Read of the Week (March 24 to March 30)

The world’s largest democracy is facing the greatest challenge since the end of British colonial rule in 1947.

The Incarcerations pulls back the curtain on Indian democracy to tell the remarkable and chilling story of the Bhima Koregaon case, in which 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16) — professors, lawyers, journalists, and poets — were imprisoned, without credible evidence and trial, as Maoist terrorists.

Alpa Shah unravels how these alleged terrorists were charged with inciting violence at a commemoration in 2018, accused of waging a war against the Indian state and plotting to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Expertly leading us through the case, Shah exposes some of the world’s most shocking revelations of cyber warfare research, which show not only the hacking of emails and mobile phones of the BK-16 but also the implantation of the electronic evidence that was used to incarcerate them.

Essential and urgent, The Incarcerations reveals how this case is a bellwether for the collapse of democracy in India. In so doing, Shah shows that democracy today must be not only about protecting the freedom of expression and democratic institutions but also about supporting and safeguarding the social movements that question our global inequalities.