Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy

"Although ethnic and sectarian tensions have always been a feature of modern Indian history, the country was founded and governed in its first decades by a nationalist political movement - associated with the Indian National Congress -- that stressed the non-sectarian nature of Indian citizenship.

Hindu nationalism, a contrary political force, was born in the 1920s but didn't take off politically until the 1990s.

It finally secured national power in 2014 when a populist leader, Narendra Modi -- a former governor of the province of Gujarat -- leveraged a reputation for successful economic reform and popular resentment toward the country's Muslim minority to lead his Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, to national victory.

In this book, Christophe Jaffrelot recounts how the Hindu nationalist movement under the leadership of Modi's BJP has deeply transformed the country.

Jaffrelot's main argument is that the reign of Modi and his BJP has ush