Includes bibliographical references (p. [765]-857) and index.

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
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
Shaking the centre
The southern challenge
The experience of defeat
Peace in our time
Minding the minorities
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
A history of events
Rights
Riots
Rulers
Riches
A people's entertainments.

Born in privation and civil war, divided by caste, class, language and religion, independent India emerged, somehow, as a united and democratic country. This remarkable book tells the full story--the pain and the struggle, the humiliations and the glories--of the world's largest and least likely democracy. Social historian Guha writes of the protests and conflicts that have peppered the history of free India, but also of the factors and processes that have kept the country together (and kept it democratic), defying numerous prophets of doom who believed that it would break up or come under autocratic rule. This story of modern India is peopled with extraordinary characters: Guha gives fresh insights on the lives and public careers of the long-serving prime ministers, but also writes with feeling and sensitivity about the major provincial leaders and other lesser known (though not necessarily less important) Indians--peasants, tribals, women, workers and musicians.--From publisher description.