INDIA’S claim to be the world’s largest democracy, anchored in secularism, is under stress as BJP’s Hindutva governance buckles beneath protests and grievances among marginalized ethnic, religious, and economically oppressed communities. The edifice of pluralistic democracy trembles under majoritarian chauvinism, exposing fissures threatening the Republic’s foundation. Indian scholars now raise urgent concerns about how long a political model built on Hindu-nationalist identity can sustain national cohesion when protests over representation, economic opportunity, equality, and civil liberties proliferate daily. A polity founded on exclusion cannot indefinitely contain the aspirations of those it disenfranchises.

The 2025–26 evidence leaves no doubt it is underway and accelerating. Democratic erosion has shifted from incremental to exponential, with each month corroborating institutional decay. Protests have coalesced nationwide, security forces are deployed against civilian demonstrators with unprecedented frequency, and state coercion is weaponized against political adversaries with impunity. India’s democratic facade is crumbling under Hindutva-driven authoritarianism and crony capitalism. The veneer of electoral and constitutional propriety is stripped away, revealing a regime that pays lip service to democratic norms while dismantling institutional guardrails. The nexus between........

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