The question has assumed added significance after the disintegration of the former multiethnic Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The present study, informed by a modified neo-institutionalism, seeks to identify the key to India s success as an integrated democracy amidst a whole lot of trajectories. As an answer to India s relative success in state formation and political order, this study emphasizes the role of democratic multicultural decentralization, which is a distinctive institutional-political formulation grown out of India s specific contexts, and which has served as a method of effective governance in India. The book is primarily aimed at first degree undergraduate and postgraduate students. It is aimed at students specializing in India politics, post-colonial studies, Third world politics and those studying decentralization in non-Western countries. The work would have direct appeal political scientists, sociologists, policy makers, research institutes, activists, and development agencies.