How to Dismantle a Republic

Eminent Marxist scholar Aijaz Ahmad (1993) argued that, “nation is not a thing, which once made, simply endures; that nation, like class, is a process, which is made and re-made, a thousand times over […]” The present volume of essays is an att­empt to analyse the making and unmaking of our republic—the emergence of ‘‘New India’’ on the ruins of the Nehru­vian republic. The idea of New India is described as the most debated, feared, and popular construct of the 21st century. This is an important observation to which we shall return later. The book The Idea of New India: Essays in Defence of Critical Thought is an exploration of this idea animating present-day hege­monic politics.

Demise of the Nehruvian Project