ABSTRACT
India’s political, economic, and social development over the last several decades has made it a different country than the “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic” described in its Constitution. In some ways, India has become more democratic today than it was in earlier decades, particularly in a subordinate caste revolution that has given greater agency and visibility to Dalits, tribal communities, and the so-called “other backward classes.” But it also has become a more majoritarian and less liberal democracy. Indians are a deeply divided people, but for the most part, they have held together though turbulent times—and in this, the Indian experience may still offer an example to other deeply divided societies. Even so, there are tensions at the heart of India’s secularism—especially between the right to religious freedom and Hindu nationalist visions of economic and social transformation. In continually forging political compromises, sovereign India defines secularism, democracy, and republicanism in new ways and on its own terms. India’s federal structure and evolving party system also have shown a surprising capacity to channel a wide range of demands into the formal political process. From a political-economic perspective, India’s greatest constraint—and greatest opportunity—in the 21st Century is that it contains so many of the world’s poorest people. Recent economic growth has brought many Indians out of absolute poverty, but the margin for error is perilously thin for the millions of near-poor, as the COVID-19 shock and its aftermath have demonstrated.
