History of the Republic of India economists, military analysts and think tanks expect India to become a superpower in the near future. Independent India's first years were marked with turbulent events – a massive exchange of population with Pakistan, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 and the integration of over 500 princely states to form a united nation. Credit for the political integration of India is largely attributed to Vallabhbhai Patel (deputy Prime Minister of India at the time), who post-independence and before the death of Mahatma Gandhi teamed up with Jawaharlal Nehru and the Mahatma to ensure that the constitution of independent India would be secular.
The Accidental Prime Minister The Accidental Prime Minister The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh is a 2014 memoir by Indian policy analyst Sanjaya Baru, who was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's media advisor from May 2004 to August 2008. Published by Penguin India, the book alleges that Singh was not entirely in control of his cabinet—or even the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). Instead, significant power was wielded by the Congress party's president Sonia Gandhi, to whom Singh was completely "subservient". "There cannot be two centres of power", Baru remembers Singh explaining to him, "That creates confusion. I have to accept