Indians never tire of pointing out to the world that unlike the fate of most post-colonial nation- states born of 20^th century anti-colonial liberation movements, India has remained the largest functioning democracy in the world, except for one traumatic blip, in its seventy-five years of its existence as a sovereign country. At the same time, ever since its inception, and especially so in the present, we also hear grave concerns articulated by Indians that social arrangements of political power and dangerous vested interests have constantly undermined Indian democracy and the egalitarian promise of its Constitution, rendering large swathes of its citizenry vulnerable to structural and actual violence, marginalization, and silencing. Against the context of such contradictory discourses and using concrete examples of certain​‘critical events’ in Indian politics post-1947, this course will introduce students to key ideas of power and politics, of institutions, processes and outcomes that shape contemporary India.