If ever there was an award for political gymnastics, Nitish Kumar would undoubtedly be in line for gold with Chandrababu Naidu competing for a podium finish. From being staunch adversaries of Narendra Modi to faithful allies, the transformation in the two chief ministers is almost complete. The manner in which the Janata Dal (United) and the Telugu Desam lined up behind the Waqf Amendment Bill in parliament is only further evidence of how quickly the dice has turned in the last ten months. From being in a position to call the shots in June 2024 after a hung parliament verdict, both Nitish and Naidu have now quietly accepted the BJP’s dominant position.
Nitish’s switch is unarguably the most graphic example of the de-ideologisation of politics in the quest for personal survival. It was, after all, the Bihar chief minister who had raised the flag of revolt against Narendra Modi when the latter was first anointed as the BJP’s prime ministerial face in 2013. Withdrawing from the NDA, the aim was to position himself as a secular bulwark against a ‘communal’ force, an apparently ideological and individual conflict that had simmered from the 2002 Gujarat riots. When Modi refused to wear a skull cap during a ‘Sadbhavana yatra’ in 2013, Nitish was quick to strike back by claiming that ‘to run the country, you have to take everyone along… at times you will have to wear a topi (cap), at times a tilak (vermillion mark on forehard)’. It was the Bihar chief minister’s way of defining his version of ‘soft’ political secularism and contrasting it with the Modi brand of muscular Hindutva.
Twelve years later, it is apparent that the battle of contrasts has only winner. The Nitish Kumar who was propped up as challenger number one and the architect of an anti-BJP ‘India’ alliance just two years ago is today a vassal in the Modi durbar. His declining personal health – a grim reality that can no longer be hidden from public gaze – has only rendered him even more helpless to offer a semblance of a counter to the Modi juggernaut. His supporters may claim that their leader remains committed to Muslim welfare but this appears increasingly like lip-service being paid to a constituency that has slowly been marginalised from the JD(U)’s political playbook.
For the BJP, Nitish Kumar is a useful mascot who is needed to shore up their wider base ahead of the November Bihar elections. Post the elections, new alignments and fresh leadership possibilities are likely to emerge.
Chandrababu Naidu’s is a slightly more tricky case study. He presides over a state where the BJP is not a major stakeholder and he possesses the administrative acumen and political experience to remain in power in Andhra Pradesh without being dependent on the BJP’s munificence. And yet, this is the same leader who had raged against Modi in the 2019 election campaign, even calling the prime minister a ‘terrorist’. Naidu’s politics has always revolved around having a transactional relationship with the Centre: He was after all the prop who held up both, the United Front government and the Vajpayee-led NDA in a previous coalition era. Now, as chief minister, he has struck a similar ‘deal’ with the Centre: Seeking maximum financial benefit for a cash-strapped Andhra Pradesh, while also standing firmly with the Centre on contentious legislation.
In a sense, both Nitish and Naidu have made political survival an art form, one where a suitable elasticity in approach ensures longevity in power. Their political choices place a troubling question mark over the secular-communal divide that has underpinned contemporary politics and only exposes the underlying hypocrisies of a political system where conviction is replaced by convenience. Their selective viewpoints reaffirm a political truism: ‘Where you stand on an issue depends on where you sit’. In the process, secular constitutional values have been steadily hollowed out.
Is a Nitish Kumar ‘secular’ when he stands with the INDIA bloc and does he turn communal only when he switches to the BJP? Ditto the case with a Naidu. What we are left with are only different shades of opportunistic ‘secular’ politics, all of whom can make their peace with communalists of all hues when required.
The Congress perfected the art of running with the secular hare and hunting with the communal hound, one day bowing before Muslim communalists in the Shahbano case, the next day cosying up to Hindutva flag-bearers while opening the gates of the Babri Masjid. The socialists and the wider Janata parivar, driven by fierce anti-Congressism, also played footloose with secular politics, aligning with the BJP when necessary to keep the Congress out. Regional parties like the Trinamool Congress and the DMK have also aligned with BJP-led governments in the past, if only to share power at the Centre. Only the Left parties have called out communal politics without demur but the Left has shrunk into political irrelevance and hence can scarcely challenge dominant narratives.
This leaves a Modi-led BJP in a seemingly unassailable position. A party without a single Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha can claim that it is now a champion of ‘reforming’ Islamic practices, ending ‘appeasment’ and standing by the interests of ‘poor’ Muslims when all it is really doing is only consolidating a Hindutva majoritarian world view that looks at all other religions with suspicion and often unalloyed hatred.
Nitish and Naidu supporters will claim that their leaders did push to ensure important amendments in the Waqf Act that addressed concerns of those who feared the bill was being bulldozed through but the fundamental constitutional issue of freedom of religion has been severely undermined by the new law.
Post-script: I was the first to interview Nitish Kumar when he left the NDA in 2013. When I asked him why he’d made the move, his instant response was: ‘I can’t work with a ‘tanashah’ (dictator).’ I wonder how the same Nitish Kumar would explain his pitiful situation today.
(Rajdeep Sardesai is
a senior journalist and author.)
