Christophe Jaffrelot is director of the Centre d'Etudes et Recherches Internationales (CERI), part of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He is the author of The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, which the New York Review of Books hailed as "a scholarly tour de force."

• Part One 1. Congress Domination and Conservative Democracy 2. The Ideological Roots of Indian Democracy's Social Deficit 3. Discourses and Practices 4. Congress: Party of the Intelligentsia or of the Notables? 5. The Co-option of Scheduled Caste Leaders and the 'Coalition of Extremes' 6. Indira Gandhi and the Aborted Reform of Congress Part Two 1. The Second Age of Indian Democracy 2. From Reluctant to Compelling Cast-Based Affirmative Action 3. Two Strategies: Quota Politics and Kisan Politics 4. The Janata Dal and the Empowerment of the Low Castes 5. The BSP: Not Just a Dalit Party 6. The Upper Castes' Political Resilience: Congress and the BJP Coping with the Manda Commission

Building on his brilliant study of Hindu nationalism, Jaffrelot has established himself as one of the leaders of a new generation of Western scholars whose work will be essential reading for India specialists, practioners, and scholars concerned with problems of democratic transition and consolidation. Essential. Choice This big... will allow [readers] to interpret the profound and tantalizing transformations going on in north India today. -- Robin Jeffrey Pacific Affairs