How to Subvert a Democracy

Published by: Hurst & Co.,London, 2022, 303pp. ISBN: 978178738007.

“These are the stories of those who wrap our ghettos in the silence of graveyards and snatch the dreams and voices of the next generation” and “Indian democracy is at a crossroads today... except in the rhetoric of the ruling elite, India no longer feels like a democracy” – these are some of the extraordinary statements with which Josy Joseph opens his book.

The work is a testimony of the sheer brilliance of India’s award-winning journalist Josy Joseph’s insightful exploration into India’s Deep State – the non-military security establishment. The author’s stated aim of writing this book is to show “how a small set of such elites use the legitimate arms of the state to destabilise a large democracy.” He successfully does that through real-life examples, characters and data. He presents a vivid narration of how this “professional security establishment” which is supposed to be the state’s best protection has turned into the “nation’s worst nightmare” and simply “reduced to mere intimidatory arms of the political executive.” While unlike many other nations, including neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh, who had to endure many military coups after becoming independent from the clutches of colonial powers, India is one of the very few refreshing exceptions where “the principle of civilian control over the military was rmly put in place.” It is estimated that “since 1950, there have been over 460 coup attempts around the world, of which some 233 were successful.” But military intervention is not the only threat to democratic governance. In India “there is increasing evidence of a new threat... which comes from within.” This threat is the country’s non-military security establishment – a sprawling network of “shadowy agencies that stay out of the spotlight and coerce the rest of the government machinery, including the civil service and judiciary, into actions favourable to the ruling regime.”