Red India

Narendra Modi, the newly elected prime minister of India, is a lifelong member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization inspired by the fascist movements of Europe. As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he was accused, along with his closest aides, of complicity in crimes ranging from an anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 to extrajudicial killings, and he was barred from entering the US, a ban that was rescinded upon his election.

How did the world's largest democracy, founded by socialists and governed for most of its history by at least nominally progressive politicians, come to this pass? Vijay Prashad’s sharp analysis of Indian politics reveals the slow drift of the country’s liberal elites toward the far right, just as India’s double-digit economic growth figures of recent years has overwhelmingly benefited the upper end of the income ladder, leaving 43% of all Indian children below the age of five hungry, and nearly half of all Indians without indoor plumbing.

Prashad also dissects the failures of the Indian Left – the purported socialists of the Congress Party as well as the electoral communists and insurgent Maoists – providing a critical history of Indian socialism. In the end, he develops an argument for how radical hopes and political programs could be revived in this crucial country.