Hollow Parties in India’s Cockroach-Eaten Democracy

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This paper discusses important lessons for democratic decay held by India’s political parties. A Gen Z movement has brought Modi to heel but cannot slow India’s plunge into illiberalism under his watch thanks to the country’s severely diminished opposition parties. The Indian case shows how democratic resilience is threatened by the universal pathology of withering political parties. Democratic backsliding is not just about power grab by a totalizing political force eviscerating governing institutions; it’s also about a broken party system failing to push back despotic rule through institutional means, and gatekeep power.