
system of government
• capital: New Delhi

3. 2nd most populous nation
• Population: nearly 1.4 billion
• Growing at 1% a year (>2% before 1993)
– versus 0.2% in China & -0.3% in Japan
• More than a quarter aged 14 or younger
• Most Indians aged 28 or younger

4. A nation of diversity: languages
• Constitution lists 22 official languages
• English
• Hindi (44%)

5. A nation of diversity: religions
• Religions:
– Hindu (about 80%)
– Muslim (about 14%)
– Christian, Sikh, etc.
• all major religions in the world are present
• one of the major causes of conflict
• religion can become a political vehicle for
social movement

6. Brief history
• One of the world’s
oldest civilizations
– Indus (River) Valley
• foreign incursions
– Aryans, Arabs, Turks,
Portugal, France, and
Britain
– from 1500 B.C. to
1800s A.D.

7. 190 years of British colonial rule
• Informal colonial rule (1750s-1850s)
• the British East India Company
• Formal colonial rule
• after the Mutiny rebellion of 1857

8. Struggle for independence
• Indian National Congress (INC) was
formed in 1885
• non-violent resistance to colonial rule
• Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)
– transformed INC
– unity within diversity
– non-cooperation movement
• Nehru (1889-1964)

9. Independence and Partition
• Division of the subcontinent (1947)
– India
– Pakistan

10. Republic of India
• Prime Minister Nehru (1947-1964)
• Nehru's daughter (Indira Gandhi) as Prime
Minister (1966-1977, 1980-1984)

11. Nehru’s legacies
• Nehru's grandson
– Rajiv Gandhi
– Prime Minister (1984-1989)
• Nehru's granddaughter-in-
law
– Sonia Gandhi
– Congress party president
(1999 - )

12. World’s largest democracy
• Resilient democratic institutions,
processes, and legitimacy
– except 1975-1977
– Indira Gandhi declared national emergency
• politics in India is characterized by
– governments of precarious coalitions
– weakened political institutions
– political activism along ethnic lines

13. A federal system
• 28 States
• e.g. Uttar Pradesh (population 200 mill.)
• northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh
is partially claimed by China
• 8 centrally administered Union Territories
• e.g. National Capital Territory of Delhi
• Jammu & Kashmir (a state until 2019) is
claimed by Pakistan

14. Federal system
• Relatively centralized
• No separate State constitutions
• Constitutional division of powers and
financial provisions both favor the center
• Federal government can even create new
states, alter the boundaries of existing
states, and abolish a state by ordinary
legislative procedure

15. The Legislature
• bicameral Parliament
– Rajya Sabha (Council of States)
– Lok Sabha (House of the People)

18. Prime Minister
• Leader of the majority party leader in Lok
Sabha becomes the prime minister
• prime minister nominates a cabinet
– members of Parliament in the ruling coalition
– Council of Ministers
• effective power is concentrated in the
office of the prime minister
– where most of the important policies originate

19. Prime Ministers of India
• 1947-1989:
– 3 prime ministers from the Nehru-Gandhi
family served a total of 38 years during the
first 42 years of the republic
• 1989-1998: 7 rapid turnovers in 9 years
• Since 1998:
– 3 prime ministers have had longer tenures
– Narendra Modi of the BJP since 2014

20. Economic development
• Under Prime Minister Nehru (1947-1964)
– private property and government guidance
– powerful planning commission
– government rules, regulations, and corruption
– self-sufficiency, protectionism, and inefficiency
• The “green revolution” in agriculture
– new agricultural strategy in late 1960s
– seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation
– India became self-sufficient in food

21. Economic liberalization
• Dissatisfaction with slow economic growth
– dismantle controls over private sector
– further integrate into global economy
• Financial crisis in early 1990s
– emergency funds from IMF and World Bank
– conditional on economic liberalization
• reduce government budget deficit
• selling government shares in public enterprises

23. No Longer a Democracy?
• Freedom House's Global Freedom Score
• India declined from 77/100 (free) in 2018 to
66/100 (partly free) in 2022
• Muslims, scheduled castes and tribes
• Harassment of journalists, NGO's, critics
• Economist Intelligence Unit's democracy
index scored India at 6.9 (flawed
democracy), down from 7.9 in 2014