Battles Half Won India’s Improbable Democracy

Ashutosh Varshney

Viking, 432 pages, Rs 599

In this lively collection of essays, Varshney analyses the deepening of Indian democracy since 1947 and the challenges this has created. The book offers original insights on several key questions: how federalism has handled linguistic diversity thus far; why current governance and regional underdevelopment will drive the formation of new states; how coalition-making induces ideological moderation in the politics of the BJP; and how the political empowerment of Dalits has not ensured their economic transformation.