This book has been compiled to celebrate the work of Professor Subrata K. Mitra whose scholarship includes a wide spectrum of research topics, writings, and teaching on South Asian politics. Following his early years at Ravenshaw College in Cuttack, Orissa (now Odisha) where he read for a B.A. (honours) in Political Science (1969), he subsequently did his MA in Political Science from Delhi University (1971). Mitra was amongst the first candidates to acquire an M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (1972). Growing up in the extraordinarily dynamic environment of post-independence India where processes of state and nation building were palpable had a deep impact on his academic outlook and interests. This was a period when the foundations of modern Indian politics were being both strengthened and contested, laying the basis for a functional political and administrative system, and a deepening, multiparty democracy.