We explain why the world is the way it is.

Latest film · Geopolitics

Why Indian Democracy Is Dying

In 1947, India had an 18% literacy rate, a 32-year life expectancy, no shared language, and 565 kingdoms that had to be talked into joining the country. Every expert said democracy there was impossible, and the man who wrote the constitution eventually agreed with them. It worked anyway for 70 years: 18 straight national elections, a fired autocrat, rising turnout, and the biggest vote in human history. But now the referees, the money, the press, and the critics are being captured one by one, and the institutions keeping score have stopped calling India a democracy at all. This is the story of the biggest gamble in political history, and how it’s slowly eroding. At the end we answer, was India ever ready for Democracy?

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