The New India

This meticulously researched book is an unusual account of the dismantling of democracy in the world’s most populous country. It is a portrait of how medieval religious sectarianism, modern majoritarianism, deepening poverty, all lashed together by the world’s most ambitious data gathering project is driving India towards an alarming, unique model of authoritarianism. A serious subject, seriously addressed * Arundhati Roy *Rahul Bhatia’s The New India: The Unmaking of The World’s Largest Democracy is an account of Hindu fascism from the inside, one with astounding resonances across all democracies currently threatened by fascism. It is one of the essential books for anyone interested in preserving democracy today * Jason Stanley, author of How Propaganda Works *Really important, superbly researched, very well written * Peter Oborne, author of The Assault on Truth *The most important book on India for many years * James Crabtree, author of Billionaire Raj *The New India is a tour de force, and it will be one of the defining books of the Modi era. Rahul Bhatia’s astonishingly granular and deeply empathetic reporting reveals an India well on its way to being an authoritarian dystopia * Samanth Subramanian *An important, timely and powerful account of India now. Rahul Bhatia’s book is both rigorously reported and very readable. Highly recommended * Jason Burke *This is the stuff of black comedy. Worse, it is a testament to the bigoted backwater that the new India is becoming… Bhatia gives us some brilliant on-the-ground reportage – Pratinav Anil * The Times *Bhatia’s remarkable book is an absorbing account of India’s transformation from the world’s largest democracy to something more like the world’s most populous country that regularly holds elections… Bhatia captures the whole phenomenon brilliantly, painting a gloomy picture of what India has become * Guardian *A New India is a reminder that the country never healed from the numerous times it was invaded * Irish Independent *Bhatia’s book combines reporting, history and polemic… his account of the precursors to Hindu nationalism, reaching back to a Hindu reformist movement of the 19th century, is fascinating. So is his description of an early, unsuccessful attempt to create an identity system * The Economist *Reportage is the great strength of Rahul Bhatia’s book * Telegraph *A beautiful writing style * Irish Times *Both a chronicle and a cautionary tale: an illustration of how easily societies can be poisoned * Washington Monthly *A disturbing chronicle of a country where the push to modernize has been accompanied by an assault on democratic institutions, along with surging discrimination and intolerance * New York Times *

Rahul Bhatia is an award-winning Indian writer and journalist based in Mumbai, whose work has been published in the New Yorker, Guardian Long Reads, the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Quartz, GQ India and the Wall Street Journal. His profiles and cultural features for The Caravan magazine in India have been anthologised, and his technology investigations are studied at Stanford and other universities. He was on the Reuters global investigations team, where he focused on religion, business, and technology in India under Narendra Modi. He mentors writers and journalists as part of the “South Asia Speaks” collective, and was a co-founder of the Peepli Project, a journalism nonprofit. A former art director, Rahul Bhatia graduated in communication design from Pratt Institute, New York.