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The reason for Indian democracy’s downslide is the collapse of judiciary

Few people know more about India’s courts than Indira Jaising. In a career spanning more than half a century, Jaising has practised both at the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court.

On this episode of ‘Scroll Adda’, she speaks to Shoaib Daniyal on the ills plaguing the judiciary. Dynasty has taken over the courts, she says, leading to a lack of intellectual development. Bright young lawyers without family contacts are forced to leave litigation.

The judiciary is not doing its job of being a check on the executive. Jaising argues that this government is simply ignoring the Constitution and the courts are unable to stop it. ‘The reason for Indian democracy’s downslide is the collapse of the judiciary,’ she says.

Meanwhile, public movements like the Jantar Mantar protests, sparked by the Chief Justice’s ‘cockroach’ comment, show that anger against the judiciary is boiling over into the streets.

Producer: Raghav Kakkar

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

Editor: Hyder Habib

Chapters

00:00 Precap

02:12 ‘Sons of judges are judges’

13:10 The cosy relationship between collegium and government

21:09 Government is ignoring the Constitution

25:29 Basic structure is dead

31:30 The Ram Mandir judgement

35:50 Corruption and the judiciary

39:30 The fear of contempt of court

45:36 Judges and cockroaches

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After independence, the middle class ruled India. High-quality university education, good urban infrastructure, and law and order in metros: the government strove to meet white collar India's needs.

Today, however, argues investor Saurabh Mukherjea, that is not the case. He says the middle class lacks political leverage despite contributing the most towards taxes.

In a new book, Breakpoint: The Crisis of the Middle Class and the Future of Work, Mukherjea, along with Nandita Rajhansa and Sapana Bhavsar, argues that falling employment, stagnant wages and exploding debt driven by social media envy means the Indian middle class is facing an existential crisis.

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

Producer: Priyali Dhingra

Editor: Hyder Habib

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In 1966, a 22-year-old Zoramthanga joined the Mizo National Front and started an armed struggle to secede from the Indian Union.

Over the next two decades, he was on the move: India, East Pakistan, Burma and, after East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, Rawalpindi.

In 1986, the MNF ended their rebellion with the signing of the Mizoram Peace Accord with Rajiv Gandhi’s government. Today it is seen as one of India’s most successful attempts to end an insurgency. Since the accord, Mizoram has been the most peaceful state in the Northeast.

In a remarkable turn of events, Zoramthanga, who had spent two decades fighting the Indian Union, became a chief minister of a state in the Union in 1998.

On Scroll Adda, he tells us about his remarkable life.

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

Producer: Priyali Dhingra

Editor: Hyder Habib

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Based on the 1988 aircraft crash that killed Zia-ul-Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan, A Case of Exploding Mangoes made a big splash in the South Asian literary world when it was released in 2008. Readers loved that a desi writer was nailing political satire.

Since then Mohammed Hanif has written three more novels, masterfully blending politics and the absurdities of life. He’s so captured the genre that some say he’s the Pakistani Joseph Heller. 

Hanif has a new book out, The Rebel English Academy. On Scroll Adda, he talks about why he uses satire, his relationship with three languages – Punjabi, Urdu and English – how Operation Sindoor ended up strengthening army rule in Pakistan as well as describing Imran Khan as a political prisoner. 

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Host: Shoaib Daniyal

Producer: Priyali Dhingra

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Very few things are as controversial in today’s India as its history. The academic discipline now sits at the heart of popular politics, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its Hindutva supporters using India’s medieval past to power its politics.

Into this battlefield rush in writer Namit Arora and India’s most famous historian, Romila Thapar. In their new book “Speaking of History”, Thapar and Arora deconstruct what the discipline means in India today, the role of popular history and why ideas such as perpetual Hindu-Muslim conflict say more about the present than the past.

In this episode of Scroll Adda, Thapar opens up about what it has been like being attacked by the Hindutva right for so long and why she thinks academic history will, eventually, prevail over short-term politics.

Producer: Raghav Kakkar

Editor: Hyder Habib

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

Comments: Adda@Scroll.in

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Few people know more about Indian publishing than Scroll's books editor, Arunava Sinha.

Sinha has translated an incredible 100 books from Bengali to English.

On this episode of Scroll Adda, he tells Shoaib Daniyal about his experience as a translator and what it takes to render a work from one language – and culture – to another.

He also delves into the weeds of Indian publishing.

Why are Indians not reading anymore?Is English eating up the space for other Indian languages? Why do publishers now chase influencers to write books? Is the space for serious literature now dead?

Producer: Raghav Kakkar

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

Comments: Adda@Scroll.in

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Over the past months, the entire world watched in surprise as Iran stood up to the most powerful militaries in the world.

On February 28, when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, killing its head of state, Trump was hoping for a quick, Venezuela-style regime change. Instead, Iran fought back, attacking Arab states in the region which host American military bases and even successfully closing off the Strait of Hormuz, a major thoroughfare for the world's oil.

On this episode of Scroll Adda, writer and anthropologist Alex Reza Shams explains that one should not be surprised by this dogged Iranian resistance. For decades now, sanctions have made Iran self-sufficient in a way few countries are. Moreover, for the Iranian government this is an existential war. There is no option of surrender.

In fact, Shams argues that this war might end up strengthening extremist elements within Iran. The fact that the United States has broken all agreements with Tehran has greatly weakened the moderate Iranians who championed dialogue.

Rather than being a monolith, the current Iranian system has seen liberal, democratic movements in the past. But long years of sanctions and now war mean that these political actors risk being shut out by extreme elements, who favour conflict with US and Israel, given that trying for peace has only seen Tehran being double crossed.

Producer: Kritika Pant

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

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“In the age of monetisation, we cannot judge the internet based on morality,” argues Anurag Minus Verma, podcaster and multimedia artist.

In this episode of Adda, the host of the widely popular Anurag Minus Verma Podcast speaks with Shoaib Daniyal about his book The Great Indian Brain Rot. The conversation jumps from “cringe” creators to the economics of virality and the rise of the internet as the new battleground for caste pride and superiority.

Verma also reflects on the dichotomy of profound loneliness in the age of hyperconnectedness.

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Producer: Aryan Mahtta

Editor: Hyder Habib

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

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We all know someone who has been scammed over the internet. It could be a dramatic digital arrest scam or something milder like a phishing scam.

In her new book, Scamlands, journalist Snigdha Poonam explores this epidemic. For many Indians, desperation drives them to become scammers. Shut out by the iron gates of caste, communal prejudice and poverty, tricking the elite is often the only way out of the shackles Indian society.

On the other side, for the people getting scammed, it is often a moment of deep shame. Scammers gain their confidence and then abuse it for money. The experience is so jarring that in many cases, people do not even admit to being scammed.

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Producer: Raghav Kakkar

Editor: Hyder Habib

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

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In A Sixth of Humanity, political scientist Devesh Kapur and economist Arvind Subramanian set out to do something ambitious: chart India’s development journey from Nehru to Modi.

In this episode of Adda, they sit down with Shoaib Daniyal and break down the four stages of India’s development. Starting with Nehru’s planned economy, which they argue did not do what it set out to: import substitution. Rather than create a safe space for Indian industry to grow and then eventually take on international competition, it ended up nearly killing the private sector.

Interestingly, Modi might be doing something similar now by promoting so-called national champions like Adani and Ambani. Again, by allowing them to largely play in the domestic space, rather than making them take on international competition, these firms are not adding to India’s growth story.

Most shockingly, however, Kapur and Subramanian argue that India’s GDP growth has ground to a halt over the last decade or so, with them estimating that average growth has been only around 3%. For context, official data reported that India’s real GDP grew 8.2% in the second quarter of 2025-26.

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Producer: Aryan Mahtta

Editor: Hyder Habib

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

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In almost any other city in the world, Delhi’s apocalyptic pollution levels would have sparked alarm. In India, however, it is business as usual. Governments are wary of taking action and even the once-activist judiciary is now lying low.

This state of affairs is untenable, Sunita Narain, director Centre for Science and Environments says in this episode of Scroll Adda.

The situation is severe and massive policy changes will have to be taken. Industries must be shifted to clean fuel, car and motorcycle users must be shifted to buses as well as trains and old, polluting vehicles must be barred from the streets of Delhi.

Narain notes the progress that has been made. Fuel today is much cleaner than it was a few years back. But also notes that any such steps forward are rolled back given the sheer increase in the number of private vehicles in Delhi. She is despondent about the Indian state’s response to pollution, arguing that earlier in her career as an environmental activist, institutions were far more responsive to people’s needs.

Producer: Raghav Kakkar

Editor: Hyder Habib

Research: Vaishnavi Rathod

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

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On September 24, shots rang through the otherwise idyllic town of Leh. Four people were killed and many more injured in police firing as protests for statehood turned violent.

Sajjad Kargili, one of Ladakh’s most popular leaders and a part of the delegation that is negotiating with the Modi government joins Shoaib Daniyal on Scroll Adda to explain why Ladakhis are so angry with Delhi.

Ladakhi demands, he explains, are simple: they want their political and cultural rights secured within India’s federal framework. Ladakh should be ruled by Ladakhis as part of a state in the Union. Jobs should be reserved and migration from other states restricted to protect the rights of tribal people as well as the environment in this mountainous region. Kargili criticises the Modi government for removing safeguards like Article 370 when the state of Jammu and Kashmir was partitioned and demoted to Union territory in 2019.

The stakes for Delhi are high. Ladakh is bordered by Pakistan and China with both nuclear states occupying Indian territory in the Union territory. Moreover, Ladakhis, both its Buddhists and Muslims, have always stood shoulder to shoulder with the Indian Army as it defends Ladakh.

Producer: Aryan Mahtta

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

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From the 1950s to the 1990s, left-wing thought played a major role in Indian society. From shaping the nascent Indian state after the British left, with Indians turning to socialist ideas to combat the ravages of colonialism, to the stasis of the big Central government measures like the license permit raj and freight equalisation.

Things, however, are quite different now. India’s youth has little experience of the Left. India’s largest left-wing party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in fact, barely has a presence in Parliament. From 43 seats in 2004, it has only four in the Lok Sabha today.

On Scroll Adda, the CPI(M)’s Saira Shah Halim joins Shoaib Daniyal to explain why communism lost its appeal and how she thinks the reds can make a comeback.

#communism #socialism #CPIM #Left #westbengal #kerala #Maoists #China

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India has, in theory, a cabinet system of government. A group of popularly elected politicians are meant to rule using consensus.In practice, of course, we have a strongman (or strongwoman) model, where one powerful politician rules via a clique of Indian Administrative Service officers.

So much do politicians like the IAS that since independence, they have given the cadre more and more power. This when, during the Raj itself, babus were already seen to be all-powerful.What happens, though, when an IAS officer decides to listen to his conscience?

In 2019, Kannan Gopinathan resigned from the service in protest against the draconian crackdown in Kashmir following the abrogation of Article 370.

OnScroll Adda, Kannan tells me how he became an IAS officer almost by accident, what it felt like having so much power and what it is now after his resignation.

Producer: Kritika Pant

Host: Shoaib Daniyal

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The Indian state is an almost mythical animal. Inherited by Indians from the British Raj, the state is responsible for great injustice: Indians are generally more scared of the police than they are of goondas. Nearly every Indian also thinks the state is corrupt: bureaucrats and politicians are out to fleece them.

But paradoxically, Indians also look to the state for help and as a beacon to building a better society. Welfare and its contours are a feature of every election cycle. Moreover, backward castes have battled long and hard to control the levers of the state, using elections as well as reservations.

To explain these contradictions, we have on Adda, Yamini Aiyar. Till 2024, she headed the Centre for Policy Research, then one of India’s leading think tanks. Currently she is at Brown University in the United States as a senior visiting fellow.

Aiyar unpacks why allegations of corruption sometimes lead to undemocratic outcomes, how the centralisation of the Indian state hurts Indians and why we could do welfare much better.

Producer: Raghav Kakkar

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India’s largest Opposition party is levelling an explosive charge against the Election Commission: vote rigging to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In August, party leader Rahul Gandhi took the example of an Assembly Constituency in Karnataka to illustrate significant errors in the voter rolls. A belligerent Election Commission refused to accept any wrongdoing and instead attacked Gandhi in response.

To unpack the Congress’ allegations, Congress leader Amitabh Dubey is on this episode of Scroll Adda with Shoaib Daniyal.

We get him to explain what the Congress is accusing the EC of and what led it to such a point of no return. We also grilled Dubey on why the Congress’ workers could not catch these errors before the elections.

The implications of the Congress’ allegations are grave. If Indian elections are fixed, why does the Congress take part in them? To this, Dubey says that boycotting elections serves no purpose and only ends up backfiring on the Opposition.

Producer: Kritika Pant

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Varun Grover describes himself as an anti-establishment artist. And as a writer, filmmaker and comedian, he has carved a distinct voice for himself in these politically charged times.

Of course, none of this is easy. Never in its history as an independent country has India seen this level of censorship. The threat of violence always hangs over the head of dissenting artists. Grover describes this as “having a drunk father – one day he might come back and love you but then another he might beat you for no reason”.

In Scroll Adda’s first-ever live audience recording, Shoaib Daniyal speaks to Grover to understand how a middle-class Punjabi kid from Lucknow managed to use his engineering degree as a springboard into Bombay.

Producer: Kritika Pant

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While completing her PhD in 2012 in New York, Audrey Truschke did not imagine that her work would one day rile up a section of Indians so much that she would feel physically unsafe. So much so that Truschke tells Shoaib Daniyal in this episode of Scroll Adda that she fears coming to India.

Truschke's work on medieval Indian history has severely angered India's ruling Hindutva ideologues. She has written on the significant role Sanskrit played in Indo-Muslim culture, a 5,000-year history of the subcontinent and her most attacked book, a slim biography of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb that showed that his demonisation is a much later phenomenon and during his own time, he was looked at with reverence by both his Hindu and Muslim subjects, as any Mughal emperor would be.

Truschke is not shy when it comes to her politics. She compares Hindutva to fascism and her CV has "Hindu nationalist attacks" in the honours section. She sees no contradiction when it comes to being a historian and in fact says that having a moral compass is necessary to study the humanities.

Producer: Kritika Pant

Feedback: Adda@Scroll.in

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As a prolific mythologist with more than 60 books, Devdutt Pattanaik has single-handedly created a new genre of writing in India. His thoughtful commentaries on India’s epics have allowed everyday people to think and reflect on their mythology.

In this 1.5-hour conversation with Shoaib Daniyal, Pattanaik explains why Indians might have a genius for mythology and why we all live in mythos. Many rationalists merge the idea of myth and fiction but Pattanaik argues that both are very different. Myth can be thought of as an operating system for humans, he explains.

Pattanaik says that he faced censure from Brahmins for writing about Hindu scriptures as a non-Brahmin. He also opens up about his own experiences of growing up gay and how that informed his view on mythology.

Producer: Raghav Kakkar

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Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Kayastha, Baniya – the Indian subcontinent has more varieties of food than possibly any other place on Earth.

So much so that food writer and historian Pushpesh Pant argues it’s difficult to identify anything as “Indian food” at all.

On the fourth episode of Scroll Adda with Shoaib Daniyal, Pant speaks with erudition and humour about popular Indian food myths (did you know there’s no biryani in Lucknow?), how food intersects with identities such as caste and gender, and shares some of his favourite dishes.

Producer: Aryan Mahtta

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India’s caste system is unique. Nowhere else in the world does this system of thousands of graded endogamous groups exist.

At the top of the pyramid are the dwija savarna castes: Brahmins, Baniyas and Kshatriyas.

Nearly two millennia of caste privilege mean that Savarnas dominate Indian society. Culture, politics, and the economy in India are Savarna-controlled. Yet, there exists very little study of them as a distinct group.

Enter Ravikant Kisana, whose new book, Meet the Savarnas, intends to fill the gap.

We spoke to him on Scroll Adda’s third episode to try and understand why he wants to study upper castes.

Producer: Aryan Mahtta

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Few things seem more contested today than history. From politics to Bollywood, this once sleepy school subject dominates headlines.

In an extensive chat with Shoaib Daniyal on the Scroll Addapodcast, however, historian Manu Pillai contextualises this. People of every age think they are living through unique circumstances. But maybe it’s not so different today as it was earlier.

That said, Pillai is clear that “Hindutva has understood and weaponised how Indians deal with history” in a way that the left has not. “Secular forces are fixated on a footnoted version of history,” he says. This makes it quite unappealing to people looking to history to construct an identity.

Where does that leave the historian? Pillai agrees that he never thought he’d be in such a contentious field when he first started. But in the end, he sees it as the price of being in the public eye. Historians are people too. The idea that a pure or virtuous history is possible, he suggests, may itself be an idealised position.

Producers: Aryan Mahtta, Raghav Kakkar

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India is drowning in fake news. And much of it is produced by its own political parties.

Dedicated so-called IT cells supported by highly paid consultants push disinformation on social media with the aim of converting voters to their point of view.

This isn’t limited to elections. Disinformation is warping Indian society itself. The past decade has seen an explosion of hate, a significant part of which has been powered by fake news.

The first line of defence against this tsunami? Fact checkers. To understand how they battle this scourge, Scroll's political editor, Shoaib Daniyal, speaks to Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha on the first episode of Scroll Adda.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Sinha explains the toll disinformation has taken on India — and on his own mental health.

Producers: Kritika Pant, Raghav Kakkar

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