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This chapter is concerned with the position and response of the Congress and its governments to the aggravation of the Ayodhya dispute, which resulted in seriously weakening the party. An appreciation of its role in giving a fillip to majority and minority sentiment and then accommodation of this sentiment, which paved the way for the Sangh Parivar and its allies to accomplish their objective of demolishing the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, is essential for an understanding of the decline of the Congress. This chapter examines the way the Congress handled the Shah Bano controversy. It describes the position and response of the Congress to the enactment of the Muslim Women's (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act (MWA) of 1986. This chapter also discusses the loss of majority by the Congress under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the political entente with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Chapter 4 analyses the process towards normalization and explains why a drastic change in India’s Israel policy happened at that specific historical juncture and not before. The incremental approach of engagement with Israel initiated by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi helped pave the way for the normalization of in January 1992. When Narasimha Rao came to power in June 1991, there were new international, regional, and domestic conditions which encouraged India to change its West Asia policy. The existence of clearly expressed policy preferences in favour of a rapprochement with Israel at this conjuncture equally facilitated complete foreign policy change and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in January 1992.

The chapter starts with an account of the brief Janata Party government (1977-79) and shows how this changed Indian politics in several ways. It then presents an analysis of the 1980 elections in a broader historical context. The main focus of the chapter is on the changes occurred within the Congress party during the early 1980s and their political implications. It argues that there was substantial continuity with earlier trends, in particular as far as the de-institutionalization of the Congress is concerned. The chapter illustrates the rise of the Youth Congress under Sanjay Gandhi’s leadership and how the latter’s death in 1980 affected the Congress party and the entire national party system. The chapter also describes Rajiv Gandhi’s unsuccessful attempt to reform the party. The de-institutionalization of the party is linked with the growing problems of governability, with special reference to the law and order situation in key areas.

This chapter recounts the economic crises and political processes that spurred a dramatic change of economic policy, which constitutes a watershed in India’s economic history. It is concerned with the degree to which it was induced by policy choices of political leaders acting in response to a changing domestic and international environment, and by structural determinants. It is essentially an attempt to look at the broader question of the politics of economic liberalization. The chapter also tries to understand the changing role of the political elite and the continuities and discontinuities in economic policy from Rajiv Gandhi to Rao. Liberalization provoked popular discontent, yet it continued to get the full backing of the Congress because the political alliance of powerful groups prevailed over opponents of liberalization. This underlined the changed policy priorities of the Congress leadership.

Moscow’s decision to militarily invade Afghanistan in December 1979, without consulting with New Delhi, shocked India. But even more worrisome was the impact of a haphazard Soviet withdrawal. This chapter explains how India managed these events at global, regional, and domestic levels. Ranging from Indira Gandhi’s strategic balancing act between Pakistan and US on one hand and Moscow on the other, this chapter also throws light on Rajiv Gandhi’s diplomacy on the Afghan question with US president Ronald Reagan and USSR premier Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985-89. India had begun to open up — covertly — to various Mujahideen factions behind the back of its stalwart Afghan ally, president Najibullah.

This chapter presents several documents relating to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Shah Bano case on 23 April 1985 and the opening of the locks at the Babari Masjid on 1 February 1986, which would set the course of Indian politics for years to come and affect the Muslims for the worse. Some of these documents include the Muslim Women’s Bill, which was a quid pro quo for opening the gates of the Babari Masjid to the Hindus; Arif Mohammad Khan’s defence of the Supreme Court judgment in Shah Bano case; Union Minister Z.R. Ansari’s attack on Supreme Court; Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assures the opposition of a thorough examination of the judgment in Shah Bano case; Muslim leaders suggest utilizing Wakf fund for alimony to divorced women; and Prime Minister hints at ordinance on Muslim personal law.

This chapter addresses the 1980s era, when Muslim personal law returned to the Indian political agenda after a long hiatus. After winning the case, Shah Bano Begum actually renounced the decision under the influence of local Muslim clerics and never accepted the maintenance allowance. Rajiv Gandhi's government vacillated over whether the Shah Bano decision established interference, first denying that it did and then agreeing that it did. It also determined that conservatives represented ‘real’ Muslim opinion about the Shah Bano decision without systematically trying to determine popular opinion among Muslims at large. Gandhi feared the erosion of minority community support for the Congress Party; therefore, his government sanctioned the conservative Muslim position. A Bharatiya Janata Party government represented the possibility of a fundamental break with the policies and approaches of the past.

This chapter discusses the general election of December 1984, which was connected to the assassination of Indira Gandhi a few months before. This election was fought by the Congress party, addressing the issue of the country’s integrity. Rajiv Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi, won the election and stated in his first nation-wide broadcast that his top priority was to settle the Punjab problem. The chapter notes that the Congress gained its most convincing victories in the states where anti-Sikh feelings were strong. It is followed by a discussion of Gandhi’s efforts to resume a dialogue with the Akalis and the Election of 1985. Another section covers the Akali’s complaints over the distribution of river waters. The chapter ends with an examination of the failure of the accord between Gandhi and Sant Longowal, which was mostly due to Gandhi’s failure to fulfil his part of the bargain.

This chapter briefly narrates the great hopes aroused by Rajiv Gandhi’s accession to power and his dashing initiatives such as the reorganization of Central Government ministries and critiques the formation of the Ministry of Human Resource Development. It outlines other policy initiatives such as the establishment of Navodaya Vidyalayas and the Indira Gandhi National Open University, and describes the process followed for the formulation of the National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986, and its Programme of Action (POA). It narrates and critiques the key policy postulates of NPE, 1986, such as the a large and systemic programme of non-formal education being a pre-requisite for universalizing elementary education, and vesting the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) with statuary powers to regulate technical education. It highlights the fact that NPE, 1986, skirted burning issues of higher education as it not anchored in policy analysis. In the praxis of education policy, there is often no realistic assessment of the problem which needs to be addressed, no realistic identification of the various alternatives, no rigorous evaluation of alternatives, and no roadmap offered for realization of the policy objectives

There were several links between India and the Ecole. The most important of these have been discussed in this chapter. Aurobindo Bose was among the early students of Rabindranath Tagore’s Brahmacharya Ashram in Santiniketan. He was later also a part of the Ecole. In 1930, it was Aurobindo Bose who urged Tagore to visit the school. During his later life, he became attached to Edith Geheeb and lived at the Ecole d’Humanité as a permanent resident until his death. Edith Geheeb felt inspired by Indian philosophy which she first studied with V.N. Sharma and Alwine von Keller. Edith was in touch with two senior monks of the Ramakrishna Mission— Swami Yatiswarananda and Swami Nikhilananda. She was their loyal student, devotee, and supporter until their demise. In 1953, the two sons of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv and Sanjay, were admitted to the Ecole for several months while their mother was on a diplomatic mission. This resulted in a prolonged and affectionate correspondence between Edith Geheeb and Indira Gandhi. During that time, the Geheebs also met Jawaharlal Nehru in Geneva. Edith was deeply interested in visiting India, her spiritual home, but felt she could not leave the Ecole for very long. At the age of 80, when Paul Geheeb, had already died, she overcame her scruples and visited India, mainly Belur Math in Kolkata, Santiniketan, but also Madras, Bombay and Delhi.

India and the World Bank have grown up together. India played a vital role in the establishment of the IDA. Ties between the two often go well beyond the typical debtor–creditor relationship. This chapter highlights the reasons that are responsible for bringing both the Bank and India to the dialogue table and interactions on divergent issues to shape their relations over the years. India’s democracy and non-aligned character of the foreign policy were among the factors that attracted the Bank’s attention. The challenges India faced in the third quarter of the last century and the Bank’s policy bargain with India for aid and the relation between the two in the context of the country’s economic liberalization forms the core of the analysis. The chapter discusses the impact of globalization on the autonomy of the state in the post-reform period and tensions between the Bank and India.

This chapter explains the historical evolution of civil–military relations in India. While doing so, it focuses on leadership style and civil–military relations under five wartime prime ministers—Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Together, they were at the helm of affairs for almost five decades after independence and significantly influenced the narrative on civil–military relations. Relying on archival sources, it sheds new light especially on events preceding the 1962 border war with China. It highlights variance in the pattern of civil–military relations under these leaders that, in turn, shaped military effectiveness. Next, the chapter focuses on an essential element shaping civil–military relations—the interaction between civilian bureaucrats and military officers.

Soviet tanks and troops moved into Kabul at the end of 1979, installing their puppet Amir Babrak Karmal as Pakistan's nominal ruler. This alarmed both Pakistan and the United States. India's reaction to the Soviet Union's move was ambivalent, not only because Indira Gandhi had just recently signed her treaty of friendship with Moscow, but also since Pakistan's Muhammad Zia ul-Haq was so aggressively a fundamentalist Muslim, eager to arm and support thousands of Pathan mujahideen (jihadist) guerrillas. Four years before Benazir Bhutto's rise to premier power, Gandhi was assassinated in her own garden by two of her trusted Sikh bodyguards. The outpouring of nationwide sympathy following Indira's death assured the Congress Party, led by Indira's son Rajiv, its strongest historic victory. In 1991, Rajiv Gandhi himself was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger terrorist woman while campaigning near Madras. Benazir Bhutto was eventually replaced by Nawaz Sharif, who strongly supported Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

The new military dictatorship of Mohammad Zia ul-Haq ousted Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, but India-Pakistan relations did not revert to overt hostility. Crises in 1984, 1986–1987, and 1990 were successfully de-escalated, but the 1986–1987 Brasstacks crisis and the 1990 crisis showed signs of unnecessary escalation as a result of dysfunctional decision-making in India and Pakistan, respectively. Toward the end of the 1980s, the Punjab and later Kashmir insurgencies contributed to a substantial worsening of India-Pakistan relations in the 1990s. Civil-military discord in Pakistan contributed to the catastrophic failure of the Lahore process undertaken by Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif, producing instead the 1999 Kargil War. Despite theories of nuclear peace, mutual possession of nuclear weapons did not produce rapprochement or conflict resolution in Asia.

This chapter describes the constitutional and political dimensions of formal legal change in Pakistan and India. The process of change referred to is one with an explicitly ‘religious’ dimensions: in effect, a process of changing ostensibly ‘transcendent’ or ‘God-given’ personal laws. What are the constitutional and political conditions under which the content of such laws can change in Pakistan and India? What are the constitutional and political conditions that might intervene to stifle or restrict such change? In Pakistan, how does the nature of the Islamic state constrain legal change in religious personal law? In India, is it possible for the Indian legislature, facing its own very different set of conditions, to easily change religious laws? The author examines such questions in the light of the special constitutional provisions in each country from the point of view of the issue of inheritance. The author concludes that both countries find it difficult to bring about personal law reforms even though their constitutions allow them to do so. In Pakistan, substantive religious-cum-legal reform was taken up and put into practice only in two contexts — military/non-military authoritarianism and one-party dominant regimes where the ruling party held more than 60 per cent of the seats in Parliament. The Indian government addresses the task of ‘substantive’ religious-cum-legal reform as a matter of routine civil society engagement and is often hindered by the pressures of coalition politics. The author points out that India under Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi and Pakistan under Generals Ayub Khan and Zia-ul-Haq pursued major ‘substantive’ reforms; Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Narasimha Rao did not.

This chapter tries to understand how macro-level political and economic policies are closely related with agrarian sector and farmers in the country. Reading together plan policies from the post-Independence period and policies and laws on agrarian developments helps in understanding the international influence on Indian policy formulations. This chapter argues that lack of vision about status of Indian farmers and pursuing monopoly regime attributed by developed countries diluted the Indian policy regime in envisioning sustainable agrarian development. The hybrid seeds after repeated uses suffer yield failure, which requires the farmers to purchase the new ones at regular intervals. This regular sale of seeds provides the private sector with a significant share as the varieties can be purchased only from them. The Intellectual Property regime has only resulted in helping the private seed sector in making more profits while contributing to the increase in prices of seeds, thereby increasing the costs of cultivation. This chapter also discusses the reasons behind farmers’ suicides.

India’s relations with and policy towards Sri Lanka have been determined by geography, the legacy of British colonial rule, the relationship inherited from the colonial period, geopolitical alignments, economic relations and personal relationships between the leaders. This chapter, an interpretative essay, analyses the evolution of India’s Sri Lanka policy and its drivers and argues that domestic politics has been the most significant factor in shaping Indian policy, but in a way that is different from most other analyses which share this conclusion. It is argued that the central government’s own sensitivity to the perceived requirements of national unity as the foundation of national security, and not only pressure from Tamil Nadu parties, explains the broadly Lankan Tamil-sympathetic policy stance since the July 1983 riots even by governments not critically dependent on Tamil Nadu parties, and that this attitude is rooted in India’s accommodative strategy of nation- and state-building.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who bears an uncanny resemblance to her grandmother, Indira Gandhi, in both her looks and mannerisms, surprised everybody by announcing her formal entry into politics only in 2019. She chose to take on the party’s most daunting challenge—to revive its organization and fortunes in the critical state of Uttar Pradesh, as the General Secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC). Even though she stayed away from politics voluntarily for many years, Priyanka understands the challenges Congress faces in Uttar Pradesh. She appears to have taken it upon herself to revive the Congress party’s fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, and perhaps the only route available to the Congress if it seeks to return to power in Delhi.