The Ruins of the World’s Largest Electoral Democracy

Tonight, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarks on his third term in power in India, Alpa Shah will be in conversation with Lisa Dupuy and Casper Thomas about the weapons of authoritarianism – cyber warfare, tech surveillance, vigilantes, an impartial police force, control of the media and the judiciary – and the fight for democracy on the ground. Moderation: Luisa Steur.

About the speakers

Alpa Shah is Professor of Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics. She has written and presented for BBC Radio 4 Crossing Continents and is the award-winning author of Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas. She also co-authored Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st Century India, a 2018 Book of the Year for the Hindu, which draws on a major research programme she led on inequality and poverty that explodes the myth of trickle-down economics. Her latest book, The Incarcerations has garnered acclaim in, amongst others, The Times, New Statesman, Telegraph and Nature.

Lisa Dupuy is a freelance journalist and editor who has worked for a range of media and in different countries. She moved to New Delhi in January 2022, and has since been the South Asia correspondent for Dutch daily NRC. She covers everything from the impacts of Partition to heat stress to India’s G20 presidency and this year’s mammoth elections. She is also an occasional contributor to radio programmes and news magazines looking for commentary from the region.

Casper Thomas is an editor at De Groene Amsterdammer. Thomas worked as foreign correspondent in India and the US for both De Groene Amsterdammer and Het Financieele Dagblad. This year, he is covering elections in Indonesia, India and the US. He is the author of multiple books, amongst which are De autoritaire verleiding. Over de opmars van de antiliberale wereldorde (‘The authoritarian temptation. On the rise of the anti-liberal world order’) and Amerika’s laatste kans (‘America’s last chance’).

Luisa Steur (moderator) is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology of the University of Amsterdam and lead editor of Focaal-Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology. Her research concerns political movements in India (esp. Kerala), Dalit and Adivasi livelihoods, and capitalist change reshaping everyday working lives in India. Her monograph Indigenist Mobilization: Confronting Electoral Communism and Precarious Livelihoods in Post-Reform Kerala is considered an important contribution to the field of South Asian Politics and Social Movement Analysis.