Recent years have marked the beginning of what historian Ramachandra Guha termed the midlife crisis of Indian democracy, beginning three decades after the country gained independence from British colonial rule. Defined by two pivotal events—the declaration of the Emergency with the ensuing suspension of constitutional rights in 1975, and the 1998 nuclear tests in Pokhran—the period was characterized by increasing corruption and erosion within India’s political institutions, economic liberalization, and a growing private sector, as well as the rise of a robust civil society.