DIVIDED BY DEMOCRACY (HARDCOVER)
The second volume in the Cross-border Talks series delves into why India embraced democracy while Pakistan did not. Meghnad Desai pinpoints the Constituent Assembly's adoption of universal adult franchise as pivotal to India's democratic endurance. The leaders of India's independence movement, many educated in England, yearned for a Westminster-style democracy. This model fostered demands for inclusion from marginalized groups, resulting in a vibrant democracy today. Aitzaz Ahsan posits that at Partition, India had a robust middle class and political structure, while Pakistan inherited a powerful feudal class and an entrenched bureaucracy, stifling democratic growth.