Where is India headed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi? What are the contours of the 'new' India he has promised to build? Is his promise of 'development' real or a cover for a hidden agenda? Who are the stakeholders in his idea of the state? Making Sense of Modi's India debates the future of the nation, bringing together a cross-section of leading voices from the academia, media and politics to examine the factors behind the dramatic resurgence of Hindu nationalism and Modi's own meteoric rise. Commentators like Andrew Whitehead, Meghnad Desai, Sevanti Ninan, Beena Sarwar, Sudheendra Kulkarni, among others, cast an incisive eye on aspects as diverse as Modi's extraordinary foreign relations drive, what his ascent means for India's relationship with Pakistan, the role of the media in the rise of Modi, and the arrival of the BJP as the dominant political party in India. This anthology works through the implications of the Bharatiya Janata Party's massive victory in the May 2014 general elections, regarded as a watershed in post-Independence India's political history. It examines the future of secularism in India in the light of the collapse of the Congress and the Left. Drawing on historical parallels from Europe and, nearer home, Pakistan, Making Sense of Modi's India also probes the real nature of the ideology Modi represents and what that means for India. A must read in these tumultuous times.

About the Author

Meghnad Desai is emeritus professor of economics at the London School of Economics and author of The Rediscovery of India and Development and Nationhood. Gyanendra Pandey, a distinguished historian, founding member and leading theorist of subaltern studies, is the author most recently of A History of Prejudice (2013). Shruti Kapila lectures and researches on modern Indian history, political thought and global history at the Faculty of History, and is fellow and director of studies at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. She is editor of An Intellectual History for India (CUP, 2010) and co-editor of Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India (CUP, 2013). Radhika Desai is professor at the Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group there. She is the author of Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics (2004), and Intellectuals and Socialism: 'Social Democrats' and the Labour Party (1994), co-editor of Revitalizing Marxist Theory for Today's Capitalism (2010) and editor of Theoretical Engagements in Geopolitical Economy (2015) and Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms (2009). R. Jagannathan is former editor-in-chief of Forbes India. One of India's leading commentators on politics and economy, he has previously headed firstpost.com, Business Today, Business World, Financial Express and DNA newspaper. Faisal Devji is reader in modern South Asian history and fellow of St Antony's College at the University of Oxford, where he is also director of the Asian Studies Centre. Beena Sarwar is a writer, documentary film-maker and artist who has been engaged as a journalist and activist in human rights and peace issues for over two decades, most recently as an editor for Aman ki Asha, a peace initiative between India and Pakistan. Sudheendra Kulkarni was an aide to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Prime Minister's Office between 1998 and 2004. He was also an activist of the BJP for sixteen years before he quit the party in 2013 due to ideological differences. Zoya Hasan is professor emeritus, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. V. Krishna Ananth, a fellow-traveller and sympathizer of the Left, teaches at the Department of History, Sikkim University, Gangtok. Andrew Whitehead is a former BBC correspondent based in Delhi and was the editor of BBC World Service News until the spring of 2015. He is now an honorary professor at the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies at Nottingham and visiting senior research fellow at the King's India Institute in London. He has a PhD in South Asian history and is the author of A Mission in Kashmir. Sevanti Ninan writes on the media and is the founder editor of the media watch website thehoot.org. Rashmee Roshan Lall is a journalist who has lived and worked in seven countries in the past eight years. She is the author of The Pomegranate Peace, a fictionalized account of the absurdity of American efforts in Afghanistan.