Over the past few weeks, protests have erupted across India, in perhaps the most extensive challenge to the Modi government since it came to power in 2014. The state has responded with brutal force, as dozens have now died in police violence aimed at protesters. The spark for the protests was the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, pushed through the Indian legislature by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The act introduces discriminatory religious qualifications into citizenship laws.

Achin Vanaik has been involved in the protests in Delhi, and has been writing about both the Indian right and the Indian left for decades. Thomas Crowley spoke to Vanaik for Jacobin.