De-Democratisation. Interview with Kavita Krishnan – 23 October 2026

Kavita Krishnan is a writer, activist and feminist who has been involved in India’s Left politics, feminist movements and democratic-rights movements for several decades. In her new book, ‘De-democratisation, A Global Story: Script, Actors and Enablers’ (Context, July 2026), she argues that the erosion of democracy is part of a global project that cuts across the familiar “West vs Rest” divide. Looking at political movements and regimes in India and around the world, she traces the shared ideas and strategies behind this de-democratisation – and challenges the Left’s tendency to see democracy, human rights and international law as Western impositions rather than principles shaped by anti-colonial, feminist and popular struggles.

In this episode of the Southasia Review of Books podcast, Himal’s associate editor Shwetha Srikanthan speaks to Krishnan about the Indian Left’s geopolitical blind spots and the emergence of a new authoritarian consensus across the world. They discuss the limits of multipolarity as an alternative to US hegemony, the contradictions of defending democratic rights at home while overlooking struggles elsewhere, and what it would mean to reclaim universal rights in an increasingly de-democratising world.

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