S/P/87. Has there been a significant transformation in India’s democracy and the party political system between 1947 and the present?

This paper discusses whether there has been significant change in the nature of India’s democracy, and what the significant features of such changes have been. It argues that because of a change in the role of the masses, and in particular the greater politicisation of the lower and middle castes, a number of new characteristics have developed. Amongst those discussed new features of Indian democracy are changing centre-regions relations and a trend towards more peripheralised rule (though within federal confines).