Question
What are some good sources of information for Westerners wishing to understand how democracy in India works?
Answer
I would start with the op-ed columnists at the Hindustan Times. Not the Times of India which has gradually degenerated into a tabloid. Of the weeklies, India Today is probably still the best. It was when I left India.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/ed...
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/
The Economist is actually pretty decent for India coverage.
As far as books go, there are none that I think really get at the essence of Indian politics. The best you can do is probably the collected comics of R. K. Laxman (India's most famous political cartoonist, born in 1921, he has done a daily "Common Man" comic panel for the Times of India since forever, and you can buy the "You Said It" collections thereof, though they don't seem to be available on Amazon).
Be aware that you are likely to miss 75% of the jokes, since they assume a lot of context. Still, a good measure of what you don't know. You can measure your India knowledge by your "get Laxman" percentage.
The best political columnist ever was probably Khushwant Singh of the HT, kinda like the Andy Rooney+H. L. Mencken of India.
Both Singh and Laxman are in their 90s now, so they are mainly good for historical context, via collected works.
Among the younger generation, nobody really stands out for quality commentary. I used to like Vir Sanghvi and M. J. Akbar, but I don't keep up with India news much anymore. I do NOT like Shashi Tharoor.
There are no good books that I know of about politics in general. P. Sainath's "Everybody Loves a Good Drought" is known for being a very revealing case study of Indian politics, but I haven't read it. Caste politics is important, and Narendra Jadhav may be a good read there.
Movies are probably the best way to get a feel for democracy in India, but my recommendations are likely to be very dated, and reflect Nehru/Indira Gandhi era politics (I am not that old, but the late 80s/early 90s when I was a teenager, were a period of bad cinema for politics, and after that I left India). Don't stick to Bollywood (Hindi). Some of the best movies are likely from Bengal or the south.
Some major politicians have written autobiographies. P. V. Narasimha Rao, the first legitimate Prime Minister who was not from the Nehru-Gandhi clan, wrote a novel that is a thinly-veiled account of his life. I haven't read it.
Some aspects of Indian politics are not easy to get at at all, like the role of religion and caste. There's a couple of documentaries about the "Sangh Parivar" (the religious right organizations behind the rightist BJP), but none about the Left that I know of, since the power of the Nehru-Gandhi clan has stifled dissent to some extent.
Rushdie's Midnight's Children is a thinly-veiled critique of Indian politics, especially Indira Gandhi (who is referred to as the "witch" in the book). V. S. Naipaul has written a lot, but despite his undoubted quality as a writer, his early works are so jaundiced that I couldn't get past the first couple of pages.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/ed...
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/
The Economist is actually pretty decent for India coverage.
As far as books go, there are none that I think really get at the essence of Indian politics. The best you can do is probably the collected comics of R. K. Laxman (India's most famous political cartoonist, born in 1921, he has done a daily "Common Man" comic panel for the Times of India since forever, and you can buy the "You Said It" collections thereof, though they don't seem to be available on Amazon).
Be aware that you are likely to miss 75% of the jokes, since they assume a lot of context. Still, a good measure of what you don't know. You can measure your India knowledge by your "get Laxman" percentage.
The best political columnist ever was probably Khushwant Singh of the HT, kinda like the Andy Rooney+H. L. Mencken of India.
Both Singh and Laxman are in their 90s now, so they are mainly good for historical context, via collected works.
Among the younger generation, nobody really stands out for quality commentary. I used to like Vir Sanghvi and M. J. Akbar, but I don't keep up with India news much anymore. I do NOT like Shashi Tharoor.
There are no good books that I know of about politics in general. P. Sainath's "Everybody Loves a Good Drought" is known for being a very revealing case study of Indian politics, but I haven't read it. Caste politics is important, and Narendra Jadhav may be a good read there.
Movies are probably the best way to get a feel for democracy in India, but my recommendations are likely to be very dated, and reflect Nehru/Indira Gandhi era politics (I am not that old, but the late 80s/early 90s when I was a teenager, were a period of bad cinema for politics, and after that I left India). Don't stick to Bollywood (Hindi). Some of the best movies are likely from Bengal or the south.
Some major politicians have written autobiographies. P. V. Narasimha Rao, the first legitimate Prime Minister who was not from the Nehru-Gandhi clan, wrote a novel that is a thinly-veiled account of his life. I haven't read it.
Some aspects of Indian politics are not easy to get at at all, like the role of religion and caste. There's a couple of documentaries about the "Sangh Parivar" (the religious right organizations behind the rightist BJP), but none about the Left that I know of, since the power of the Nehru-Gandhi clan has stifled dissent to some extent.
Rushdie's Midnight's Children is a thinly-veiled critique of Indian politics, especially Indira Gandhi (who is referred to as the "witch" in the book). V. S. Naipaul has written a lot, but despite his undoubted quality as a writer, his early works are so jaundiced that I couldn't get past the first couple of pages.