Thread by @TheEmissaryCo

Indian Politics as the Ultimate Game of Thrones 🧵

The Transformation of the BJP into India's Big Tent Party

I’ve written much about modern Indian politics, and I don’t think I’ve encapsulated it better than this:

“There is nothing that quite mimics the bloodsport and realpolitik of Game of Thrones like Indian politics. Hereditary houses and regional satraps are now collapsing as a dragon-bellied leviathan engulfs India in an unending fire. From the ashes of the old guard spawn new elites eager to stamp themselves into the saga of the saffron march. A peerless leader of ordinary origin puts storied royalty to the sword as internal rivals are bashed by his hilt and banished to the hills.”

Like Indira Gandhi before him, Modi has become the nucleus of Indian politics. The BJP has become the most potent political machine on the planet under the helm of Narendra Modi and his trusted lieutenant, Amit Shah.

Term 2 of the NDA began with a bang, three to be precise.

Since independence, Kashmir had a temporary law that enabled it more autonomy than most other Indian states. Combine this with the latent supremacist and secessionist sentiments mentioned earlier, and the state has always gone through fits of rebellion as a result.

The government abruptly removed this act, Article 370, as well as removing the statehood of the province of Jammu and Kashmir.

Terrorism has plummeted since then with a trickle of Indians from other states moving in, something not allowed prior.

As critics raged against this decision, the BJP would celebrate another controversial and emphatic victory via the Supreme Court.

Over a century in the making, the Supreme Court gave a unanimous decision in favor of establishing a temple on Ram’s birthplace in Ayodhya while allocating funds for a mosque elsewhere.

The fulfillment of this bloody struggle was jubilation for many Hindus and etched Modi not just into the Indian Republic’s history, but into Indian civilization’s history. Finally, the BJP would pass a law called the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December.

This law essentially granted accelerated citizenship for non-Muslim refugees of several South Asian countries. It would be twinned with another law called the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was essentially a citizenship confirmation exercise.

Both were innocent on their own, but combined they stoked fears of Indian Muslim citizens being disenfranchised of their voting and citizenship rights.

Indian Muslims had enough and began large-scale protests across India, which soon went awry into riots.

The CAA would be delayed and the NRC shelved. What appeared to be a tactical victory for Indian Muslims transformed into a strategic catastrophe.

Hindus viewed these riots not as a fight for rights but an assertion of supremacy and petulance that stopped a humanitarian law aimed at some of the most oppressed people on the planet.

CAA was seen as addressing one of the errors of the partition, leaving non-Muslims to the wolves in these Islamic states, something even the godfather of secularism, Nehru, acknowledged as a grave wrongdoing.

The pulverization of non-Muslims in these states and apartheid-like laws were well observed as the internet penetrated Indian eyes.

The alienation of Indian Muslims has accelerated greatly since.

This alienation has been a long arc.

The BJP’s Hindutva is greatly dependent on the othering of Muslims, which aids in blurring caste identities and emphasizing a Hindu unity. The rhetoric is powerful because the history and present is damning.

Almost every ancient temple in the northern half of the Indian subcontinent has been either destroyed or defaced by Islamic invaders.

Wounds of the partition are still fairly fresh and contemporary troubles between Hindus and Muslims are a regularity.

Double standards such as how the government interferes regularly in Hindu institutions but leaves other religions alone, the lack of uniform civil laws, or societal issues such as a recent spat of beheadings conducted by Islamists due to perceived insults to the Prophet only exacerbate this fissure.

This is all without mentioning the aggression that arises from the Hindu side as well as notions of Hindu identity comes to the forefront.

While recent Pew data polls indicate a large majority of Indian Muslims are proud Indians and feel free to exercise their faith, one cannot help but notice the vitiated atmosphere of communal relations in India as social media illuminates inter-religious tensions never before witnessed by most.

Hindutva is an ascendant ideology.

As India urbanizes and becomes more cosmopolitan, parochial identities such as caste and region experience the pressure of modernity. Indians are mixing.

The infrastructure explosion has enabled more commerce and travel across the country. An overarching Hindu identity, one where a Gujarati can take pride in the achievements of Tamil kings, Bengali saints, and Telugu scholars, is a paramount interest for the BJP.

Every time caste conflict erupts, a Hindu ceases their Hinduness and falls back into being a Rajput, Ramgarhia, Ror, or various other caste identities.

The BJP must balance caste interests in the short-term while grinding against the idea of caste in the long-term. This is a very difficult endeavor considering how deeply caste is embedded in the minds of Hindus.

One very under-discussed evolution of their ideology is the co-opting of lower caste icons into the Hindutva fold.

The BJP was for so long known as the Brahmin-Baniya party, the party of successful upper castes. Now the BJP reaches out frenetically to lower-castes leading to large electoral success.

Icons such as BR Ambedkar, the Phules, and various others had led to an almost fanatic zeal towards them from the BJP. This is despite many of these icons having dismal views of Hinduism at large.

This is a delicate game. For too much outreach and caste-based doles could easily anger other castes as accusations of unfairness and appeasement abound.