ABSTRACT
India is, famously, the biggest democracy in the world. And, given the failures of democratic political systems in so many other former colonies, a good many commentators have found it remarkable that the country should have remained a democracy-except for the brief period between 1975 and 1977 when the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, declared an “emergency” and suspended the Constitution. This chapter traces the history of Indian democracy and the implications of political changes for the functioning of the key institutions of government.
