India's two poles

'It is quite trivially true that the BJP dominates the political sphere in much of India the way the Congress once did', says the author

The emerging contours of Indian politics have been clear for some time, but are even clearer after the elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. It is often argued that the Bharatiya Janata Party is “the new Congress”, but not always with any clear understanding of what that means, and why. It is quite trivially true that the BJP dominates the political sphere in much of India the way the Congress once did. It is also self evidently true that in many states where the Congress provided the principal opposition to a regional party, such as Bengal or Odisha, that role has