BJP’s push to bridge the North-South gap

From the sun-kissed beaches of Lakshadweep to temple-hopping across Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, is it any coincidence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made four extended visits in the last two months to southern Indian states? While the PM’s claim that the BJP would win double-digit seats in Kerala can be dismissed as election bluster, there is a clear attempt to increase vote share by occupying an Opposition space outside of the traditional Left-Congress bipolar fight. When, for example, DMK chief minister MK Stalin’s son and minister Udhayanidhi Stalin triggered a row with his controversial remarks calling for an eradication of Sanatana Dharma, he was not just seeking to consolidate his own vote base but also pitting a non-Brahminical Dravidian identity as a counterpoint to the BJP’s Hindutva appeal. In the Dravidian political formulation, the BJP’s brand of politics represents an upper-caste Brahminical Hinduism wherein notions of social justice and equality lose out to rigidly hierarchical caste divides. Most importantly, a political breakthrough for the BJP across southern India requires a sincere commitment to the federal spirit rather than an imperious Delhi mindset which seeks the centralisation of power.