Democracy on the Road

India is a country obsessed by politics. In early 2019, it faces national elections, and urgent questions present themselves: will India continue down a path of populism and increasingly strident Hindu nationalism or will it return to its postcolonial secular vision? Is the long-promised economic boom finally at hand, or is some form of socialism part of India's DNA? Will the seemingly invincible Modi triumph again, or will India revert to its habit of throwing out incumbents? Bestselling author Ruchir Sharma has been on the road during Indian elections for twenty years and here distills the wisdom of his observations and experiences over that time in a deeply insightful book about the world's largest and most complex exercise in democracy.

For a quarter of a century, Ruchir Sharma has been doing in India what political pundits should have done in the US, UK and France to understand Donald Trump, Brexit and the gilets jaunes protestors: he has left the big cities and listened to voters in the mofussil or provincial parts of the subcontinent. ... Above all, the trips allowed Sharma to predict and understand the rise of the Bharatiya Janata party's charismatic Narendra Modi, the collapse and later revival of the Congress party under the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, and the enduring influence of regional politicians such as Nitish Kumar in Bihar and the late J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu

Victor Mallet, Financial Times

About Ruchir Sharma

Ruchir Sharma is chairman of Rockefeller International and founder of Breakout Capital, a global investment firm. He moved to Rockefeller in 2022 after 25 years at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where he was head of emerging markets and chief global strategist. Based in New York, he is a columnist at the Financial Times and a former contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He is the author of four books, including the international bestseller Breakout Nations and the New York Times bestseller The Rise and Fall of Nations.
Details
  • Imprint: Allen Lane
  • ISBN: 9780241388075
  • Length: 400 pages
  • Dimensions: 240mm x 37mm x 162mm
  • Weight: 649g
  • Price: £25.00
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