Making Sense of Modi’s India

Where is India headed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi? What are the contours of the ‘new’ India he has promised to build? Is his promise of ‘development’ real or a cover for a hidden agenda? Who are the stakeholders in his idea of the state? Making Sense of Modi’s India debates the future of the nation, bringing together a cross-section of leading voices from the academia, media and politics to examine the factors behind the dramatic resurgence of Hindu nationalism and Modi’s own meteoric rise. Commentators like Andrew Whitehead, Meghnad Desai, Sevanti Ninan, Beena Sarwar, Sudheendra Kulkarni, among others, cast an incisive eye on aspects as diverse as Modi’s extraordinary foreign relations drive, what his ascent means for India’s relationship with Pakistan, the role of the media in the rise of Modi, and the arrival of the BJP as the dominant political party in India. This anthology works through the implications of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s massive victory in the May 2014 general elections, regarded as a watershed in post-Independence India’s political history. It examines the future of secularism in India in the light of the collapse of the Congress and the Left. Drawing on historical parallels from Europe and, nearer home, Pakistan, Making Sense of Modi’s India also probes the real nature of the ideology Modi represents and what that means for India. A must read in these tumultuous times.