The Authoritarian Roots of India’s Democracy

Abstract:India is now widely considered to be drifting into the realm of “electoral autocracy,” steadily falling lower in democracy indices, with study after study seemingly confirming the erosion of the country’s democratic credentials since Narendra Modi took power in 2014. But this, this essay argues, is an ahistorical contention that rests on shaky political and constitutional foundations, and suffers from a high degree of temporal myopia. An historical perspective would suggest that Indian democracy remains within the broad continuum it has inhabited since 1950, and that there is little to indicate that this continuum is anything but intact.