Who has governed India, 1947 to today

Building a state, an economy, and a set of institutions from partition and near-total absence of industrial infrastructure.

Under two years in office, spanning a war and a language crisis, and the groundwork for food self-sufficiency.

Bank nationalisation, the Green Revolution, and the centralisation that ended in the Emergency.

The constitutional machinery used in 1975, and the safeguards added afterwards by the 44th Amendment.

The first non-Congress government at the Union, and what happened once the coalition's only shared purpose was achieved.

A return to single-party dominance, Punjab, the 1984 violence, and the beginning of technology modernisation.

Two minority governments, the Mandal Commission recommendations, rising religious mobilisation, and an economy sliding toward default.

Liberalisation under balance-of-payments crisis conditions, and the costs that came with the speed.

A 13-party coalition governing on outside Congress support, and what it built before that support was withdrawn.

Coalition government with a long infrastructure horizon, nuclear tests, and reforms earlier governments had avoided.

Rights-based welfare legislation alongside high growth, then the slowdown and the governance scandals.

Digital and physical infrastructure at scale, demonetisation and GST, and direct benefit transfer as the welfare model.

Governing without a single-party majority for the first time since 2014, and what coalition dependency changes.

The result that produced the present coalition arrangement.