BharatNotes Politics in India Since Independence is the Class XII Political Science NCERT (Part 2) that tells the political story of the republic from 1947: the three challenges of nation-building, the first elections and the Congress system, the choice of planned development, the wars and non-alignment of the first decades, the crisis of 1975-77, the regional conflicts and accords of the 1980s, and the coalition era since 1989. The current book, Reprint 2026-27, has eight chapters: the rationalisation of 2023-24 dropped the chapter on popular movements, halved the chapter on planned development, and re-set the last chapter in 2024 around the Ayodhya judgment of 2019 and the elections of 2014 and 2019. These pages follow the current chapters in NCERT's order, print NCERT's figures first and the Election Commission's beside them, quote the accords and judgments from their texts, and keep the dropped chapter as a labelled page, since its topics (Chipko, the Dalit Panthers, the farmers' movements, Narmada, the Right to Information) are still asked.
For UPSC the book underpins GS1 (post-independence consolidation and reorganisation) and GS2 (parties, coalitions, federalism, emergency provisions, the judiciary), and supplies the baseline for GS2's international-relations questions and GS3's questions on agriculture, planning and internal security.
The chapters
| Site page | NCERT chapter (Reprint 2026-27) | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Challenges of Nation Building | Chapter 1 | Partition and its consequences, Gandhi's last fast, the integration of 565 princely states (Junagadh, Hyderabad, Kashmir, Manipur), the linguistic reorganisation of states from Potti Sriramulu to the 1956 Act and the states created since |
| 2. Era of One-Party Dominance | Chapter 2 | The first general election of 1951-52, the Congress's three-fourths majorities, Kerala 1957, the Congress as a social and ideological coalition, the opposition parties of the 1950s |
| 3. Politics of Planned Development | Chapter 3 | Development as political contestation, the Planning Commission and NITI Aayog, the Bombay Plan, the First and Second Plans, and the dropped sections on the key controversies, land reforms, the Bihar food crisis and the Green and White Revolutions |
| 4. India's External Relations | Chapter 4 | Non-alignment, Afro-Asian unity, Panchsheel and the 1962 war, the wars of 1965 and 1971 with the Tashkent, Indo-Soviet and Simla texts, Kargil, and India's nuclear policy |
| 5. Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System | Chapter 5 | The successions of 1964 and 1966, the elections of 1967, coalitions and defection, the Congress split of 1969, bank nationalisation and the privy purse, Garibi Hatao and the 1971 restoration |
| 6. The Crisis of Democratic Order | Chapter 6 | The Gujarat and Bihar movements, the railway strike, the conflict with the judiciary, the Emergency of 1975-77 and its amendments, the Shah Commission, the 1977 verdict, the Janata government and the 1980 return |
| 7. Rise of Popular Movements | Dropped in 2023-24 (the 2020-21 edition's Chapter 7), retained here | Chipko, the Dalit Panthers, the Bharatiya Kisan Union, the National Fishworkers' Forum, the anti-arrack movement, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the Right to Information movement |
| 8. Regional Aspirations | Chapter 7 | Jammu and Kashmir to 2019 and the 2023 judgment, the Dravidian movement, Punjab from the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to the 1985 Accord, the North-East (Mizoram, Nagaland, Assam), Sikkim's merger and Goa's opinion poll |
| 9. Recent Developments in Indian Politics | Chapter 8 | The five developments of 1989-91, the coalition era to the BJP majorities of 2014 and 2019, the political rise of the OBCs and the Mandal Commission, the BSP, Hindutva, Shah Bano and Ayodhya, and the four-element consensus |
How to read the book for the exam
- Follow the three challenges. NCERT's first chapter sets them (unity with diversity, democracy, development for all) and says the whole book answers whether India met them. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 take one each; chapters 5 to 8 return to the first two.
- Keep NCERT's figures and the official ones side by side. NCERT rounds (45 per cent in 1952; "about 90,000" in 1971; 415 seats in 1984); the Election Commission's reports give 44.99, the Instrument of Surrender gives no count, and the 1984 figure is 404 (414 after 1985). Answer keys follow NCERT; Prelims statements can test either.
- Quote the documents. The Instrument of Accession's three subjects, the Simla Agreement's "line of control", the Rajiv-Longowal Accord's 26 January 1986, the Assam Accord's 1966 and 1971 cut-offs, the 44th Amendment's "armed rebellion": each page quotes the text where coaching notes paraphrase it.
- Date the live items. Article 370 (orders of 5 and 6 August 2019; judgment of 11 December 2023), the Indus Waters Treaty (in abeyance since April 2025), the women's reservation (in force 16 April 2026), MGNREGA (repealed 1 July 2026): each page gives the status as of 4 October 2026 and names the record.
Sources used across the book
- NCERT, Politics in India Since Independence, Reprint 2026-27 (whole-book zip) and the 2020-21 edition (Wayback copy of 9 April 2022).
- Election Commission of India, statistical reports for every Lok Sabha election from 1951-52.
- The Constitution of India, as on 11 November 2025: Legislative Department PDF.
- Supreme Court judgments on Indian Kanoon and the Supreme Court's own site; the Shah Commission's reports; the Prime Minister's Office's former Prime Ministers' pages; the Ministry of External Affairs' treaty texts; the accord texts as hosted by the Government of Assam, UN Peacemaker and the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
