Over the last two decades, India has gone through a series of peaceful revolutions—in society, in economic life, and in the political system—that have strengthened Indian democracy and given it a basis on which to thrive in decades to come.
About the Author
Šumit Gangulyis a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he directs the Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India Relations and is also Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author (with William Thompson) of Ascending India and Its State Capacity (2017) and the coeditor (with Eswaran Sridharan) of The Oxford Handbook of Indian Politics (2014).
Since the beginning of the second Modi government, an emboldened BJP has launched a steady, comprehensive, and unprecedented attack on civil liberties, personal rights, and free speech across India.
To everyone's surprise, the Congress party defeated the incumbent BJP in the April-May 2004 parliamentary elections. What caused this political turnaround, and what will be its effects?