Books

Midnight’s Diaspora: Critical Encounters with Salman Rushdie

  • In this lively collection of essays, Ashutosh Varshney analyses the deepening of Indian democracy since 1947 and the challenges this has created. The overview traces the forging and consolidation of India’s improbable democracy. Other essays examine themes ranging from Hindu nationalism, caste politics and ethnic conflict to the north–south economic divergence and politics of economic reforms.

    The book offers original insights on several key questions: how federalism has handled linguistic diversity thus far, and why governance and regional underdevelopment will drive the formation of new states now; how coalition making induces ideological moderation in the politics of the BJP; how the political empowerment of the Dalits has not ensured their economic transformation; how the social revolution in the south led to its overtaking the north; and how the 1991 economic reforms succeeded because they affected elite, not mass, politics.

    Lucid and erudite, Battles Half Won brilliantly portrays the successes and failures of India’s experience in a new, comparative perspective, enriching our understanding of the idea of democracy.

  • “Ashutosh Varshney is a world-class scholar of Indian politics. His writings are erudite and insightful . . . This collection of his updated essays deserves to be read widely.”

    —Atul Kohli, David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

    “Ashutosh Varshney draws on his best recent work [here] . . . to produce a book of enduring value. It takes us on wide ranging, theoretically sophisticated and deeply researched engagements with major topics in Indian politics . . . While India’s battles may be only “half won”, we are given good reasons to believe that battles will continue to be won and that its “improbable” democracy will persist.”

    —Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne H. Rudolph, Professors of Political Science Emeritus, University of Chicago

    “More than six decades after India’s Independence, its democracy’s resounding resilience is the conundrum that Ashutosh Varshney sets out to examine. In the process he has written a masterly book that combines scholarship, acute powers of analysis and great linguistic style, which makes it a pleasure to read even as it forces one to think.”

    —Kaushik Basu, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank and C. Marks Professor of International Studies, Cornell University

    "Celebrating Indian Democracy." Review by Satyabrata Pal, The Book Review, Vol. 23, No. 2 (February 2014).

    Review by Ashwani Kumar, The Financial Express, Vol. 13, No. 18 (February 23, 2014).

    "Delhi and Democracy: A Challenge for India." Review by Victor Mallet, Financial Times, February 21, 2014.

    Review by Harish Khare, Biblio, Vol. 19, nos. 1-2 (January-February 2014).

    "Writing a Country." Review by Mihir S Sharma, Business Standard, January 13, 2014.

  • coeditor (with Daniel Herwitz) and contributor, based on a collective engagement of philosophers, social scientists, literary critics and novelists with Salman Rushdie’s ideas on nationalism, religion and identity, along with his response. University of Michigan Press, 2008; Penguin Viking, Delhi, 2009.

    Almost twenty years after the Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against him, Salman Rushdie remains the most controversial and perhaps the most famous living novelist. Far more than an acclaimed author, Rushdie is a global figure whose work is read and studied by a wide variety of constituencies, many of whom are not primarily concerned with its literary significance.

    This important collection of essays and interviews brings together a distinguished group of critics and commentators, including Rushdie himself, to explore the political and cultural contexts of Rushdie’s novels. While each of the essays offers a distinct and often highly original take on Rushdie and his work, the two substantial interviews with Rushdie illuminate his thoughts on a series of literary and political subjects that he has for the most part been reluctant to discuss in public. This combination of fresh perspectives and historical and political context will appeal to a wide array of readers interested not only in Rushdie’s own work but also in the many collateral cultural and political issues it raises.

  • “The never-ending inventiveness of Salman Rushdie’s mind and art makes this volume both a pleasure and a necessity. These distinguished scholars have done a fine job introducing Rushdie’s work to a new generation of readers in a new century.”

    —Homi K. Bhahba, Harvard University

    “This collection engages with the larger context of Rushdie’s work to reflect on the urgent issues raised by Rushdie’s novels and their afterlives. The essays are first rate, achieving accessibility without sacrificing rigor and depth and bringing a variety of disciplinary perspectives to offer a fresh understanding of Rushdie’s writings. This is rare.”

    —Gyan Prakash, Princeton University

  • edited volume, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2010.

    Since the end of Suharto’s so-called New Order (1966-1998) in Indonesia and the eruption of vicious group violence, a number of questions have engaged the minds of scholars and other observers. How widespread is the group violence? What forms—ethnic, religious, economic—has it primarily taken? Have the clashes of the post-Suharto years been significantly more widespread, or worse, than those of the late New Order?

    The authors of Collective Violence in Indonesia trenchantly address these questions, shedding new light on trends in the country and assessing how they compare with broad patterns identified in Asia and Africa.

  • “[This] volume makes at least three major contributions to the literature on collective violence. Each opens up new fields of enquiry and throws fresh light on fundamental problems that have long bedevilled scholarship.”

    —Gerry van Klinken, South East Asia Research

    “An excellent overview of the multitude of methodological and theoretical approaches to the sudden proliferation of ethno-religious violence during Indonesia’s democratic transition…. Ashutosh Varshney is to be commended for enriching the discussion with a volume that no scholar of Indonesian affairs or theorist of communal conflict can afford to ignore.”

    —Marcus Mietzner, Southeast Asian Studies

    “Besides the usefulness for scholars on Indonesia, this book … will also serve an as essential entry point for comparativists who might be seeking to place collective violence in Indonesia in a broader framework.”

    —Jamie S. Davidson, Pacific Affairs

Collective Violence in Indonesia

Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy

India and the Politics of Developing Countries: Essays in Memory of Myron Weiner

Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India

India in the Era of Economic Reforms

  • editor and contributor, Sage Publications, 2004.

    The baffling complexity of Indian politics has engaged the attention of many a political scientist. It has also led some to remark on its exceptional nature. Several key insights into the dynamics of Indian politics have been possible because of attempts at theoretical formulations and comparison with other developing countries. These methods served as the foundation for Myron Weiner’s engagement with India. His formidable intellectual acuity was solidly grounded in methodological clarity—a feature that also informs the essays in this volume.

    This important volume brings together renowned scholars who take Myron Weiner’s original, pioneering and often surprising insights into a wide range of themes—democratization, party politics, pressure groups, federalism, caste, identity politics and ethnic conflict, affirmative action, public policy, and political economy—as their starting point to arrive at conclusions that validate or extend Weiner’s works. Divided into three parts—Party Politics and Democracy, Ethnic Politics, and Political Economy—the essays in the book critique conventional wisdom and some well-known theoretical positions.

  • “The essays in this volume will be welcomed by many political scientists as well as more lay observers of the Indian political situation. It is a welcome addition to our understanding of the evolution of political forces in independent India and deserves serious reading.”

    —Australian Journal of Political Science

  • co-edited with Jeffrey Sachs and N. Bajpai, Oxford University Press, 1999; paperback edition, 2000.

    Written by economists and political scientists, the essays in this volume not only analyze the impact of reforms on the economy as a whole, but also assess the state of India’s post-1991 public finances, agriculture, labor markets, exports, center-state relations and the connection of economic reforms with India’s battle over caste and secularism.

  • “India in the Era of Economic Reforms, a collection of multi-authored conference essays, is straightforward and competent… [It includes a] remarkable paper by Varshney, arguably India’s most promising young political scientist today.”

    —Jagdish Bhagwati, Times Literary Supplement

    “[This volume] sets out in clear simple terms the achievements of reforms, while not ignoring the problems that remain…that surely should provide the encouragement needed to solve those problems.”

    —Mark Tully, Outlook

    “[This book] assesses the progress of reforms, draws comparisons with China, outlines morals from East Asia, and dwells on political aspects.”

    —Business Standard

    "The Poverty of Economy." Review by Mark Tully, Outlook Magazine, February 7, 2000

Democracy, Development, and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India

Beyond Urban Bias

  • editor and contributor, Frank Cass, 1993.

  • Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback edition, 1998. Indian edition published by Foundation Books (Delhi) in 1996.

    Winner of the Daniel Lerner Prize in its PhD dissertation form, MIT, 1990.

    What happens to the rural folk—to their power and economic well-being—when development takes place in a democratic framework? Focusing on India where, unlike most of the developing world, a democratic system has flourished for four decades, this book investigates how the rural sector uses its numbers in a democracy to further its economic and political interests. The book also argues that identities constitute a powerful constraint on the pursuit of economic interests.

    First book to investigate whether democracy makes a difference to the power and well-being of the countryside in developing areas.

    This book examines India, which has had the longest surviving democracy in the developing world.

  • “The author has produced a truly exceptional book. His clear style, comparative focus, and methodologically sophisticated approach make this book a major contribution to the field of political economy, comparative politics and Indian Studies. Varshney has established himself as one of the leading young scholars in the field.”

    —Studies in Comparative International Development

    “It will be hard to ignore Varshney’s brilliant analysis. Its originality and rigor set new standards for future research. Not just researchers but also policy makers will benefit from a careful reading of this important book:”

    —Development and Change

    “In this important book, Varshney pits established wisdom about agrarian politics and urban bias with the data from India, one of the most significant cases in Third World development. The result is a substantial and exciting reappraisal of what we thought we knew. We learn much about the impact of political institutions, about the significance of democracy, and about the limits of rural power. A major work.”

    —Robert Bates; Harvard University

    “This is the definitive study of how India’s bureaucrats, politicians and organised agrarian interests transformed India’s agricultural policies. Varshney shows how the politically mobilized agrarian sector was able to overcome the urban bias that has impeded agricultural growth elsewhere in the late developing countries. An outstanding contribution to the political economy literature.”

    —Myron Weiner, MIT

    Review by Lucian W. Pye, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, no. 4 (July-August 1999).

    Review by Stanley A. Kochanek, Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Summer 1997).

    "The Politics of New Farmers' Movements." Review by V. Anil Kumar, Social Scientist, Vol. 25, no. 3/4 (March-April 1997).

    Review by Arthur G. Rubinoff, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 56, no. 1 (February 1997).