Through this book, I attempt to show—through real-life examples, characters and data—how a small set of such elites use the legitimate arms of the state to destabilise a large democracy of hundreds of millions of people.


How do they achieve this, especially, as is the case in India, when the military is not an active participant in it? And when every government servant is sworn to uphold the Constitution, rather than follow the diktats of an individual? This is where the non-military arm of the security establishment comes into play. The state’s police forces, intelligence agencies, federal investigation agencies, tax departments and the like become the tools of the ruling elite. These agencies are empowered by labyrinthine laws, many of which were thoughtlessly passed by the political executive in a knee-jerk reaction to major historical developments, to make it easier for the authorities to haunt and harass their adversary of the moment, or indeed to deal with a real threat.