India’s opposition parties team up to beat Modi. Is it enough?
During India’s tryst with authoritarianism in the 1970s, hope for a democratic revival came from an unlikely place – a prison in the southern city of Bengaluru.
India had taken a dictatorial turn after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of national emergency. The press was censored, the judiciary compromised, and opposition leaders were thrown in jail. During their stay in the Bengaluru prison, prominent figures from India’s various opposition parties set aside their differences to lay the groundwork for the Janata Alliance, a rainbow coalition of disparate parties ranging from communists to far-right nationalists, which eventually defeated Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress party.
