The extensive history and the intense spirituality of India have always encountered, in Europe and the West, vast interest; the same cannot be said for its political and institutional history. And yet, after having achieved independence in 1947 and adopting a democratic constitution in 1952, India is the largest democracy in the world, despite the many contradictions that plague this country of many ethnic groups, many languages, and many religions. The study of the institutional arrangements of contemporary India is crucial for understanding the theory of democracy, especially as regards two of its important characteristics: the universal nature of democratic values and their operational validity in unrelated and apparently "incompatible" contexts; the idea that democracy, far from being a "Western monopoly", needs to be adjusted to the socio-cultural circumstances of any population that willingly chooses it.

Domenico Amirante teaches Italian and Comparative Public Law at the Second University of Naples.