Modern Indian Politics and Political Thought

Extract

The achievement of the independence of India in August 1947 was an event of epochal significance. It has meant that about four hundred million human beings have become concerned with finding a worthy place for themselves in the political and economic map of the world. The work of rehabilitation, solidification, reconstruction and development done in diverse departments of life in the country in the past nineteen years has been an eye-opener both to Indians and outsiders and is slowly revealing the tremendous energy of the Indian population, which had also expressed itself before through the hard and agonizing process of the years of struggle for freedom. India's independence has also had a pronounced intellectual and cultural consequence. 1 It has given a heightened stature to the great prophets, heroes and statesmen of India's struggle for liberation (1857-1947). It has invested the political parties and movements of this country with an Asian and even international significance. India has embarked upon the colossal task of transforming an under-developed agrarian economy and static society to the status of a modern industrialized country within the framework of parliamentary democracy, and this imparts to the political and economic experiments of this country great significance even for outsiders. The number of books on modern India is rapidly increasing. It is satisfying to note that some of these books are bound to have an influence for decades.