A New York Times Notable Book of 2024
"An absorbing account of India's transformation" (The Guardian) from democracy towards autocracy told through "brilliant on-the-ground reportage" (The Times).
In The New India, journalist Rahul Bhatia investigates this slow burn of democracy in India, connecting past and present to offer the first thorough account of how the country is sliding towards autocracy. He describes the religious, societal, and technological changes that have brought India to a point at which a nationalist mindset that despises democracy and human rights is spreading fast, all in an effort to bind the multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural country into a single identity.
Through a character-driven narrative informed by on the ground reporting, he investigates the disinformation machine at the heart of the Modi government, the corrupt lawmakers whose work targets religious minorities, the police force bent on raiding every public newsroom, and the CEO behind the largest data collecting agency in the world whose invention has forever altered Indian elections. At the same time, Bhatia shows us the consequences of these efforts on everyday citizens—from Muslims attempting to hold on to their property to students protesting the government's overreach of their education to journalists being threatened for uttering a single word against the BJP party. What emerges is a timely, urgent and at times shocking portrait of a country that has turned on itself.