For some years, the endurance of constitutional democracy in India has been a puzzle for political scientists and public law scholars. The creation of self-government on Indian soil challenged Western political theory and history, and its survival in atypical and unusual circumstances has mystified students of comparative politics.1¹ If the conventional wisdom is believed, self-rule in a country with major levels of poverty, illiteracy, and diversity should neither have been instituted nor sustained.2² India has managed to hold elections with remarkable regularity, and it boasts of a constitutional culture where conflict has, for the most part, been articulated through legal means.3³ The troubling reality of contemporary Indian political life—where the principles of constitutional democracy appear to be under serious threat—does not take away from the achievement of modern India or from the puzzle that the nation’s history invites. Regardless of whether India will remain a constitutional democracy, it is somewhat astonishing that it was ever one to begin with.

中文翻译：

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民主与非殖民化：印度是如何建立的

多年来，印度宪政民主的持久性一直困扰着政治学家和公法学者。自政府在印度领土上创造挑战西方政治理论和历史，及其在非典型和异常情况下的生存已经迷惑比较politics.1的学生¹如果传统智慧认为在一个国家，自治与主要水平贫困，文盲，和多样性既不应该已经制定，也不sustained.2 ²印度已经成功地与显着的规律性举行选举，并且它拥有一个宪政文化，冲突，在大多数情况下，是通过法律means.3关节的³宪政民主原则似乎受到严重威胁的当代印度政治生活令人不安的现实，并不能摆脱现代印度的成就或印度历史所引起的困惑。不管印度是否将继续实行宪政民主，从一开始它就令人惊讶。