First Dictatorship News Today

Sangh Parivar projects itself as the saviour of India’s democracy during the Emergency, but historical records show that many RSS leaders volunteered to support Indira Gandhi’s decision in exchange for release from jail.

Picked by a jury, a reading list for you.

Christopher Jaffrelot tells Sidharth Bhatia that India is experiencing what is known as 'competitive authoritarianism' or 'electoral authoritarianism' today.

NIF Book Prize 2021: Dadabhai Naorojis Biography By Dinyar Patel Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism is winner of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2021

Backstory: Population Control and Information Control Are Part of the Same Package  A fortnightly column from The Wires ombudsperson. Illustration: The Wire gleichschaltung, or the complete ideological packaging of political, social and lived experience. So while, on the one hand, mores of social behaviour, including sterilisation, were forcibly prescribed – by the end of Third Reich in 1945 an estimated 360,000 had been sterilised, among whom were those deemed genetically inferior ...

Review: A Comprehensive Look Back at the Emergency Which Holds Important Lessons for Today A new book by Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil examines Indira Gandhis authoritarianism, Jayaprakash Narayans muddled politics and how the RSS craftily gained respectability. Indira Gandhi, circa 1973. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Rights10 hours ago Indians woke up on June 26, 1975, to learn that a national emergency had been declared. Opposition leaders and others were jailed, habeas corpus was suspend...

Protected and emboldened, Hindus who support a more virulent Islamophobia keep Modi going but now find him too moderate.

Interview: Many Differences but Also Similarities Between Now and Emergency in 1975 Christophe Jaffrelot, professor of political science at Sciences Po, speaks to The Wires Sidharth Bhatia about his latest book Indias First Dictatorship. Christophe Jaffrelot. Photo: Twitter/sciencespo Rights23/Feb/2021 The Hindutva right was a fringe force for decades but has been on the ascendant in India for the last 25 years, and now it is in power. How did it get here, and what are its dominant characterist...

Interview: Concentration of Power in Just a Few Hands Has Always Met with Resistance Christophe Jaffrelot, professor of political science at Sciences Po, speaks to The Wires Sidharth Bhatia about the rise of Hindu nationalism and populism. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah flash the victory sign in New Delhi on May 23, 2019. Credit: PTI/Atul Yadav Rights24/Feb/2021 Christophe Jaffrelot, a professor of political science at Sciences Po in France, has been keenly studying In...

English schoolteacher Mary Tyler, who spent five years in Indian jails in the early 1970s on suspicion of being a Naxalite, recalled her experience in Anand Patwardhan-directed documentary Prisoners of Conscience (1978). “As for the condition in the jail, they were very overcrowded,” she said. “Sanitation was extremely primitive; medical care was extremely poor, especially in the smaller jails; and there were lots of infectious and contagious diseases. Medical treatment was almost nil. A...