The talk focuses on  Christophe Jaffrelot’s recent Book Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy.  Drawing on original interviews conducted across India, Dr. Jaffrelot explains how Modi’s government has moved India towards a new form of democracy that has centralized power at the expense of federalism and undermined institutions that were part of the checks and balances, including India’s Supreme Court.

Christophe Jaffrelot is a senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King's India Institute, London, and non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 2020, Dr. Jaffrelot was elected president of the French Association of Political Science (AFSP). His current research deals with the sociology of the Indian political personnel, the Dargahs of Ajmer, the India-Pakistan relations, the political history of Gujarat, and populist politics. Dr. Jaffrelot received his Ph.D. in political science from Sciences Po (1991).

Dr. Asma Faiz is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Lahore University of Management Sciences. Dr.  Faiz's research interests include themes of nationalist movements, ethnic politics, federalism, populism, political parties, and electoral behavior. Dr. Faiz received her Doctorate in Political Science from Sciences Po, Paris, France.

Dr. Anuradha Joshi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Dr. Joshi’s research interests focus on collective action, social accountability, and service delivery – mobilizing ‘demand’ in basic services and in the scaling-up of innovative service delivery approaches. Dr. Joshi holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.