ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on South Asia's traumatic and chaotic history punctuated by great imperial state formations is a superior point of reference for the purpose of studying other Eurasian polities. South Asia's relevance to students of world history and institutional development also stems from the experience of British imperial rule. Unlike earlier South Asian empires, the British Raj tried to introduce political and administrative reforms derived from Britain's own rather different and marginal culture of power. Indian democracy demonstrates the difficulty, if not the near impossibility, of substantially altering the culture of power. Democracy in India should serve as a powerful corrective to the notion of liberal universalism for it demonstrates that arbitrary governance. The Ottoman Sultanate combined greater flexibility and pragmatism with the calculated use of force and cultural assimilation to produce the coherence denied to it by location and circumstances.
