What Is New about Contemporary Indian Democracy?

The book, The New Republic: Populism, Power and the Trajectories of Indian Democracy, edited by Shray Mehta and Ravi Kumar is unusual insofar as each segment/content, not chapters, are interviews that engage with individuals from various backgrounds of academia, activism, and politics alike. It is a timely intervention and takes up critical questions about social, political, cultural, economic, legal, and religious life in contemporary India with forays into the past, future, and the world/global at large. The luxury of having interlocutors from various fields, experiences, and ideologies makes the engagement with such critical questions worthwhile and productive. The book assembles multiple political topographies that grip Indian social structure at a time when we find ourselves in the “iron cage” of fascism. This milieu produces disillusionment, hopelessness, and disenchantments. This book is a radical step towards attending these emotions.

Hegemony, Civil Society, and Nation State