#India
Interviews
A Midwife’s Confession: Democracy Hasn’t Democratized the Home in India
“How many babies have you killed, roughly?” This is a question that tolls through the 2024 BBC documentary, The Midwife’s Confession. Available for free streaming on YouTube, the documentary centres around Katihar in the Kosi region of Bihar, India. The documentary deals with the outlawed yet prevalent practice of female infanticide. A result of the National-award winning journalist and filmmaker Amitabh Parashar’s twenty-eight-year-long journalistic engagement with the topic in Bihar, the documentary investigates the fraught socio-political terrain informed by gender biases and caste realities that forces the midwives to kill the girl children they help bring to life.
10.02.2026
Podcasts
The Unequal Republic and the Egalitarian State: Democracy, Authoritarianism, and the Politics of Redistribution in India and China
In this conversation with Professor Vamsi Vakulabharanam, we explore the relationship between democracy and economic inequality by examining the divergent trajectories of China and India, as detailed in his recently published book, Class and Inequality in China and India, 1950-2010 (Oxford University Press, 2024). Through a comparative lens, Vamsi probes how political regimes—one authoritarian, the other democratic—shaped the economic responses to inequality in each country. While both nations began their postcolonial histories with ambitious visions of development, their political systems produced markedly different outcomes. In India, democratic governance allowed for broad participation but was also shaped by elite consensus. Post-independence reforms, though grounded in democratic ideals, often took a top-down form that prioritized the interests of rural capitalists and dominant castes. This constrained the potential for deep structural transformation, despite the formal [...]
19.05.2025
News
Understanding State Behavior and Regime Unpopularity through the “Tripartite Struggle” Framework
The interplay of global hegemony, majoritarian discourse, and ruling narratives shapes state behavior and regime popularity. Consolidated democracies manage ideological diversity better, enabling non-violent regime changes, while unconsolidated systems like India and Bangladesh risk authoritarianism or populism. Governments’ failure to balance competing interests often results in unpopularity, dissent, and potential regime instability.
1.04.2025
Podcasts
Majoritarianism without Majorities – In Conversation with Kanchan Chandra
We are thrilled to publish the first episode of our monthly special series, produced in cooperation with the Journal of Democracy. In the framework of this new partnership, authors shall discuss outstanding articles from the newest print issue of the Journal of Democracy each month. In this conversation, hosted by Ferenc Laczo and Anubha Anushree, Professor Kanchan Chandra offers an incisive exploration of the strengths and limitations of modern democracies.
4.11.2024
Podcasts
The Vehicle of Change is Always Politics – Sanjay Kumar on the 2024 Elections in India
In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, eminent psephologist and political analyst Sanjay Kumar discusses the recently concluded elections in India. Kumar weighs in on some of the unique features of the Indian elections in 2024, the emerging patterns of change, and what the election verdicts mean for democracy and politics in the Global South.
5.08.2024
Podcasts
The State of Democracy and Constitutionalism in India: with Tarunabh Khaitan
In this interview with Tarunabh Khaitan, we discuss the ongoing crisis of democracy and constitutionalism in India. At the time of conducting the interview, elections are underway in India, with approximately a month left for results to be declared. In this context, we discuss the differences between the first and the second term of the Modi government, India’s place in the ongoing wave of global populism, suggestions for recovering constitutional democracy, and the dangers of “Scholactivism”.
23.05.2024
The old is dead and a new has been born: Welcome the Hindu Rashtra
On 22 January, the Hindu Right in India, with Modi at its helm, inaugurated a temple in the holy city of Ayodhya on a site where less than 22 years ago, a Mosque stood. This Mosque, known as the Babri Masjid, was destroyed by a violent Hindu nationalist mob on December 6, 1992. It was approximate 500 years old and was stated to have been constructed on a piece of land where previously a Hindu temple stood. This temple, Hindu Nationalists claim, marked the birthplace of Lord Rama, one of the most prominent gods in the Hindu pantheon. For this reason, the construction of the new temple is being seen by those in the Hindu Right as the return of Ram and as the inauguration of a new phase of Indian history – one of the Ram Rajya (Reign of Ram).
30.01.2024
