‘Gujarat was the laboratory for today’s India,’ says Prof. Christophe Jaffrelot
When Christophe Jaffrelot, French political scientist and Indologist, submitted the manuscript of his new book, Gujarat Under Modi, in 2013, he was asked to delete so many passages he decided not to go ahead with it. He had done intense ground research, and held on to the book, replete with insights into the rise of Narendra Modi from Gujarat to New Delhi, till it could reach readers in 2024. “Gujarat was the blueprint for post-2014 India,” he says in an interview with The Hindu. Edited excerpts:
Survivors look at the photographs of Godhra riots victims, in Ahmedabad.
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Reuters
You call ‘Gujarat Under Modi’ a “political biography of an Indian state through the personality and actions of its most resilient ruler.” Is resilience the word to describe Modi today?I used this wo...