Editorial: Susceptible South

South-side analysts underestimate the resources, reach and acumen of the Hindutva right when they argue that the peninsula is an impregnable bastion to the BJP. This complacent proposition is based on historic as well as contemporary facts but it is susceptible to one frailty: As a global phenomenon, the loony right, aided by social media and Big Data, has managed to overcome conventional cultural and political barriers in many countries and in much of India. So, the case for southern India as an exceptional and insuperable frontier needs to be tempered a bit.

Through social osmosis or missionary zeal, influences from the north have constantly blown down to the south and imperial generals down the ages did manage to secure footholds in the South, notably Malik Kafur in the Deccan Plateau and the Marathas in Thanjavur. Modi bhakts would be loath to any comparison with Aurangzeb, but they shared, apart from an austere temper, the burning desire to win the South. The great Mughal did finally take the Deccan—through bribery and deceit when seduction did not work— although it took him a quarter of a century. Modi has been rebuffed so far for 10 years, but his team of Chanakyan talents have the time and the bitter poisons to get the job done.

The BJP is playing the long game in the South and is not likely to be discouraged by its paltry gains so far. In 2019, it won only 29 seats out of the 129 on offer, including 25 in Karnataka and 4 in Telangana and drawing a blank in Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Kerala. However, in Assembly elections held since then, it has greatly increased its vote share and entered the mindspace of rural areas. This is equivalent to a bridgehead secured.

From here on, the BJP will use multiple tactics to prise open the South, so essential for its vision of a Hindu Rashtra with a Constitution shorn of secular values. One of these is to move into Congress spaces in each of the five southern states, as it has done in Odisha. These are the spaces where a party led by those spouting nationalistic spiel is likely to find traction. The Congress revival in Karnataka and Telangana have been a setback to this goal but the BJP did benefit by enlarging its footprint in the latter state. Another gambit is to take advantage of succession disputes and transition difficulties in dominant regional parties. The BJP believes such wobbles will create a vacuum for it to fill. This has been tried with success in Maharashtra (Shiv Sena and NCP) and is being explored in Odisha where Naveen Patnaik’s anointed successor, a non-Odiya, has set up intriguing possibilities. Similar opportunities are likely to arise in the BRS in Telangana, the TDP in Andhra and the JD(S) in Karnataka.

In all states of the south, the BJP’s immediate objective is to move into the second slot and be seen as an alternative to the ruling party. Where it has to strike an alliance with a regional party, it is an expedient to ride piggyback on it, increase its own footprint and disembowel the host from within, as experienced by the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and perhaps soon by the JD(S) in Karnataka. Prior to the recent Assembly elections in Telangana, the BJP colluded with the BRS to eat up the Congress space and is now doing so with the Congress to make the BRS extinct. The ultimate idea is to worm down into the soil and multiply until it is time to emerge.