This volume – the third and conclusive one of a history of India since the early human settlements – examines the political, economic and social evolution of India from independence to the 2014 general election. It argues that the period is subdivided into two main phases; the Longer Nehruvian Era, which extended well after Nehru’s death in 1964, and the Neoliberal Age. The book shows that the Longer Nehruvian Era was articulated in two stages. In the first, which ended with Nehru’s death, the features which characterized India until the late 1980s and early 1990s came into being. The main ones were a secular democracy, a dominant-party system, and an economy where the state played a crucially important economic role.