The Rudolphs' analysis reveals that Gandhi's charisma was deeply rooted in the aspects of Indian tradition that he interpreted for his time. They key to his political influence was his ability to realize in both his daily life and his public actions, cultural ideals that many Indians honored but could not enact themselves-ideals such as the traditional Hindu belief that a person's capacity for self-control enhances his capacity to control his environment. Appealing to shared expectations and recognitions, Gandhi was able to revitalize tradition while simultaneously breaking with some of its...

Stressing the variations in meaning of modernity and tradition, this work shows how in India traditional structures and norms have been adapted or transformed to serve the needs of a modernizing society. The persistence of traditional features within modernity, it suggests, answers a need of the human condition.
Three areas of Indian life are analyzed: social stratification, charismatic leadership, and law. The authors question whether objective historical conditions, such as advanced industrialization, urbanization, or literacy, are requisites for political modernization.

The pursuit of Lakshmi, the fickle goddess of prosperity and good fortune, is a metaphor for the aspirations of the state and people of independent India. In the latest of their distinguished contributions to South Asian studies, scholars Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph focus on this modern-day pursuit by offering a comprehensive analysis of India's political economy.
India occupies a paradoxical plane among nation states: it is both developed and underdeveloped, rich and poor, strong and weak. These contrasts locate India in the international order. The Rudolphs' theory of...

Destination India is an account of the travels of two eminent political scientists and, as such, a compelling account of India less than a decade after independence. In the summer of 1956, Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susannne Hoeber Rudolph drove a Land Rover from London to Jaipur, recording their impression of the people, the cultures, and the landscape. Their 5000 mile journey took them 'East of Suez', across the ecological and cultural lines distinguishing Europe from Asia, and then over the Khyber into the Indian subcontinent. Part primary source, part analysis, the book also provides an account...

The fascination of Colonel James Tod, one of the earliest colonial ethnographers, with the cultural practices, communities and histories of the people of Rajasthan led to a meticulous compilation of information about the region and its people, whom he deeply admired. His two-volume masterwork, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, published in London in 1829 and 1832, inspired generations of popular renderings of the past, including nationalist and vernacular imaginations in the whole of South Asia. Tod's narrative style reflects the influence of Romanticism, medieval feudalism, and...