ABSTRACT
When political institutions in developing countries suffer serious damage, it is often extremely diffi cult, at times even impossible, to repair and revive them. But India is, for the most part, different. Here, both at the national as well as at the state level, when institutions or democratic processes have been severely undermined, it has often been possible to regenerate them or to replace them with alternatives (Manor 1994: 230-41). Gundu Rao had wrought havoc in Karnataka, but because voters valued the institutions and norms that he had ignored, and sometimes wrecked, they threw him out and turned to others who were committed to rebuilding. The government that succeeded him (the victors of the state election of 1983) fulfi lled this mandate, and then went further, creating (as we shall see, briefl y here and in more detail in Chapter 10) new institutions that deepened the democratic process. But before they could make much headway with these tasks, they had to organise themselves and consolidate their grip on power. This was hardly an easy assignment.
