The new India : the unmaking of the world's largest democracy / Rahul Bhatia.

Introduction -- Aftermath -- A new century -- Family matters -- Technical difficulties -- An education.Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain in 2024 by Abacus.

Introduction -- Aftermath -- A new century -- Family matters -- Technical difficulties -- An education.

"Since Narendra Modi's election in May 2014, India has become more dysfunctional and dangerous than ever. The "world's largest democracy," has seen a cascade of events that have threatened the freedoms and identities of its citizens. If you support Modi, you are a Bhakt, among the devoted. If you do not, you are an urban naxal, an unpatriotic traitor, and enemy of the Hindu faith. There is, increasingly, no room in between. In The New India, Rahul Bhatia investigates this slow disintegration of democracy in India, to provide the first thorough account of how the country is inexorably sliding towards autocracy. He describes how religious, societal, and technological changes have enabled a nationalist mindset that despises democracy and human rights to spread quickly through India. Those hostile to the multiethnicity, multilingualism and multiculturalism of the country are creating a rigid seek to create a single identity in which nationalism and intolerance dominate. Through a character-driven narrative informed by on the ground reporting, Bhatia investigates the disinformation machine at the heart of the Modi government, the corrupt lawmakers whose work targets religious minorities, the police force bent on raiding every public newsroom, and the CEO behind the largest data collecting agency in the world that has forever altered Indian elections. At the same time, Bhatia shows us the consequences of these efforts on everyday citizens--from Muslims attempting to hold on to their property to students protesting the government's overreach of their education to journalists being threatened for uttering a single word against the ruling party. What emerges is a timely, urgent and at times shocking portrait of a country whose intolerance has been compared to Fascism"--