On the eve of a landmark general election, Ruchir Sharma offers an unrivalled portrait of how India and its democracy work, drawn from his two decades on the road chasing election campaigns across every major state, travelling the equivalent of a lap around the earth. Democracy on the Road takes readers on a rollicking ride with Ruchir and his merry band of fellow writers as they talk to farmers, shopkeepers and CEOs from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu, and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi.

No book has traced the arc of modern India by taking readers so close to the action. Offering an intimate view inside the lives and minds of India's political giants and its people, Sharma explains how the complex forces of family, caste and community, economics and development, money and corruption, Bollywood and Godmen, have conspired to elect and topple Indian leaders since Indira Gandhi. The ultimately encouraging message of Ruchir's travels is that, while democracy is retreating in many parts of the world, it is thriving in India.

Review
Packed with nuance and detail of the many Indias that make India (Vogue)

A must read in this election season! (Nandan Nilekani)

A must, must, must and very 'mast' read! Insightful and deliciously wicked (Shobhaa De)

An immediate must-read. A definitive one-volume on the modern India (Tom Keene, Bloomberg’s Editor-at-large)

A high-speed, breezy drive through two decades of electoral politics (Bloomberg Quint)

Ruchir Sharma's insights on the Indian polity are absorbing thanks to portraits that are raw and real (Hindu Business Line)

Ruchir Sharma is Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. With more than $20 billion of assets under management, Ruchir is one of the world's largest global investors. He typically spends one week every month in a different emerging market where he meets leading politicians, top CEOs and other local characters. He has been with the firm for 19 years and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Investment Management division.

Ruchir has been a writer for even longer than he has been an investor. He started writing at the age of 17 for India's largest economic daily, The Economic Times and is now a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs and The Times of India. His essays have also appeared in, Time, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Forbes and Bloomberg View. For much of the last decade he had been a contributing editor and regular columnist for Newsweek International.

Ruchir may be most well-known for his 2012 book, Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles. Breakout Nations debuted as the number one bestseller in India and earned Sharma the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award for 2012. Breakout Nations also made the Wall Street Journal hardcover business bestseller list and was chosen by Foreign Policy as one of its “21 Books to Read in 2012”. Ruchir’s next book, The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World will be released in June 2016.

Bloomberg named Ruchir one of the top 50 Most Influential people in the world in October 2015. In 2012, Sharma was selected as one of the top global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and in June 2013, India's premier weekly magazine Outlook chose Ruchir as one of The World's 25 Smartest Indians. The World Economic Forum in Davos selected Ruchir as one of the world’s “Top Young Leaders” in 2007.

Ruchir is especially passionate about politics and has formed an informal group of senior Indian editors and writers with whom he travels extensively before major state and national elections; usually logging in over 1,000 miles over 4-5 days, meeting with the nation’s top leaders and getting a first-hand feel of local politics. Ruchir's other interests include athletics and a serious commitment to running. Despite his extensive travels, he tries not to miss a single day of training no matter where he is in the world. He regularly trains with a former Olympics coach and competes in sprinting events. In 2011, he represented India in the World Masters Athletic championship in Sacramento. Ruchir is a movie buff and makes it a point to attend major film festivals anytime he can take a moment away from his investing, writing and running. He also has a fascination with wildlife and his annual safaris inform the prologue to The Rise and Fall of Nations, a meditation on how witnessing predator-prey behavior on the African plains has shaped his rules for national survival and success in the global economy.