India: The (Dysfunctional) State of Human Rights

Piotr Balcerowicz
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Piotr Balcerowicz: University of Warsaw

A chapter in African Peacebuilding, 2026, pp 117-159 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract India has receded in its performance as regards the respect for human rights and has been steering towards an authocracy in recent years. The paper analysis in detail how political changes in the last few decades, especially since 2014, have affected the state of human rights in India and India’s democratic institutions. The negative developments are attributable to the ideology of Hindutva (‘Hinduness’), or deeply politicized Hinduism, that forms the cornerstone of policies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the prime minister Narendra Modi. The paper aruges that rampant violations of human rights in India are systemic and systematic in nature, embedded in the ideological-political setup of the state, which helps explain why India’s political system should be regarded as a complex mix of kleptocracy, plutocracy and oligarchy, making it the largest pseudo-democracy in the world – or to put it straightforwardly, soft authoritarianism – in the world.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:aaechp:978-3-032-29966-6_11

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-29966-6_11

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