Things are bad -- so bad that he's written two books about it. Aakar Patel joins Amit Varma in episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss politics, the media and his reasons for being hopeful in spite of all the doom and gloom. Also check out: 1. Aakar Patel on Twitter, Amazon, Deccan Chronicle, Business Standard and the Times of India. 2. Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here -- Aakar Patel. 3. Price of the Modi Years -- Aakar Patel. 4. The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva -- Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 5. The Tank Man video. (And the Wikipedia page.) 6. August Landmesser, who may have been the man who didn't salute. 7. The Life and Times of Abhinandan Sekhri -- Episode 254 of The Seen and the Unseen. 8. Amit Varma's Twitter thread on Westland shutting down. 9. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty -- Albert O. Hirschman. 10. Selected episode of The Seen and the Unseen on the economy: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 11. Nehru: The Debates that Defined India — Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain. 12. Nehru's Debates -- Episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain.) 13. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 14. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 15. A People's Constitution -- Rohit De. 16. Narendra Modi takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma on Demonetisation. 17. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 18. India's Undeclared Emergency -- Arvind Narrain. 19. The Silent Coup: A History of India’s Deep State — Josy Joseph. 20. India’s Security State -- Episode 242 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Josy Joseph). 21. Colours of the Cage: A Prison Memoir -- Arun Ferreira. 22. Sixteen Stormy Days — Tripurdaman Singh. 23. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 24. Integral Humanism -- Deendayal Upadhyaya. 25. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind -- Gustave le Bon. 26. Crowds and Power -- Elias Canetti. 27. The Life and Times of Nirupama Rao -- Episode 269 of The Seen and the Unseen. 28. Kashmir and Article 370 -- Episode 134 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 29. Steven Van Zandt: Springsteen, the death of rock and Van Morrison on Covid — Richard Purden. 30. State Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century -- Francis Fukuyama. 31. The Origins of Political Order -- Francis Fukuyama. 32. Political Order and Political Decay -- Francis Fukuyama. 33. The Great Man Theory of History. 34. Modi’s Domination – What We Often Overlook — Keshava Guha. 35. My Country, My Life -- LK Advani. 36. Modi’s Lost Opportunity -- Episode 119 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Salman Soz). 37. A Rude Life — Vir Sanghvi. 38. The Life and Times of Vir Sanghvi -- Episode 236 of The Seen and the Unseen. 39. Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi — Vinay Sitapati. 40. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 41. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister -- Amit Varma. 42. Excerpts from Narendra Modi's interview by Madhu Kishwar. 43. Obituary of a Culture -- Ashis Nandy. 44. The Second Coming — William Butler Yeats. 45. Beware of the Useful Idiots -- Amit Varma. 46. Joy Das's tweet thread about Indian Muslims being called Pakistanis. 47. Television Price Controls -- Episode 27 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashok Malik). 48. Fighting Fake News -- Episode 133 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratik Sinha). 49. Dhanya Rajendran Fights the Gaze -- Episode 267 of The Seen and the Unseen. 50. Aakar Patel's tweet on protests as a craft. 51. Here Comes The Groom: A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage -- Andrew Sullivan. 52. Radically Networked Societies -- Episode 158 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 53. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Kumar Gandharva on Spotify. 54. The Histories -- Herodotus. 55. Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Julius Caesar on Amazon. 56. B