Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph say India can today identify itself in the global order thanks to its multi-vocal character.

Their discovery of India began in 1956 when they piled into a Land Rover and decided to drive down here. Today Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, professors emeriti from the University of Chicago, share a good laugh when they recount those days. "Do you think all those borders would be passable now?" they ask.

The Rudolphs settled down in Jaipur, to study India, especially its democracy. A broad selection of their work on India has now been compiled into a three-volume series called Explaining Indian Democracy: A Fifty-Year Perspective, 1956-2006. It features selections from their books and numerous essays and lectures.

How would you encapsulate your time in India?

When we came we were young pipsqueaks. India had a very colonial frame of mind and we were generously received in high political quarters. From the '60s, which saw de-colonisation of India's mentality, we started having a very hard time. Now we are in the third phase where we get dealt with as Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph rather than as Americans or non-Americans. India has sense as a country now and with democracy in a bad shape around the world, an example that it can be done.

Is it fair to say that 1991, more than any other year, was the biggest turning point?

Since 1991 obviously the economy has changed strikingly. The reforms resulted in growth. We regard ourselves as political economists. We wrote a book called In Pursuit of Lakshmi, a very big book on the Indian economy, which also included politics. The huge change, apart from the social revolution, is the change from being a centrally planned economy to market economy. The Nehruvian model came a cropper, and explaining that involves a very complex set of stories. The reforms transformed the federal system. The states as units had to attract private investment. So you had a phenomenon of state chief ministers travelling around the world and Bill Gates coming to Hyderabad. Thus the political side saw the movement from one-party dominance to multi-party coalitions.

Courtesy: www.business-standard.com, February 10, 2008