Did Muhammad Yunus Sign Up for Mission Impossible?
The famed economist and Nobel laureate is charged with repairing what remains of Bangladesh’s democracy. But is someone even as accomplished as Yunus up to the task?
Why This Election Is India’s Most Important
Voters are choosing more than the parties and politicians who will represent them. It is something more basic: The future of India’s secular democracy is on the ballot.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Modi’s Undeclared Emergency
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.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
India’s Endangered Democracy
Shortcomings in governance and electoral administration may be accelerating India’s slide to autocracy. Were these flaws embedded in Indian democracy from the start?
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
An Illiberal India?
The country’s hold on electoral democracy is firm, but its claim still to be a liberal democracy is increasingly dubious.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
India Under Modi: Threats to Pluralism
In the world’s largest democracy, liberalism is in retreat, as evidenced by a pattern of assaults on minorities, press freedom, and the independence of key cultural and intellectual institutions.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
Enrolling India
A review of How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise by Ornit Shani.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: The Troublesome Security State
Read the full essay here. Seven decades after gaining its independence from the British Empire, India retains all the hallmarks of a functioning democracy: It holds reasonably free and fair elections, has a mostly independent judiciary plus a largely free press, and enjoys a robust and growing civil society. Yet thanks to India’s colonial inheritance…
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
India’s Watershed Vote: The Risks Ahead
Will the Modi government focus on the economy, or will it seek to implement a transformational Hindu-nationalist agenda?
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Shifting Tides in South Asia: India and Its Neighbors
Home to about a quarter of the world’s people, South Asia presents a murky and not very encouraging picture when it comes to democracy.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
Separated at Birth?
A review of The Promise of Power: The Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracy in Pakistan by Maya Tudor.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Corruption in India: An Enduring Threat
Social activist Anna Hazare’s hunger strike has helped to turn the world’s attention to India’s rampant corruption.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
India’s 2009 Elections: A Vote to Stay the Course
Indian voters pulled off a surprise by allowing the Congress party to retain power at the head of a more coherent coalition that is far less dependent on a congeries of small regional parties.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Pakistan After Musharraf: The Burden of History
Since its founding out of the partition of British India in 1947, Pakistan has labored in the shadow of critical choices made at that time.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
India’s Improbable Success
A review of India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha and The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India's Future by Martha C. Nussbaum.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Six Decades of Independence
By most theoretical accounts, Indian democracy should not even exist. Yet, despite serious challenges, it shows signs of enduring and even deepening.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
Nepal: Between Dictatorship and Anarchy
Nepal’s people find themselves caught in an ugly struggle between two antidemocratic ideologies—royal absolutism and Maoism. What happened?
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
The Crisis of Indian Secularism
The principled separation of religious from political claims upon which Indian democracy depends may not be dead, but it is ailing badly. How did things reach this pass, and what is the prognosis for recovery?
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
South Asia Faces the Future: India’s Multiple Revolutions
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.
Assessing the Quality of Democracy
"An important milestone in the study of democratic quality, and an excellent resource for both scholarly researchers and graduate courses on comparative democracy and democratization."—Daunis Auerson, Political Studies Review
The State of India’s Democracy
The essays in The State of India's Democracy focus on India's economy, society, and politics, providing illuminating insights into the past accomplishments—and continuing challenges—of Indian democracy.