The New India (The Identity Project in India) is a book of narrative reportage about the road to authoritarianism in India and its effects on citizens.
Using hundreds of interviews, letters, diary entries, Partition-era police reports, and a range of sources, the book shows how history plays a recurring role in the present: in politics, in the minds of citizens, in notions of justice and corruption.
I’ve examined the connections between the Delhi riots of 2020 and the emergence of nineteenth-century revolutionary secret societies, the rise of Hindu nationalism, whose early advocates drew lessons from Hitler and Mussolini, the political use of misinformation and religious targeting, and how Hindutva sparked the creation of Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric identification project.
The New India was published by Little, Brown (UK) and Context (India) in August 2024, and by Public Affairs (US) in November 2024. A South Korean edition will be published in late 2025.
Order the book here: Waterstones (UK); Bookshop.org (US)
Nice things:
• Kerala Literature Festival Non-fiction Book of the Year (Winner), 2025
• Crossword Book Award Non-fiction (Long List), 2025
• Godrej Literature Live! Non-fiction Book of the Year (Long List), 2025
• A New York Times ‘100 Notable Books of 2024‘ selection (2024)
• A NPR ‘Books We Love‘ selection: “so readable, so swiftly sketched… It’s like a mystery novel, with India as the main character.” (2024)
Reviews:
23 Dec 2024 India Today: “Moving adroitly between centuries, between the narratives of seers, technocrats, politicians and people whose lives have been upended by Hindutva, Bhatia pieces together the story of how we got where we are.”
20 Dec 2024 The Telegraph: “Bhatia writes like an unforgiving sculptor, his incredible storytelling capabilities complementing his knack for research.”
16 Dec 2024 Radcliffe Magazine: “…a J’accuse that exposes, even if it doesn’t jail, the guilty, while serving as a tale—both timely and cautionary—for democracies that embrace demagogues.”
9 Dec 2024 Biblio: “The Identity Project is an important book, evocative and unsettling. It alerts us to the seductive power of seemingly innocuous shifts in our language permeating our commonsense, in turn creating new modes of justification.”
7 Dec 2024 The Indian Express: “Even as it details the hardening of communal identities, Bhatia’s account does not gloss over the affection people have for one another.”
27 Nov 2024 The New York Times: “Considering the urgency of Bhatia’s subject, it’s only appropriate that he brings a multitude of methods to bear in ‘The New India.’ The book showcases his skills as an investigative journalist and memoirist, an intellectual and storyteller.”
10 Nov 2024 Financial Express: “The book comes at a time when we must tackle some existential questions: who we are; where we are; and where we should be? Of late, there have been quite a few books grappling with these questions. This one stands out for its sheer chutzpah. There cannot be a more opportune time that this becomes infectious.”
30 Oct 2024 The New York Times: 12 books coming in November
29 Oct 2024 Washington Monthly: “[The New India] is both a chronicle and a cautionary tale: an illustration of how easily societies can be poisoned.”
15 Oct 2024 Business Standard: “[This book] is an act of courage… “
12 Oct 2024 Deccan Herald: “This captivating post-colonial story of India, embellished with flawless prose, is narrative reportage at its best and an essential read for anyone concerned about the future of Indian democracy.”
22 Sep 2024 The Tribune: “The intensity of intellectual labour that has made a work of this kind possible is simply amazing.”
5 Sep 2024 The Economist: “His account of the precursors to Hindu nationalism, reaching back to a Hindu reformist movement of the 19th century, is fascinating.” (A mixed review, though.)
10 Aug 2024 The Times: “This is the stuff of black comedy.”
8 Aug 2024 The Telegraph: “…Bhatia’s purpose is to raise the alarm: India’s tradition of pluralism and tolerance is facing an existential crisis…”
8 Aug 2024 Irish Independent: “…this book will be remembered as a truthful account of all the people who preyed on a nation’s collective fear.”
31 Jul 2024 The Guardian: “…a remarkable book.”
Interviews:
Tech Policy Press | A podcast with Justin Hendrix about Aadhaar, identity, and society: https://www.techpolicy.press/technology-and-democracy-in-the-new-india/
Polis Project | A discussion about the book’s themes with Aabha Muralidharan: https://youtu.be/4eNHJKOmPDA?si=VQIHTO37TTXX9nd1
Bangalore International Centre | In which the great Prem Panicker and I chat the century-old weakening of Indian democracy: https://youtu.be/h-opQnYQcwg?si=DJrXiHdfojpf4Kws
Converging Dialogues | A fine time was had with Xavier Bonilla about life in India, growing authoritarianism, and religion-based citizenship: https://convergingdialogues.substack.com/p/398-the-new-india-a-dialogue-with
Carnegie Grand Tamasha | A discussion with Milan Vaishnav about state power, surveillance, Hindutva, and joining the dots between them: https://grand-tamasha.simplecast.com/episodes/identifying-the-new-india
Newslaundry | An interview with Abhinandan Sekri (the full interview is an hour long): https://youtu.be/vmZfmmCMjS8?si=aZndxa1yywdNXWky
Kadwi Coffee | Apoorvanand and Nidheesh ask me how the book came together, and I put everything out there.: https://youtu.be/KcPxCOB4vPE?si=UYBGTLlwF5RJpGqr
NPR Here & Now Anytime | A short but full interview with Deepa Fernandes: https://www.npr.org/2024/11/21/1214380322/here-now-anytime-11-21-2024
The Hindu | Ziya Us Salam gets me going on self-censorship, influence campaigns, and the mixing of nationalism and pleasure: https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/with-years-of-research-and-ground-reporting-rahul-bhatia-unravels-the-minority-experience-in-contemporary-india/article68937699.ece
Rahul Bhatia 