"This volume is the updated edition of the path-breaking study published in 1978, and translated into Chinese in 1990. The second edition extends the analysis from 1977 to 2004 in over 250 pages of new text." "Francine Frankel takes the reader through the tumultuous years of the three decades in India's politics following the Emergency. She offers a reappraisal of the Indira Gandhi years, giving more importance to the domestic political polarization and external Cold War pressures that determined Mrs. Gandhi's strategy of de-institutionalization. Subsequently, centralized decision-making circumscribed the federal structure of the Congress party. Frankel assesses the effects of the expanding electorate during the 1980's and 1990's. Among these were caste conflict, religious mobilization, party fragmentation and opportunistic coalitions at the Centre and in the states." "Providing the most comprehensive scholarly analysis of Indian political economy from Independence to the present, this book is essential reading for students and teachers at the postgraduate and undergraduate level. It will also be of interest to a wide audience consisting of policy-makers, public servants, journalists and the educated public in general."--BOOK JACKET.