For over a century, no social organisation has worked as relentlessly to instil liberty, equality or fraternity as the RSS has to propagate myth, superstition and hierarchy. The opposition has largely abandoned challenging the Sangh on the ideological terrain, fearing the charge

Politicians who dared to highlight the regressive nature of Hindu scriptures—such as the former Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya or the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Chandra Shekhar, a former education minister of Bihar—have been swiftly marginalised. This, too, is a testament

Prem Birhade, a young Dalit who recently graduated from the prestigious University of Sussex, was forced to forfeit a hard-earned employment opportunity at Heathrow Airport in London. The reason? His former college, Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce in Pune, refused

Golwalkar laid out the broader strategy: volunteers, when they go to “villages and far-off forests,” narrate stories of Ram and Krishna, invoke saints and heroes, and tie local geography and language to epic lore. This is now a visible state policy in BJP-ruled states. Uttar

Golwalkar laid out the broader strategy: volunteers, when they go to “villages and far-off forests,” narrate stories of Ram and Krishna, invoke saints and heroes, and tie local geography and language to epic lore. This is now a visible state policy in BJP-ruled states.

Festivals are weaponised. For this “medium of mass awakening,” Golwalkar prescribed five in particular: the Hindu new year to mark “the victory of the resurgent Hindu power over the eight-hundred-year-old oppressive rule of Muslims”; Guru Purnima, to worship the saffron flag;

Yashwant Shinde, a former RSS functionary, told me, in 2022, that on his first posting as a pracharak in Jammu in the 1990s, his job consisted of gathering intelligence and informing the authorities about things that they believed were anti-national. In a court affidavit, he

The Special Intensive Revision exercise by the Election Commission will affect millions of voters. Opposition parties and civil society activists have criticised the process, calling it arbitrary and accusing the Commission of acting at the behest of the BJP-led central

#BiharSIR | Noor Hasan, an elderly resident, noted that Majgawan was located in a low-lying area. “The whole village was submerged in the flood that came in 2017,” he said. “Our homes were inundated. We don’t know where our documents got washed away.” Since most villagers were

Archives | During the SIR, BJP leaders have often been targeting Bihari Muslim voters as Bangladeshis. At Majgawan, Noor Hasan said that such accusations were “only the government’s way of thinking. There is no Bangladeshi here. If the government can come up with a new scheme, it

In the RSS conception, the individual is bound by dharma, which assigns social rank according to the class into which one is born—essentially, a rigid caste society sanctified by scripture. And so, as Bhagwat said, for the RSS, apart from these unchanging ideas, “there is a

Archives | Modi's accusation that the caste survey would “divide Hindus” does not hold water either. If used in distributing state benefits, the survey will only increase the share of OBCs, SCs, STs and the EWS. All these categories include Hindus. Read the entire commentary by

Archives | The most vocal support for the SIR came from the BJP. During a brief assembly discussion on the exercise, on 24 July, Nitish remained silent. Samrat Choudhary, one of the two deputy chief ministers from the BJP, heckled Tejashwi during the opposition leader’s speech,

Musical Chairs: The many betrayals of Nitish Kumar Sagar writes: caravanmagazine.in/politics/many-… #NitishKumar

Cover Story | In a press conference after an acrimonious split in 2017, Lalu called Nitish “Paltu Ram”—turncoat. He invoked a rural proverb about a maiden who sees how well the pantry is stocked before deciding to marry into a house. “Everyone knows that, in your political

“I hope Narendra Modi won’t be confined to Gujarat for long, and the nation will get his services,” Nitish said in December 2003. In June 2013, a week after the BJP’s national executive chose Modi to lead its campaign at the next general election, Nitish broke the alliance.

Cover Story | The political consultant Prashant Kishor, who was vice-president of the JD(U) between October 2018 and January 2020 before starting the Jan Suraaj party, said during a 2024 press conference that Nitish “has lost his morality and is only interested in securing the

Nitish was railways minister when a coach on the Sabarmati Express was set ablaze at Godhra, in Gujarat, killing 59 people. A citizens’ tribunal described his conduct in the aftermath of the arson as “shocking,” citing his failure “to survey the situation for himself and to order

The JD(U) voted for, and Nitish praised, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which excluded Muslims from a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants from neighbouring countries. When Kishor and the party’s general secretary, Pavan Verma, opposed the legislation, Nitish had

The JD(U) appears to have set aside its secularism. “The truth is that no matter how much development is done for the minorities, they never vote in our favour,” Lalan Singh, the union minister of Panchayati Raj, told party workers at Muzaffarpur, in November 2024. In August