Ashutosh Varshney on India. Democracy in Hard Places

Nehru is asked several times in those early years, ‘Aren’t you doing something which has never been done before? You are 17% literate. Half of your country is below the poverty line. Under such conditions no democracy has ever stabilize itself and perhaps has not emerged.’ And his argument repeatedly is that we shouldn't be constrained by the history of the West.Ashutosh VarshneySupport Democracy Paradox on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.Ashutosh Varshney is the Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also directs the Center for Contemporary South Asia. His chapter "India’s Democratic Longevity and Its Troubled Trajectory" appears in the forthcoming book Democracy in Hard Places.Key HighlightsHow India defied early theories of democratizationThe role of leadership in India's early democracyWhy India returned to democracy after Indira Gandhi's emergency?The eerie similarities between India's recent treatment of Muslims and the rise of the Jim Crow era in the American SouthWhen will democratic backsliding in India become a democratic collapseKey Links"Modi Consolidates Power: Electoral Vibrancy, Mounting Liberal Deficits" by Ashutosh Varshney in Journal of DemocracyLearn more about Ashutosh Varshney at www.ashutoshvarshney.netFollow Ashutosh Varshney on Twitter @ProfVarshneyDemocracy in Hard Places edited by Scott Mainwaring and Tarek MasoudDemocracy Paradox PodcastDan Slater on IndonesiaChristophe Jaffrelot on Narendra Modi and Hindu NationalismMore Episodes from the PodcastMore InformationDemocracy GroupApes of the State created all MusicEmail the show at [email protected] on Twitter @DemParadox100 Books on DemocracySupport the show