ABSTRACT
The Indian model, as its most shrewd interpreter Rajni Kothari argued in his magnum opus, Politics in India, involved the primacy of the political and a redefinition of the boundaries of the political. Politics was not just one of the areas that the Indian elite sought to transform; it was at the heart of India's tryst with modernity. Fifty years ago when India began its journey, it was easier to describe the destination and the route, for the privilege of describing these lay without much contestation with a small section of India's westernized elite. At least some of the designers of the Indian model were acutely conscious of the fact that they were stepping into uncharted territory, that they were attempting something for which there was no precedent. Establishment of democracy was an invitation by the Indian elite to ordinary Indians to join them in playing a new game. The idea of democracy also has powerful and reliable carriers. India has a wider pool for recruitment of political elite than do most postcolonial polities.
