The flames leapt quickly in the dry April heat of southern India, where Tamil Nadu’s chief minister MK Stalin stood before a crowd dressed in black, holding a copy of a government bill and a lighter. The so-called “black law”, which would expand the size of India’s lower house of parliament from 543 seats to as many as 850, curled into ash as party workers chanted slogans against the federal government.
The protest wasn’t just political theatre. It marked the opening salvo in what could become one of the most consequential political battles in India in decades – a fight over representation, power and the very architecture of the world’s largest democracy.
