India of Our Times: An Experiment In Democracy - Hardcover

Harish Kapur

 
9788121210652: India of Our Times: An Experiment In Democracy

Synopsis

This book explores the recent history of India -a history that focuses on the British Empire, and all that it did on the vast subcontinent during centuries of governance. While, it was neither planned nor premeditated, the slow and complex historical process of British rule resulted in the unfolding of a new process of viable governance and modernisation that transformed the socio-ecnomico-political map of India-a transformation India had never experienced before. The British legacies-negative and positive-are enormous. While much has been written on the dark period of colonial repression inflicted by the British, this treatise focuses on the positive side of the British presence in India. It is the purpose of this publication to show that the establishment of ideological pragmatism, political pluralism, the initial enactment of social reforms, the introduction of self-governing institutions, and the introduction of technology are the legacies that remain an undeniable part of post-independent India. The British past, thus, has not been completely unkind to India. What the country is today, and the direction in which it is heading are the results of the legacies that the British left, the foundations of which are still visible. About The Author:- Dr. Harish Kapur is professor emeritus of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. Also he is the Director of the European Institute in Switzerland and India. The author has spent much of his academic career teaching international relations, and monitoring Ph.D. dissertations of students from different countries. He was recipient of many awards from different European and US Foundations, including a two year grant from Rockefeller Foundation that resulted in his appointment as Research Associate of the Russian Research Centre at Harvard University. Perhaps the most prestigious award he has received is that he has been nominated as the outstanding intellectual in the 20th and 21

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