Salvatore Babones is a quantitative comparative sociologist whose current research focuses on the political sociology of democracy. He recently hit the headlines in India because of an article he published in the Quadrant Magazine, titled ‘Indian Democracy at 75; Who are the barbarians at the gates?’

I was immediately fascinated, because I’ve long been fascinated by India’s rise to major power status, and I’ve seen many claims of Western anti-Indian bias made by Indians of all political stripes. In his Quadrant Magazine article, Salvatore appears to have caught major Western democracy ratings agencies red handed, as he forensically analyses their claims that Indian democracy is in some form of terminal decline, and demonstrates with facts just how absurd most of those claims are.

But then, just as it seems we finally have a clear-cut case of devious Western elites engaging in what Indian intellectuals often claim is a ‘colonial mindset’, Salvatore turns the whole thing around and says that it’s not actually Westerners who are primarily to blame for this, but those Indian intellectuals themselves.

So how does that happen? And is there really such a thing as anti-India bias in major Western institutions? Listen and find out what the man himself has to say.