‘The banality of evil’: Radha Kumar probes the growth of authoritarianism in her new book

Contemporary analysts prefer to use the wider terms of ethnic nationalism, populism and authoritarianism to place India in a basket of autocratising countries. In the same way as the three waves of Indian democracy renewal arose at moments of global democratisation, the Modi administration came to power when chauvinist administrations were emerging or had emerged across the world. In Japan, the nationalist Shinzo Abe assumed office in 2006, in Israel, the absolutist Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, in Hungary, the authoritarian Victor Orban was re-elected prime minister in 2010, and the numbers grew by the time Modi took office. Two thousand and fourteen, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy Marc Plattner said, was a turning point for the resurgence of authoritarianism. In 2016, nineteen liberal democracies, including India, were reported to be moving to autocracy; in 2021, the number was thirty-three. In India’s own region of South Asia, countries such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka suffered backsliding and worse.

Though the pattern of authoritarian shift clearly varies from country to country in both nature and intent, autocratising countries tend to be grouped together under the rubric of democratic backsliding or decay. True, contemporary authoritarians share common features, such as inciting...

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