Political Line newsletter: Allies turn more saffron than BJP; DMK turns to Lord Murugan

(This is the latest edition of the Political Line newsletter curated by Varghese K. George. The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week. You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox.)

Provincial political interest groups represented by regional and caste parties resist national parties, both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. The outcome of the 2024 Lok Sabha election turned out to be a speed breaker for the BJP — or at least that is how it came to be interpreted. But has it interrupted the homogenisation push of the BJP particularly, and nationalist politics in general? I am working on a piece on that question, and hope to write that soon, but meanwhile, here is a teaser. Readers of the Political Line are most welcome to share their thoughts on some of these recent developments, and how all this ties in with the politics of the BJP.

In Andhra Pradesh, BJP ally and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader N. Chandrababu Naidu has opened a war front against his arch-rival and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on the question of faith. Mr. Reddy is a Christian. Though corruption allegations are not new for him, this time, the allegations are laced with questions of faith. Chief Minister Naidu has said the laddu at the Tirupati shrine during his predecessor’s reign was adulterated with animal fat. Mr. Reddy is scurrying for cover, and Mr. Naidu is the new protector of Hindu sentiments more than that of the public money.

Mr. Naidu’s alliance partner in Andhra Pradesh, Jana Sena Party (JSP) president K. Pawan Kalyan, has gone a step further. Mr. Kalyan has emerged as a new force in the State, with the JSP winning all 21 seats it contested in the Assembly election earlier this year. Keeping his earlier positioning as a leader of the Kappu caste, which was not central to the TDP or the YSRCP, Mr. Kalyan is now fashioning himself as the advocate of Sanatana Dharma across the country. The JSP chief used to visit churches and mosques, and publicised his pictures with Christians and Muslims. All that has changed.

That is the story of the two Andhra partners of the BJP. Meanwhile, the heartland partner of the BJP, Janata Dal (United) chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has called for more facilities for pilgrims from the State to visit Ayodhya. 

Remember, Mr. Kumar and Mr. Naidu, whose support is essential for the survival of the BJP government at the Centre, were expected to restrain it. As it turns out, both are seeking the help of the BJP to buttress their own credentials.

Let us turn to the Janata Dal (Secular) in southern Karnataka — where the party’s support base of Vokkaligas has been raided by the BJP in recent years. The JD(S) has come to the conclusion that joining hands with the BJP would be more gainful than fighting it. JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy is literally wrapping himself in saffron these days, as the Mandya region gets increasingly polarised on religious lines. 

But what takes the cake — or the laddu as the case may be — is the massive outreach of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu towards Hindus. The party that is celebrating its 75th anniversary has turned to Lord Murugan, a local god that was repurposed as a Vedic god as son of Lord Shiva. At one level, this is an attempt at countering the anti-Hindu image of the party — which is actually baseless as most of its leaders are open worshippers. Whether this move is meant to counter the expansion of the BJP into the Dravidian land or an attempt to make peace with the BJP remains to be seen. You might find interesting this video by D.S. Suresh Kumar or this piece by B. Kolappan — my colleagues who have deep insights into Dravidian politics. Some partners of the DMK in Tamil Nadu are uneasy, but they too realise that at least as a tactical manoeuvring, this Hindu turn is unavoidable.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi has said secularism is alien to India. 

Federalism Tract- Notes on Indian Diversity

Lessons from Sri Lankan poll

The recent presidential election in Sri Lanka is important for many reasons, but PL is interested in one aspect of it — the role, or the lack of it, of the Tamil minority in the politics of the country. The winner in the election, Anura Dissanayake, the new President of the country, got a tiny proportion of the Tamil votes compared to his rivals. When the contest can be won by consolidation of the majority voters, in this instance, the Sinhala population, minority communities lose their political influence. This time, Tamils were struggling to find a coherent political position that could help them gain some say in the running of the country, but little of that appears to have been achieved. My colleague Meera Srinivasan’s reporting from the island nation throws light on the dynamics of Sri Lanka like few others can. 

Tamils are not a monolith in Sri Lanka. The Tamils in the north, where they are a majority, are an organic extension of the people in peninsular India over centuries. As “Sri Lankan Tamils”, they have been considered native to the island for a long time now. On the other hand, Tamils in the central and southern hill country are descendants of relatively recent south Indian ancestors brought in by British colonisers to work in rubber and tea plantations.

There is a religious segmentation also among Tamils. Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking Muslims, who identify as a separate ethnoreligious group, along with the two groups of Tamils, make up the island’s ethnic minority communities.

This irrelevance of minority populations is a threat to meaningful democracy, and electoral systems can address this to a great extent. India is also facing a similar crisis — for instance, the ruling BJP wins most of its seats among Hindi-speaking Hindus. As per the existing electoral system of India, Malayalis, Tamils, or Kashmiris have little say in the running of the country. And this anomaly is set to aggravate in the coming decade, as the new delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies shift more political power from peninsular India to regions above the Vindhyas.

English Vinglish

While the Hindu identity politics of the BJP may be increasingly acceptable to people, its Hindi push may cause more reaction. People in the Hindi-speaking regions themselves are more favourable towards English today than they were decades ago. English remains the language of ambition and mobility in India, and the BJP may not be getting its politics correct on this topic. See this pieceon the relevance of English

Democracy makes rulers accountable to the ruled, the people. This is a complicated process, which is vilified by efficiency extremists. All over the world, there is an argument that democracy and elections are somehow stalling the progress of humanity. How about the idea that only that progress that is acceptable to the maximum number of people is worth having? The efficiency and cost arguments put forward in favour of simultaneous elections at all levels across the country are examined in this article.

What is damaging democracy in India and all around the world is extreme competition in elections, not elections per se. Elections have become a gladiator sport in which the opponent’s political extermination is sought; the opponent is labelled anti-national and their politics criminalised. Elections should ideally become a routine affair to entrust a set of people with governance, and not a constant battle for identity and existence of the community.