Episode Details

Today’s guest, journalist Rahul Bhatia, has written a book that is part journalistic account, part history, and part memoir titled The New India: The Unmaking of the World's Largest Democracy.

Reviewing the book in The Guardian, Salil Tripathi writes that “Bhatia’s remarkable book is an absorbing account of India’s transformation from the world’s largest democracy to something more like the world’s most populous country that regularly holds elections.” 

Bhatia considers the role of technology, including taking a close look at Aadhaar—India’s national biometric identification program—in order to consider the role it plays in the modern state and what the motivations behind it reveal.