With India under growing scrutiny over the erosion of its democracy since 2014, worldwide media coverage has revealed our poor grasp of it as a modern nation. In this book, Indrajit Roy sets out to understand modern Indians on their own terms. Beyond the usual polarising narratives-either pious platitudes to the 'world's largest democracy', or laments over its 'democratic backsliding'- Roy reveals the remarkable 75-year achievement of building a democratic nation in a country weathering mass poverty, severe inequality and deep social conflict. He also exposes how this process unfolds on the ground, telling the story of a nation-state via glimpses into how Indians have thought of themselves, the world and their place in it.

Indians charts the evolution of a people's identity since the spectacle, frenzy and hope of independence in 1947, and the republican constitution introduced in 1950. This is both a high-political history and, more importantly, an account of that history's interplay with the nebulous complex of ideas and passions that go into making, unmaking and remaking a democratic nation.

Roy's astute political biography of the Indian people is, ultimately, a tale of how one democracy influences, and is shaped by, its economy, society and culture.