A recent statistical study of the relationship between democracy and development in 135 countries found that 'the odds against democracy in India were very high.' But India has been a democracy since its independence (barring two years of Emergency rule under Indira Gandhi). To explain this anomaly or paradox one needs to perhaps shun the methods of statistical social science -- in which India will always be the exception to the rule -- in favour of the more 'primitive' techniques of narrative historian.

The forces that divide India are many. But there are also forces that have kept India together. And a lot of the credit for this should go to the constitution and institutional framework devised by our founding fathers and mothers.

I think India was very fortunate and lucky and gifted in having a very extraordinary group of founding fathers and mothers. No new nation probably was born in more difficult circumstances. The backdrop was civil war, Partition, riots, eight million refugees, 500 princely States to be integrated. The birth of India was in very unpropitious circumstances. At the same time, no new nation was lucky enough to have so many wise men and women to guide it in its first years.

In many ways, my book is a tribute to the first generation to the Indian politicians and administrators who united the country, gave it a democratic infrastructure, a visionary constitution that guaranteed equality of opportunity, freedom of religion, freedom of language and so on. The story is of these remarkable men and women and how they nurtured an inclusive democratic ethos.

I have tried to explain the paradox of a country that was doomed to fail continuing to survive and prosper. If you go by statistical predictions, any nation that speaks more than five languages is unlikely to be united; any nation that has more than 30 per cent illiterates is unlikely to be democratic. These statistical explanations are completely negated or nullified by the Indian experience.

Top image: At the conference in New Delhi where Lord Mountbatten, the Last Viceroy, disclosed Britain's plan to Partition India, from left to right, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mountbatten's adviser Lord Ismay, Mountbatten, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Bottom: August 9, 1942, Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi confer at the All India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay. It was at this historic AICC meeting that the Congress adopted the Quit India resolution, demanding that Great Britain leave India. Photographs: Keystone and STR/AFP/Getty Images Also read: Wanted! A real Indian hero

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