This essay argues that a number of the policies that the current, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government in India is pursuing threaten to rend the very fabric of India’s democracy. Its policies toward press freedoms, civil liberties, and judicial independence are all profoundly inimical to the functioning of a democratic state. Unless these policies are checked or reversed the future of India’s democracy may well be imperiled.
About the Author
Šumit Gangulyis Distinguished Professor of Political Science and holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington, and is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author (with William Thompson) of Ascending India and Its State Capacity (2017).
Under Narendra Modi, India is maintaining the trappings of democracy while it increasingly harasses the opposition, attacks minorities, and stifles dissent. It can still reverse course, but the damage is…
When the authors of India’s Constitution took the extraordinarily bold step of establishing universal suffrage, thus giving the right to vote to all adult citizens, India became the world’s first…
