Read the full essay here.
Over the past decade, India has been central to debates on democracy. Many viewed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) underperformance in the 2024 election as a sign of democratic resilience. This essay argues instead that it signaled further backsliding in the country’s most vulnerable dimension of democracy — its liberal democracy. The election reinforced a troubling status quo for India’s largest religious minority: explicit exclusion from one side of the political spectrum and strategic silence from the other. These dual forces leave Indian Muslims in a political bind, further constraining their prospects for political inclusion.
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