India's Ministry of Home Affairs, with its striking durability, and ability to adapt to the transition from colonial rule to post-colonial governance, is a remarkable example of institutional resilience. Home's special expertise in governance by stealth - maximum order with the use of minimum force - was instrumental for the department to acquire a secure niche within the colonial structure. Following the end of colonial rule in 1947, the Home Department, still ensconced in the majestic North Block of Delhi, mutated into the Home Ministry of the Indian Republic. How a colonial institution whose key task was to hold Indian nationalism at bay became the architect of the post-colonial state and nation, is one of the main questions to which I respond in this book. Home's multiple roles as the keeper of public order, mentor to public services and the invisible sinews of the state that holds the noisy democracy and assertive regions together to explain its exalted status in India's governance and politics. My analysis, based on declassified files of the Ministry of Home Affairs, correspondences, biographies and interviews, explores the multiple roles of the Ministry, with its penchant for governance by stealth as my focus

The first full length study of India's Ministry of Home Affairs

Few democracies have managed to sustain electoral responsiveness within a framework of order when facing challenges as deep as those of India. Subrata Mitra's remarkable new book digs beneath the surface into official archives and personal accounts to analyze the efforts of the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs to manage "maximum order with minimum force" over more than half a century-often, but not always, successfully. What he reveals about politics and policymaking is relevant to every democracy, especially in today's challenging times. - Professor G. Bingham Powell, University of Rochester, NY