India's Unlikely Democracy

As India marks its sixtieth year of independence, it has become an even more important object of study for scholars of comparative democracy. It has long stood out as a remarkable exception to theories holding that low levels of economic development and high levels of social diversity pose formidable obstacles to the successful establishment and maintenance of democratic government. In recent decades, India has proven itself capable not only of preserving democracy, but of deepening and broadening it by moving to a more inclusive brand of politics. Political participation has widened, electoral alternation has intensified, and civil society has pressed more vigorously for institutional reforms and greater government accountability.

Moreover, with economic reform, India has now begun to achieve notable improvements in economic growth that promise to upgrade the living standards of its citizens, strengthen its institutions, and make it an increasingly prominent player on the world stage. Yet political scientists still have not devoted to this country, which contains more than one-sixth of the world's population, the kind of attention that its significance warrants.

With these considerations in mind, the Journal of Democracy collaborated with the India Studies Program at Indiana University– Bloomington in convening a small conference on democracy in India in April 2006. The richness of the discussions at that meeting prompted us to consider a more ambitious undertaking, and we resolved to produce a collection of essays on Indian democracy. This project will reach fruition with the publication by Johns Hopkins University Press in August 2007 of a volume entitled The State of India's Democracy, edited by Professor Sumit Ganguly, who directs Indiana University's India Studies Program, and Journal of Democracy coeditors Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner. The contributors to this volume will include outstanding scholars from India itself as well as from Europe and the United States.

In the pages that follow, we present an introductory essay by Sumit Ganguly and then one essay on each of the three major areas covered in the book—the economy, society, and politics. We believe that these articles provide some very illuminating insights into the past accomplishments of Indian democracy as well as the continuing challenges that it faces. We regret that limitations of space make it impossible for us to include additional essays here, but we hope that readers who wish to learn more about Indian democracy will turn to our forthcoming book.