About the Book: The Dismantling of Indias Democracy: 1947 to 2025
Indias democracy, once celebrated as an unprecedented experiment in pluralism
and participatory nation building, now faces a grave crisis. In this urgent and
penetrating work, veteran journalist Prem Shankar Jha traces how the countrys
hard-won democracy—rooted in diversity and tolerance—has been steadily hollowed
out since Independence—slowly at first, and since 2014, with determined
ferocity. Structural flaws in our Constitution, like the lack of state-funded
elections, Jha argues, were made substantially worse by Indira Gandhis ban on
company donations to political parties. As parties increasingly turned to
clandestine donors for election financing, politics became a near-criminal
enterprise,