Kapil Komireddi

Writer. Author of “Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India”. I speak solely for myself here.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

The Indian experiment in democracy has not failed. It has spawned a tenacious citizenry that is staging the most spirited fight to preserve its rights and dignity. What lets it down is India's muddled opposition.

My essay in the @NewYorker

https://t.co/SygCGfPEhD

[Manisha Pande @MnshaP]

Long chat with @IChotiner on events of the past few week. Do read. Caveat: supporters of the government, please read with a calm mind.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

“The man who once claimed to be an ‘instrument for God’, endowed with divine energy, has been spectacularly humbled. Young Indians have handed the world’s largest democracy another chance at survival”

Me in @nytimes

https://t.co/IFlNaH3Gp8

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

The most serious blow to Modi was inflicted by ordinary Indians convened by an outfit named for pests. Congress should regard this not as a moment of triumph but as an occasion for genuine introspection. India’s tragedy for the past 12 years has been the absence of an opposition.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

Pradhan’s resignation was obtained yesterday and announced today. He will eventually be rehabilitated. There is now intense pressure on the young people massed in Delhi to go home. Some are willing to end their sit-in. Others wish to continue. This divergence is Modi’s way out.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

Short bio of the big man: Thug, tyrant, clown.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

Rahul Gandhi today exhibited a degree of personal physical courage that will forever be beyond the comprehension of Narendra Modi, a man too frightened to take an unscripted question.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

For more than a decade so much of the Indian state’s energy has been spent on gratifying Modi’s vanity and elevating him to the status of a demigod. The reality is that this embodiment of malign incompetence has blighted the prospects of an entire generation of Indians.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

An opposition worthy of the name would be dictating the terms by which Modi governs. But as we learnt during the anti-CAA protests, India doesn’t have an opposition. So once again ordinary citizens are marching to defend their country from the depredations of its political mafia.

[Claire Lehmann @clairlemon]

The Odyssey is a long-form poem about a myth. It has a long history of being reinterpreted by artists, directors, & translators. Orson Welles cast Eartha Kitt as Helen of Troy back in 1950. Today's critics are culturally illiterate buffoons.
https://t.co/yrv1sgZOxW

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

Shinzo Abe was gunned down on this day four years ago. He was a colossus on the world stage, the greatest Asian leader of our time, and he will eventually be remembered by Japan with gratitude and reverence.

Me in @TheCriticMag https://t.co/UbRhFC8wqR

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

I counted six huge portraits of the prime minister within 20 seconds of stepping off the aeroplane in Hyderabad. Enver Hoxha was infinitely more modest.

[The Caravan @thecaravanindia]

On 25 June 1975, the prime minister Indira Gandhi declared Emergency, marking the beginning of one of the darkest periods of Indian democracy. During this period, the country witnessed censures on the press, forced sterilisation of over six million citizens, large-scale demolition of slums, mass arrests of political leaders, and an authoritarian regime that exercised excessive control over the country’s executive and judiciary. At the forefront of this subversion of public institutions and suppression of rights were Indira and her son, Sanjay, who personally oversaw the sterilisation programme. Yet, this period was also marked by the Indian business and intellectual elite eulogising the Gandhis despite the terror they wreaked upon the nation.

In his first book, Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India, the journalist Kapil Satish Komireddi writes a critical political history of post-Independence India, and how decades of rule under a corrupt Congress establishment led to the rise of Narendra Modi and the Hindutva nation. Komireddi divided the book in two parts—“Antecedents” and
“India under Modi”—to show how the actions of political leaders such as Indira, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi contributed to the Hindu nationalism currently prevailing in India. In the following excerpt, he discusses how the Emergency and Indira’s rule have often been falsely characterised as the “summit of Indian ‘socialism,’” and why that is far from the truth. “Socialism, like much else, was a meaningless catchword camouflaging the gangsterisation of Indian politics,” Komireddi writes. “Divide and rule, the doctrine imputed to the British by Indian nationalists, was now the animating philosophy of the party that succeeded them.”

Read the excerpt here: https://t.co/ip67oEdf3h

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

Days ago, in the presence of Doland, he was properly obsequious, unable to utter even a perfunctory word of protest against the murder of his compatriots. Now, at home, he is back to being a bully, berating and mocking Indians for having the gall to disagree with him.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

The great Vikram Seth turns 74 today. Start with “From Heaven Lake”.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

This is the most pusillanimous prime minister in India’s history. Three Indian sailors were slaughtered, and Modi can’t bring himself to make a sound. Like all bullies, Modi only puffs his puny chest at those weaker than himself. When he faces the strong, he becomes a mouse.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

"@NarendraModi's move to evict the Delhi Gymkhana Club from the administrative heart of India's capital corrects an aberration. Nobody should mourn its end"

Me in today's @Telegraph

https://t.co/MPhyiVwKZO

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

If the dinosaurs in the Indian press had channeled into their work a fraction of the fury which they are now directing at a young Norwegian reporter who had the gall to perform her duty, India might not be the dive it is today. Defending Modi isn’t your job. Interrogating him is.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

Every tragedy for ordinary Indians is an opportunity for Modi to stage a self-glorifying stunt. The truth is that the prime minister, living in unimaginable comfort, will not experience even a trillionth of the misery his monumental incompetence has unleashed on India.

[ANI @ANI]

#WATCH | Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reduced his convoy size significantly. Reduction in vehicles was done while maintaining essential security components as per SPG protocol.

[Kapil Komireddi @kapskom]

He had twelve years to lift India. He squandered that time lying to Indians, destroying institutions, erecting a personality cult, enriching his cronies, and deploying hate to divide and subdivide Indians. May today’s defeat be the beginning of his swift political end.

[Mahua Moitra @MahuaMoitra]

Today is a historic day- the united Opposition resoundingly defeated the illegal & ill-thought out Constitutional Amendment Bill brought in the guise of a Women’s Reservation Bill.