An Indian Political Life
Charan Singh and Congress Politics, 1957 to 1967
- Paul R. Brass - Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science and International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
The Politics of Northern India
Like the earlier volume, this book is based primarily on the author's personal relationship with Charan Singh during his political career and early access to his massive political files and the author's own personal interviews with politicians, other public persons, peasants, and others over 50 years, up to the present. It also provides an account of the chief ministership of Sucheta Kripalani—a political outsider catapulted to the top by the power struggles of fractious factions—and at the same time explores against the backdrop of regionalism in UP the considerable yet little-known role played by Charan Singh in issues of states reorganization for northern India.
This book is the second volume of a multi-volume work on The Politics of Northern India: 1937 to 1987.
| Preface |
| Chronology of Principal Events in the Life of Charan Singh |
| Regional Political Economy: Western and Eastern Districts |
| Delhi Suba and Other Demands for the Reorganization of Uttar Pradesh (1946-Present) |
| Big Industrialists and Big Dams: Agriculture vs. Industrial Development Before and After the Rihand Dam (1957-59) |
| The Resignation Speech That "Never Came Off" |
| Interval: Fall of the Sampurnanand Government (1959-62) and the First Government of C B Gupta (1960-63) |
| The Fall of the First Government of C B Gupta (1963) |
| Sucheta! (1962-65) |
| Crisis and Sabotage: The State Employees' Agitation and the UP Government (1964-68) |
| Groupism and Venality in the Congress (1963-66) |
| The Forms of Corruption |
| Disintegration of the Congress |
| Appendix A: Day-by-day Account of the State Employees’ Strike in Uttar Pradesh: 14 July 1966 to 28 July 1967 |
| Appendix B: Brief Biographies of and Interviews with Persons Mentioned Prominently in Volume II |
| Glossary |
| Bibliography |
| Index |
His style is unique, focusing on the second rung of leaders who played a vital role in the pre-independence period and immediately thereafter. [At a time when] state politics [is] becoming an important sub-set of national politics, such leaders at the second tier of our polity need to be given more attention lest posterity might forget them and their contributions to nation-building.
This study is decidedly sympathetic to Charan Singh but Brass also provides plenty of criticisms which lend credibility to the analysis...Brass offers us a bleak view of UP Politics—and abundant evidence to justify it...it is hard to imagine anyone ever matching the exhausting account that Brass provides.