Power and Contestation India since 1989

This book is the ideal introduction to India's complex internal histories and external power relations since 1989, a date which marks the unraveling of India's post-independence "Nehruvian Consensus" around the idea of a self-reliant modern, secular state. While global economic integration has led to conflict between the state and dispossessed people, it has also enabled new spaces for political assertion, such as around sexuality. Older challenges to the state continue in Kashmir and the North-East, while Maoist insurgency has deepened its bases. In a world of American Empire, India as a nuclear power has abandoned non-alignment, a shift that is contested by voices within. Power and Contestation shows that the turbulence and turmoil of this period are signs of India's continued vibrancy and democracy.

Nivedita Menon is Reader in the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi. Aditya Nigam is currently a Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi.