Professor Nalin Mehta is an Indian political scientist, journalist and writer - serving as Managing Editor of Moneycontrol since December, 2023 https://www.afaqs.com/people-spotting/nalin-mehta-assumes-the-role-of-managing-editor-at-moneycontrol, https://mediabrief.com/nalin-mehta-joins-moneycontrol-as-managing-editor/ as well as Chief AI Officer at Network 18 since May, 2025.https://www.exchange4media.com/people-movement-news/network18-appoints-nalin-mehta-as-chief-ai-officer-142756.html, https://www.afaqs.com/news/media/inside-network18s-ai-push-where-journalism-meets-the-machine-9346682, https://mediabrief.com/nalin-mehta-to-pilot-ai-across-network18-brands/
He is the author of notable books on Indian political economy, technology and sport history. These include The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World's Largest Political Party Sheela Bhatt, 'Elections 2022: ‘If BJP loses UP, India’s opposition will be galvanised,’ Gulf News, March 4, 2022, https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/elections-2022-if-bjp-loses-up-indias-opposition-will-be-galvaniseAd-1.86159866 which has been called a "seminal", non-partisan revisionist account of the rise of the BJP in India.Power Play: An ambitious treatise on the BJP, The Hindu Business Line https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/books/reviews/General/power-play-an-ambitious-treatise-on-the-bjp/article64909925.eceThe Rise of a Formidable Political Force, The New Indian Express https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/2022/Feb/05/rise-of-a-formidable-political-force-2414999.htmlFrom Rich Data to Dispassionate Analysis: Nalin Mehta's New BJP is a Work of Empirical Ambition, NewsLaundry https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/03/19/from-rich-data-to-dispassionate-analysis-nalin-mehtas-the-new-bjp-is-a-work-of-empirical-ambition Some of the world's leading scholars on India have called it a "classic",Robin Jeffrey: The New BJP is a Classic https://nalinmehta.in/headline-the-new-bjp-is-a-classic-prof-robin-jeffrey/ praising it as an "indispensable" and "masterful account" of the rise of the BJP.See comments by Professor Mahesh Rangarajan, Chair, Ashoka Archives of Contemporary India, Ashoka University, and former Vice Chancellor, Krea University; Professor Robin Jeffrey, Visiting Research Professor, National University of Singapore; Emeritus Professor, Australian National University, Canberra & La Trobe University, Melbourne; Professor Assa Doron, Professor of Anthropology and South Asia, Founding Director, South Asia Centre, Australian National University, Canberra; Professor Shubhashis Gangopadhyay, Dean, Indian School of Public Policy; Visiting Professor, University of Gothenberg, Sweden; Visiting Professor, University of Groningen, Netherlands; Rohit Saran, Chief Editor, Times Internet; Jai Mrug, psephologist and Director, VotersMood Research; CEO, M76 Analytics; .M. Veeraraghav, Executive Editor, NDTV; Sukumar Ranganathan, Editor, The Hindustan Times; Erik Solheim, Former Under Secretary General, United Nations, former Executive Director, UN Environment Program, and ex-Minister for International Development, Norway; Prof. N. Bhaskar Rao, Founder, Centre for Media Studies; Rahul Jaimini, Co-Founder, Swiggy; Ashutosh, Founder, Satya Hindi News; Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor, Hindustan Times; RK Radhakrishnan, Senior Associate Editor, Frontline; Saba Naqvi; Narayani Basu, The Indian Express; Andy Mukherjee, Bloomberg; novelist Ashwin Sanghi; novelist Ravi Subramanian. Reproduced in 'Praise for The New BJP https://nalinmehta.in/books/the-new-bjp/ Also see CP Surendran, 'The new BJP is the old Congress — with teeth and claw, plus data, 'The Federal,' January 16, 2022, https://thefederal.com/opinion/the-new-bjp-is-the-old-congress-with-teeth-and-claw-plus-data
As per the New York Times, 'The New BJP' showed how Modi and BJP's growth after 2014 resulted from an expansion of the party's traditional power base beyond Hindu nationalism to new voters - across caste, class and gender. Much of this was because of targeted and "direct digital welfare payments," the wooing of previously marginalised caste groups and meshing of technology with politics.Mujib Mashal, 'Modi’s Power Keeps Growing, and India Looks Sure to Give Him More,' April 19, 2024, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/world/asia/modi-india-election.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&login=google&auth=login-google A significant part of this growth was due to the creation of "a new kind of welfare state," as the Wall Street Journal noted.Tripti Lahiri and Vibhuti Agarwal, 'A Billion Indians Are About to Vote. Many Think They Already Know the Result,' Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/world/india/a-billion-indians-are-about-to-vote-many-think-they-already-know-the-result-1eb7848e
Mehta's book shows how the party overtook the Chinese Communist Party as the world's largest political organisation by broadening its appeal beyond its erstwhile small base of city-based upper-caste voters through welfare programmes, the creation of a new class of 'labharthees' (benefeciaries) and outreach to women.Mathew Wade, BJP v CCP: The rise of the world’s biggest political party, Sydney Morning Herald, October 16, 2022, https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/bjp-v-ccp-the-rise-of-the-world-s-biggest-political-party-20220916-p5bise.html
The book ignited a major debate on Indian politics and caste - with new caste data in the book challenging and disproving caste data and research by the French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot, the Belgian scholar Giles Verniers and Ashoka University's Trivedi Centre for Political Data.Arun Anand, 'Uttar Pradesh’s caste conundrum: Why political pundits are getting it wrong', First Post, 8 February 2022, See https://www.firstpost.com/politics/right-word-uttar-pradeshs-caste-conundrum-why-political-pundits-are-getting-it-wrong-10345591.html. For more on this debate, see the public debate on this that unfolded in the pages of The Hindustan Times and News18 by the concerned scholars. Initially, two articles by Nalin Mehta, How BJP Went Beyond its Upper Caste Bastion, The Hindustan Times, 18 December 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/how-the-bjp-went-beyond-its-upper-caste-bastion-101639836314431.html and 'Nalin Mehta Writes: How BJP won the UP Caste Game and Why Scholars got it Wrong.' News 18, 8 January 2022, https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/how-bjp-won-uttar-pradesh-caste-game-why-scholars-got-it-wrong-4635008.html Christophe Jaffrelot and Giles Verniers responded to Mehta's critique with a riposte, Christophe Jaffrelot and Gilles Verniers Write: BJP and Caste is Like Old Wine in New Bottle,' 21 January 2022, https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/christophe-jaffrelot-gilles-verniers-write-bjp-and-caste-is-like-old-wine-in-new-bottle-4677629.html Finally, see Nalin Mehta's counter-response to Jaffrelot and Verniers: 'Nalin Mehta Writes: 5 Reasons Christophe Jaffrelot and Ashoka University Data on BJP, Caste Are Wrong', 24 January 2022, https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/nalin-mehta-writes-5-reasons-why-christophe-jaffrelot-and-ashoka-university-data-on-bjp-caste-are-wrong-4691753.html About a year after the new caste data - collated in The New BJP's Mehta-Singh Index - pointed out significant flaws in the Trivedi Centre's data, Ashoka University closed it as an entity. It merged the Centre with another body even as Trivedi Centre's scientific board wrote an open letter of protest claiming that its director, Verniers was 'forced out'.The Wire Staff, 'Ashoka University 'Breached Academic Norms', 'Forced Out' Gilles Verniers: Trivedi Centre Board,' 12 September 2023, https://thewire.in/education/ashoka-university-trivedi-centre-gilles-verniers
Books
Mehta's books on tech include 'India’s Techade: Digital Revolution and Change in the World's Largest Democracy' which, according to The New Yorker, argues that India's digital revolution is “unlike any that came before,” went “viral on a scale that is unprecedented” and that India’s digital stack "may ultimately shape the future of the Internet far more significantly than the efforts of Western regulators."Akash Kapur, 'Can the Internet Be Governed?' The New Yorker, January 29, 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/05/can-the-internet-be-governed See also, ISAS, NUS, 23 August 2023, https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/books/indias-techade-digital-revolution-and-change-in-the-worlds-largest-democracy/, Karizma Ahmad, 'Top ministers talk India’s ‘techade’ at Delhi book launch — UPI to e-governance,' The Print, September 11, 2023, https://theprint.in/feature/around-town/top-ministers-talk-indias-techade-at-delhi-book-launch-upi-to-e-governance/1755665/, Ajit Balakrishnan, 'A Make in India Achievement,' Business Standard, 19 September 2023, https://www.business-standard.com/book/a-make-in-india-achievement-123091901281_1.html
His earlier book, 'Behind a Billion Screens: What Television Tells Us About Modern India', was long-listed for Business Book of the Year by Tata Literary Live 2015 https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/non_resident_senior/nalin-mehta/ and a national non-fiction bestseller.Manu Joseph, 'Television That Few Want to Watch,' The New York Times, 13 May 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/world/asia/television-that-few-want-to-watch.html Also see Roshni Sengupta, 'Assessing the Indian TV Juggernaut,' Book Review, July 2015, Vol. 39, No. 7, https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/assessing-the-indian-tv-juggernaut/; Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, 'What News Television Tells Us About Itself, Business Standard, Jun 2, 2015, https://www.business-standard.com/amp/article/opinion/what-news-television-tells-us-about-itself-115060201728_1.html and Shailaja Bajpai, 'What Ails TV? The Nation Wants to Know Much More,' The Indian Express, March 6, 2016, https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/whats-ails-tv-the-nation-wants-to-know-much-more/
Mehta's first book India on Television was widely acclaimed as a seminal, "impeccably researched"; Madhushee Chatterjee, 'A tale of how television changed India,' The Hindustan Times, August 2, 2008, https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/a-tale-of-how-television-changed-india/story-KW2q2umU3ageTMQXtFIDJI.html and "authoritative scholarly study" of the politics and business of television in India,Financial Express, 7 Sep. 2008 and won the Asian Publishing Award for Best Book in 2009.' https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/a-busy-year-for-indian-literature-in-09-110011200174_1.html
JioStar Vice Chairman and former Star India CEO Uday Shankar has called Mehta "probably the best media academic in India"Faculty in spotlight: profile on Nalin Mehta's Behind a Billion Screens published by Shiv Nadar University and the media guru Robin Jeffrey has described his work as "remarkable for being both a distinguished academic and an experienced journalist".
On sports history, he has co-authored 'Dreams of a Billion' (Ekamra Sports Book of the Year 2022), 'Olympics: The India Story', 'Sellotape Legacy' and 'The Changing Face of Cricket' (co-ed). A social history of Indian sport, Olympics: The India Story, was welcomed as a "pioneering, long-awaited"K. Arumugam, "Olympics: The India Story", "The Hindustan Times", 4 August 2008 work of history in the press and as a "triumph of Olympian proportions". India's most well-known sociologist Ashis Nandy called it "the first comprehensive, scholarly and yet lively account of India's experiences with the Olympics".Ashis Nandy, quoted on the back cover of Olympics: The India Story. New Delhi, HarperCollins, 2012, 3rd edition