April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
India’s New Minority Politics
The ruling BJP has long sought to sideline Indian Muslims. But even the opposition is opting to exclude them politically. Muslims’ chances at greater representation remain dim.
Country: India
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Majoritarianism Without Majorities
Majoritarian nationalism is a defining feature of our time. If we are to resist ethnonationalist leaders trying to recast our societies into imagined majorities, we must revise our conception of democracy and the exclusion inherent in majority rule.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
The Rise of India’s Second Republic
While he did not achieve the sweeping victory many predicted, Narendra Modi led his ruling coalition to a third consecutive victory. In so doing, he is laying the foundation for a new political order in which India is simultaneously more democratic and more illiberal.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Hindu Nationalism and the New Jim Crow
While the histories of white supremacy and Hindu supremacy are different, their political objectives are much the same. The BJP is forging a regime of exclusion and oppression as brutal as the Jim Crow South. Only India’s voters can reverse its advance.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
How to Stop India’s Authoritarian Slide
The BJP is ruling with a heavier hand than ever before, attacking opponents and silencing critics. Ironically, these may be the ideal conditions for a democratic revival—if the opposition seizes the moment.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Is India Still a Democracy?
In this symposium, the Journal of Democracy brings together leading scholars of India to perform a biopsy on the state of that country’s fragile democracy, and to offer us a prognosis for its future.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Why India’s Democracy Is Dying
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 mounting.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
The Authoritarian Roots of India’s Democracy
To say that Indian democracy is backsliding misunderstands the country’s history and the challenges it faces: A certain authoritarianism is embedded in India’s constitution and political structures.
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.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
The Exaggerated Death of Indian Democracy
It is true that politics under the BJP is a break from the past. But attempts to reduce the country’s present condition to democratic backsliding misunderstands the moment and is an injustice to India’s journey as a democracy.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Why India’s Political Elites Are to Blame
India has a long history of elites acting undemocratically. But the current government’s attacks on the media, arrests of opposition, and discriminatory laws are deeper and more alarming.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
How India’s Ruling Party Erodes Democracy
The BJP has won two successive national elections, but it refuses to respect the rights of Muslims. Is democracy on a collision course with liberalism?
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 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The Three Faces of the Indian State
India’s Constitution has long seemed stable, but the rise of an ethnic, absolute, and opaque state is changing the constitutional order in momentous and disturbing ways.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
Covid vs. Democracy: India’s Illiberal Remedy
India’s covid-19 response has accelerated the country’s slide toward competitive authoritarian rule by centralizing decision making, undermining federalism, and providing new pretexts for stifling dissent.
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.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
Modi Consolidates Power: Electoral Vibrancy, Mounting Liberal Deficits
The ruling BJP and the prime minister who leads it are now even stronger in the wake of their sweeping 2019 election victory. Voting puts the strength of Indian democracy on display, but the turn away from constitutional liberalism and toward Hindu majoritarianism is alarming.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
Modi Consolidates Power: Leveraging Welfare Politics
To a degree that is still not widely appreciated, the BJP has replaced Congress as India’s party of welfarism. The carefully crafted political persona of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the “leader of the poor” has been crucial to this shift.
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.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
India Under Modi: The Establishment Overreacts
Charges that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party threaten liberal-democratic safeguards are best understood as the overheated reaction of an insular elite that is still struggling to come to terms with its democratic displacement from power.
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: Growth, Inequality, and Nationalism
Of late, Indian democracy has been confronted with a new political economy. Strong economic growth over the last three decades has generated the world’s fourth-largest collection of dollar billionaires and the third-largest middle class, both for the first time in Indian history, while still leaving the single largest concentration of the poor behind. In a…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: Toward a Hindu State?
Read the full essay here. While the Constitution of India has not been amended after the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in 2014, BJP-ruled states have passed laws which have reflected the Hindu-nationalist ideology of this party, including those known as “beef bans.” These laws and the activities of Hindu nationalist…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: The Federalist Compromise
Read the full essay here. The institutionalized recognition of diversity within India’s federal system has been crucial for democratic consolidation. Substantial decentralization since the 1990s has made state governments central actors in shaping economic activity and national-election outcomes. However, since his rise to national office in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has projected an image…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: The Shifting Party Balance
Read the full essay here. This article reviews the state of India’s two major national parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress party), seventy years after independence in 1947 and three years after the BJP won a majority in the 2014 national election. The article looks at whether…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: The Impact of Instant Universal Suffrage
Read the full essay here. 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 large democracy to adopt universal adult suffrage from its very inception. We call India’s move “instant universal suffrage,” and distinguish…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: The Disputed Role of the Courts
Read the full essay here. India’s Supreme Court has played the role of a countermajoritarian check but has also flirted with populism. This essay examines three aspects of India’s higher judiciary: the struggle between the judiciary and the other branches over “custody” of the Constitution; the question of judicial independence and who has the right…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: Civil Society and Its Shadow
Read the full essay here. The relationship between democracy and civil society is not straightforward. Angry crowds can stymie the functioning of the democratic process, institutions, and governance. Drawing on recent Indian examples, this article sets out a typology of civil society movements in order to assess their impact on Indian democracy. It shows how…
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…
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
India, Sri Lanka, and the Majoritarian Danger
Does the electoral victory of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party signal that the world’s largest democracy may be following Sri Lanka toward a politics where the will of the majority is exalted above minority rights?
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
India’s Watershed Vote: Behind Modi’s Victory
India’s sixteenth general election ushered in a new era in the country’s politics, putting Narendra Modi and the BJP firmly in charge. What accounts for the sharp swing away from the long-dominant Congress party?
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
India’s Watershed Vote: Hindu Nationalism in Power?
Will India under the BJP see a period of renewed communal violence, or will Hindu-nationalist politicians be reined in by constitutional constraints and their desire to stay in power?
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
India’s Watershed Vote: What It Means for the Economy
Modi promised “good days” to aspiring young Indians, and they voted for him in droves. But he is off to a slow start in carrying out the economic reforms necessary to ensure that better days lie ahead.
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.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Discovering the “State-Nation”
A review of Crafting State-Nations: India and Other Multinational Democracies by Alfred Stepan, Juan J. Linz, and Yogendra Yadav.
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.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Corruption in India: Can the Right to Information Help?
India’s Right to Information Act discourages corruption by giving every citizen the right to access information from any public authority.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Do New Democracies Support Democracy? Reluctant India
Though justly vaunted as the world’s largest democracy, India will in all likelihood remain reluctant to take on the mantle of “democracy promoter” for a mix of historical, ideological, and strategic reasons.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Do New Democracies Support Democracy? The Multilateral Dimension
When it comes to backing democracy and human rights in international forums, the behavior of the world’s six most influential rising democracies ranges from sympathetic support to borderline hostility.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy: Growth and Hunger in India
Despite India’s impressive achievements in democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, it remains home to a third of the world’s poor. Although it has successfully averted famine since independence, it still struggles to prevent chronic hunger.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
The Rise of “State-Nations”
Must every state be a nation and every nation a state? Or should we look instead to the example of countries such as India, where one state holds together a congeries of “national” groups and cultures in a single and wisely conceived federal republic?
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Democracy and Deep Divides
How do democracies deal with the deep divisions created by race, ethnicity, religion, and language? The cases of Canada, India, and the United States show that democratic institutions—notably, competitive elections and independent judiciaries—can bridge divides and build stability, but they must find a way to manage the tension between individual and group equality.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Transitions to the Rule of Law
While we have witnessed many transitions to multiparty systems, it has proven much harder for countries to attain a genuine rule of law. We need to know more about the origins of the rule of law in order to promote it successfully today.
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 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
India’s 2009 Elections: The Problem of Corruption
Democracy in India remains robust, but the scope and intensity of the corruption that pervades the political system are steadily eroding public trust.
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.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
The Democracy Barometers (Part II): Surveying South Asia
While the people of South Asia, especially those with higher levels of education and exposure to the media, prefer democracy to authoritarianism, they are willing to relax some of the requirements of liberal democracy.
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.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Economic Growth and Political Accommodation
So far, economic liberalization and globalization have not served to undermine India's democracy. Indeed, they may even be strengthening it.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Civil Society Versus Corruption
Pervasive corruption hampers India's democracy, yet anticorruption movements may be helping to improve governmental accountability.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: The Rise of Judicial Sovereignty
India's courts have been playing a growing role in the country's political life. Yet even as judicial interventions have become more sweeping, the principles undergirding their legitimacy have become less clear.
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
Elections in India: Behind the Congress Comeback
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?
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
World Religions and Democracy: Hinduism and Self-Rule
Creative Hindu responses to modern challenges are a crucial part of the democratic story in India, yet Hindus must guard against those who would politicize Hindu identity.
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?
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
Toward a Science of Ethnic Conflict?
A review of The Deadly Ethnic Riot by Donald L. Horowitz and Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India by Ashutosh Varshney.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
South Asia Faces the Future
The Editors’ introduction to “South Asia Faces the Future.”
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.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
South Asia Faces the Future: New Dimensions in Indian Democracy
India defies the widely held view that poor societies are unlikely to remain democratic. What explains the resilience of India’s democracy in the face of long odds? The answer lies in the ways the country has responded to the varied challenges of the past decade.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Revisiting Florida 2000: Insights from India
Read the full essay here.
July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3
India Defies the Odds: Enduring Another Election
Indians appear to love the practice of democracy so much that they are in danger of overdoing it. In February and March of 1998, the world's largest democracy held its twelfth general election since gaining its independence a half-century ago. The voting was largely fair and peaceful. New, right-of-center rulers led by the Bharatiya Janata…
July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3
India Defies the Odds: Making Federalism Work
To understand how India’s democracy works, and how it manages demands from social groups for greater power, resources, autonomy, and respect, it is essential to understand Indian federalism. That, in turn, requires us to address two questions. First, why have relations between New Delhi and the various state governments (there are at present 25) usually…
July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3
India Defies the Odds: Why Democracy Survives
India has long baffled theorists of democracy. Democratic theory holds that poverty, widespread illiteracy, and a deeply hierarchical social structure are inhospitable conditions for the functioning of democracy. Yet except for 18 months in 1975-77, India has maintained its democratic institutions ever since it became independent of Britain in 1947. Over those five decades, there…
July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3
India’s Cold-Eyed Introspection
A review of Fifty Years of Indian Parliamentary Democracy, 1947-1997, by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
India: Running the World’s Biggest Elections
Read the full essay here.
October 1993, Volume 4, Issue 4
The Challenge of Ethnic Conflict: India—The Dilemmas of Diversity
Read the full essay here.
July 1992, Volume 3, Issue 3
India: Liberalism vs. Nationalism
A review of Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability, by Atul Kohli and The Politics of India Since Independence, by Paul Brass.
India Remains More Democratic Than Not
For all the warning signs, India held the line after a decade of backsliding.
Is Democracy Surviving the “Year of Elections”?
Millions of voters are casting ballots in a string of elections across the globe. At the midyear point, how well is democracy holding up?
The BJP Claimed This Financial Tool Would Clean Up Indian Politics. It Did the Opposite.
“Electoral bonds” were supposed to make political contributions transparent. Instead they became a form of legalized corruption, funneling huge sums and making the political playing field even more uneven.
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.
The Most Important Elections You Just Missed
India just held five state elections that did more than declare winners and losers: They offered a roadmap for how to win the national contest in the world’s most populous democracy next year.
The Times of India interviews Will Dobson
The Times of India‘s Neelam Raja interviewed JoD coeditor Will Dobson about the 5-essay package on the state of Indian democracy in the July issue of the Journal of Democracy.
Ashutosh Varshney’s Greatest Hits
With India’s next general election just a year away, here are five of his Journal of Democracy essays that offer critical analysis of the world’s largest democracy at a crucial time.
Political Parties and Democracy
Political parties are one of the core institutions of democracy. But in democracies around the world, there is growing evidence of low or declining public confidence in parties. But are they in decline, or are they simply changing their forms and functions?
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.