Malevolent Republic Av K. S. Komireddi

After decades of imperfect secularism, New Delhi radiates the ideological convictions of its new master, Narendra Modi, as he seeks irreversibly to transform India. The ''invisible threads'' holding together Nehru''s diverse country have snapped under the weight of Hindu-supremacist rule. Resistance is feeble, with an opposition bleached of conviction. Some parties have taken to mimicking Modi; others pray for a miracle.Modi, meanwhile, has become an unstoppable force. Democratic institutions, honed over decades, are being repurposed by his project. Hindu bigotry has been ennobled as a healthy form of self-assertion; anti- Muslim rhetoric has permeated the mainstream. India is in a vicious mood, and religious minorities live in terror of a vengeful majority.Komireddi argues that secular Indian nationalism never had the courage of its convictions--and that its cowardly concessions to the Hindu right, convenient distortions of India''s past, and demeaning bribes to India''s minorities account for its failure to suppress the temptations of Hindu nationalism. Modi decisively won a free election, yet those complicit in his ascent may have squandered the republic. Indian democracy, for decades paraded as the antidote to chauvinism, is now the chief enabler of Hindu extremism.