To Kill A Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism

by Debasish Roy Chowdhury, John Keane

Overview

India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, there is now growing alarm about its democratic health. To Kill a Democracy gets to the heart of the matter.

Combining poignant life stories with sharp scholarly insight, it rejects the belief that India was once a beacon of democracy but is now being ruined by the destructive forces of Modi-style populism. The book details the much deeper historical roots of the present-day assaults on civil liberties and democratic institutions. Democracy, the authors also argue, is much more than elections and the separation of powers. It is a whole way of life lived in dignity, and that is why they pay special attention to the decaying social foundations of Indian democracy. In compelling fashion, the book describes daily struggles for survival and explains how lived social injustices and unfreedoms rob Indian elections of their meaning, while at the same time feeding the decadence and iron-fisted rule of its governing institutions. Much more than a book about India, To Kill A Democracy argues that what is happening in the country is globally important, and not just because every third person living in a democracy is an Indian. It shows that when democracies rack and ruin their social foundations, they don't just kill off the spirit and substance of democracy. They lay the foundations for despotism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198848608
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Debasish Roy Chowdhury has written extensively on Indian politics and society and geopolitics. A journalist based in Hong Kong, he has lived and worked in Calcutta, Sao Paulo, Bangkok, and Beijing. He is a Jefferson Fellow and a recipient of multiple prizes, including the Human Rights Press Award, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award and the Hong Kong News Award.

John Keane is Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney and the WZB (Berlin). He is renowned globally for his creative thinking about democracy, and is the author of a number of distinguished books including The Life and Death of Democracy (Simon & Schuster, 2009) and The New Despotism (Harvard University Press, 2020).

Table of Contents

Part 1 the India Story
Part 11 Social EmergenciesA Million FaminesGround RealitiesMotion SicknessWriting on the WallA New Slavery
Part 111 Towards DespotismVote, Or ElseChremacracyElective DespotismJustice DefiledBad NewsRemaking the PeopleFurther Reading
IllustrationsIndex

Editorial Reviews

"A fiercely urgent book, expansively researched and reported." — Liesl Schwabe, Los Angeles Review of Books

"The authors plunge into India's postindependence public-policy inadequacies with unsparing accounts laden with telling anecdotes and a host of pertinent statistics." — Šumit Ganguly, Journal of Democracy

"A searing and original polemic." — James Crabtree, Financial Times

"A richly sourced and fast-paced directory of the unevenly distributed life chances of ordinary Indians." — Sonia Faleiro, Times Literary Supplement

"An urgent survey of India's democratic shortcomings... The book is a happy marriage of the authors' skills and expertise. A thoroughgoing, finely grained awareness of Indian politics and society is blended with a rigorous understanding of how democracy works and what is needed for it to thrive. The book avoids academic jargon, with the result that it is clear, accessible and compelling... it will be a fascinating read for anyone who cares about the fate of the world's biggest democracy." — Abhinmanyu Arni, Literary Review

"Well-researched." — Mihir Bose, Irish Times

"In vivid and compelling terms, [Chowdhury and Keane] detail [India's] various 'social emergencies'... They sketch equally distressing pictures of its politics, not least the malign influence of money, the ubiquity of violence, the unravelling of law and order, and the near disappearance of accountability." — Ian Hall, Australian Book Review

"The evidence of India's democratic slide that Roy Chowdhury and Keane amassed impresses with its sheer scope and detail. .. their findings highlight the myriad flaws that now pockmark the country's political system." — Sumit Ganguly, Journal of Democracy

"In marrying academic theories of democracy with eyewitness experiences, Chowdhury and Keane make a compelling argument for judging a democracy from a human-centric position and measuring its success on the resilience and nurturing of its social foundations." — Amrit Swali, The World Today

"Debasish Roy Chowdhury and John Keane refreshingly use history, marshal facts and weave a complex and compelling narrative on why India's democracy stands at a dangerous crossroad... [an] important and well-written book." — Seema Chishti, The Hindu

"An important new book analyzes the deep-seated forces behind the long decline of the 'world's largest democracy'... Few will find nothing new to learn from this book. Practically every aspect of life in India, and not just elections or the other bare bones of democracy, is covered in detail." — David Simmons, Asia Times

"In a hard-hitting, relentless chronicle of social and political ills, Chowdhury and Keane trace the decomposition of Indian democracy since the hopeful time of independence in August 1947... This book sounds an urgent alarm." — Kirkus

"A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the challenges facing democracy in the modern world." — Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, The Royal Society of Arts

"Debasish Chowdhury and John Keane's nuanced portrayal of Indian democracy offers a sobering account of the ways in which inequality manifests itself in a democracy with tremendous potential and immense shortcomings. This book contains important observations for those who care about the future of India particularly in the realm of education reform, labour reform and electoral politics. We are living at a moment in time when illiberal democracies are successfully consolidating their power, creating a condition which the authors describe as elective despotism. While India is their focus, a reader in the United States, Europe or even Malaysia will find much to contemplate in his or her own national consideration of the pursuit of justice and fairness." — Anwar Ibrahim , President, People's Justice Party, Malaysia

"As democratic malaise gathers strength the world over, To Kill a Democracy spotlights the gradual erosion of norms and institutions in the world's largest democracy, India. At once quick-paced and sober, this book addresses a key puzzle about modern politics: why do poor citizens in a poor democracy continue to be left behind?" — Milan Vaishnav, Director and Senior Fellow, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

From the Publisher

★ 2021-06-10
A sharp critical study of the steady decline of democracy in India.

In a hard-hitting, relentless chronicle of social and political ills, Chowdhury, a Hong Kong–based journalist, and Keane, a professor of politics at the University of Sydney, trace the decomposition of Indian democracy since the hopeful time of independence in August 1947—a process that has accelerated in recent years under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The great experiment of Indian democracy, forged from staggering diversity and the “polychromatic reality” of Indian society, is now in critical danger. “Weighed down by destitution of heart-breaking proportions,” write the authors, the world’s largest democracy suffers glaring “emergencies” in the societal structure (clean air and water, education, health care, etc.) that have been ignored or underestimated during decades of feeble leadership, leaving tens of millions of impoverished Indians without essential constitutional rights. In an impassioned narrative, the authors move from the first parliamentary general election—“which began in October 1951 and took six months to conduct. It was the grandest show the world had ever seen”—to the most recent, when Modi, with his Hindu-dominant Bharatiya Janata Party, used his money and power to intimidate voters and quell dissent. The authors delineate the heartbreaking collapse of the social fabric and how the pandemic has exposed the abysmal health care system. Most Indians endure “indignities” unheard of in the West, such as rampant pollution, food insecurity, malnutrition, lack of health care and education, especially for girls and women, and even slave labor. While some elections have been effective, especially because the poor have been participating in greater numbers, the recent Modi years demonstrate how money and intimidation dominate the landscape, essentially neutralizing the other arms of government. The authors warn of Modi’s creeping despotism. For example, “in August 2019, with the stroke of a pen, Modi’s government revoked the autonomous status of the restive state of Jammu and Kashmir.” This book sounds an urgent alarm.

Tremendous research demonstrates how “indignity is a form of generalized social violence” corroding democracy.

Kirkus Reviews