A Short History of the New India.

• Author: Dorschner, Jon P.
• Position: Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India

Title: Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India

Author: Jon P. Dorschner

Text:

Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India

By K.S. Komireddi

Hurst and Company, December 2020

320 pages

On July 10, President Biden appointed former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be the new US Ambassador to India. Our embassy in Delhi is therefore dealing with a new presidential administration and a new Ambassador at the same time. Foreign Service Officers assigned to our Indian diplomatic posts will be dealing with a country that is entirely new and different in many ways. Malevolent Republic can provide some useful insight.

Malevolent Republic author K.S. Komireddi is what is termed loosely a "public intellectual." A journalist and commentator based in London, he is an old-school intellectual eminently well-read and conversant on many topics. His favorite topic is India, the land of his birth. In this, he resembles V.S. Naipaul, the author of "India--A Wounded Civilization." Both men are trying to come to terms with their Indian heritage and provide explanatory insight.

Komireddi's thesis is that the India we see today is a dangerous historical anomaly, a recent phenomenon that bears little resemblance to that which came before. This new India is, in his view, a betrayal of all India stands for. Komireddi hypothesizes that this degenerative process started with the election of NarendraModi as Prime

Minister. Komireddi further posits that if Modi's rule is not extinguished soon, it will threaten the very existence of the Indian state.

In this, his first book, Komireddi has taken on a gargantuan task. He hopes, in a relatively slim volume, to explain what has happened to India. He does so in two parts. In part one, Komireddi provides a succinct historical analysis. In the book's second part, Komireddi provides a damning portrayal of Modi. He systematically examines all the elements that make up the Indian state and makes the case that Modi has undermined and subverted all of them.

The two parts taken together paint a dire picture. A nation founded with high ideals by talented and devoted leaders, has over the years, lost its way. Komireddi argues that the Indian polity is so hollowed out and decayed and the hardening authoritarianism of Modi and his Hindu nationalist BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) so well-entrenched and all-pervasive, that India will have an extremely difficult time avoiding a fall into the abyss.

In a brief coda...