The Largest Democracy: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
[[File:Rashtrapati Bhavan - Official Residence of the President of India.jpg|thumb|The Rashtrapati Bhavan.]]
If you hear the media talk about "the world's largest democracy", you can be assured that it refers to the modern Republic of '''[[India]]''': it is the world's most populous democratic state, with 1.21 billion inhabitants (nearly ''four times'' the size of the next-largest contender, the [[The United States|United States]]).
There are 23 official languages in India, 13 of which are spoken as a mother tongue by at least 10 million people, and 1,652 dialects. It contains the highest global Hindu population, the second most populous Muslim population, and significant Christian, Sikh and Jain minorities. One would think India would either fall apart or become dominated by a dictator/military-industrial complex and cease being a functional state. Instead, it's one of the developing world's most stable democracies, slipping into authoritarianism only once (the "Indian Emergency" from June 1975 to March 1977), and even then it took on a surprisingly mild (continuing to follow the constitutional forms and led by the duly-elected Prime Minister) and progressive (it was declared by Indira Gandhi—a woman) form.
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