Why Bjp Has Abandoned Hindutva For Ambedkarism Jouvenels Theory Of Power Applied To India

TITLE: Why BJP has abandoned Hindutva for Ambedkarism | Jouvenel’s Theory of Power applied to India CHANNEL: Upword DATE: 2026-04-24 ---TRANSCRIPT--- Recently the cabinet of Karnataka approved the Rohit Vemula bill, which will soon become law. Its stated objective is to prevent caste-based discrimination in higher education and to ensure dignity, inclusion, and equal academic opportunity. The provisions of this bill are sweeping. It sets up equity committees dominated by SC and ST members to investigate complaints of caste discrimination, mandates compensation for victims, demands disciplinary action against offenders, and slabs a 10 lakh rupee fine on institutions found guilty. Other states in India are currently preparing to bring in their own versions of this exact same bill. The bill is of course named after Rohit Vemula, a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad who tragically died by suicide in a university hostel room. But here is the bizarre twist. The Telangana police closure report from 2024 attributed his suicide to academic and financial stress, stating explicitly that the incident was not driven by caste discrimination. The report also revealed that Rohit Vemula was not even from a scheduled caste. So what we’re witnessing is multiple states in India passing aggressive laws triggered by an unfortunate event that had absolutely nothing to do with the issues the laws claim to be addressing. In other news, political leader Chandrashekar Rao, who’s also a sitting MP now, recently demanded a separate electorate for the so-called lower castes. If you know your history, you know that such a demand fundamentally fractures the democratic framework, laying the groundwork for severe political consequences and deep social divisions. These events indicate a decisive shift in the Overton window, the range of policies that the public is willing to accept. And the political right in India seems to have completely surrendered to the inevitable. This is very interesting because it means one of the two things. The traditional upper castes either do not understand the issue or they simply do not care about it. Whether it is ignorance or apathy, the implication remains the same. A bleak future for India as the threat of its Balkanization grows. Many people want to solve the problem by voting BJP. Good for them, but unfortunately, as we shall see, that may neither be sufficient nor necessary. Let me be clear. I’m not asking anyone to vote for A or B or or even vote at all. I’m interested in understanding India’s contemporary politics using political theory rather than political propaganda. We will see why your vote is inconsequential regardless of which party it goes to because the rot runs deep, very deep.

[music] Two questions arise here. First, why are Indian politicians leading the country down the dark alley of Ambedkarite politics? And second, why is no one able to prevent it? Let’s answer the second question first. Why can’t anyone stop this? I addressed this in an earlier video. In game theory’s prisoner’s dilemma, two isolated suspects both confess to avoid the maximum penalty that comes from staying silent while the other betrays them. This mutual betrayal creates a Nash equilibrium, a stable but harmful outcome for both. Do watch that video to understand the current obsession of Indian netas with caste through the game theoretic lens. The video tells you how the BJP and the opposition face [clears throat] the same trap. They can either cooperate by dropping caste politics for national issues or defect by doubling down on caste quotas and censuses because neither side wants to risk losing its electoral base to the other. Both rationally choose to defect. Both aggressively exploit caste divisions. This political Nash equilibrium ensures their survival but leaves Indian civilization and the nation disastrously and permanently fragmented. But this only explains the mechanics. It doesn’t explain the underlying philosophy. Why are politicians leading the country down such a dark alley in the first place? It is easy to blame politicians for getting caught in a dangerous Nash equilibrium, but the truth about why they do so is far more unsettling. To answer the first question, we must turn to one of the most important modern political theorists of Europe, Bertrand de Jouvenel. Jouvenel does not look at history in the manner that Western progressives and Indian right-wingers do. He directly challenges the Whig interpretation of history, which naively views the progression from monarchy to democracy as a steady upward expansion of individual liberty. Instead, Jouvenel posits a much darker trajectory. To pin this down, we must view history as a function of power. At its root, the essence of power is command that lives for its own sake and for its own fruit. Historically and logically, power is an independent entity that actually precedes the nation. It does not originate from a spontaneous peaceful social contract, but from the instinctive human drive for domination and the imposition of force by a victorious group. Power possesses an irreducible duality. It is a composite creature that unites two completely contradictory natures, an egoistical urge and a social sense. At its core, power is driven by a selfish desire to command. Rulers naturally enjoy the intoxicating feeling of being in charge, experiencing the incomparable pleasure of directing the actions of millions as if moving pieces on a giant social chessboard. This egoistical urge is not merely a flaw. It is the raw energy that gives power its life. Without this fierce ambition to dominate, a government would lack the inner strength needed to survive. However, pure selfishness is not enough to maintain rule. To survive and keep itself supplied, power must adapt to the needs of the people it governs. It is forced to provide real benefits such as establishing order, delivering justice, and ensuring public prosperity. Through this process, what starts as a purely parasitic relationship where the ruler simply exploits subjects for personal gain gradually transforms into a symbiotic one. The ruler realizes that the only road to secure authority is through the services he renders to society. Therefore, while power is born from the selfish drive to dominate, practical necessity forces it to develop a social sense and serve the common good. And people, Jouvenel notes, also have dual needs, primary and secondary. According to Jouvenel, security is the primary need and liberty is the secondary need. Imagine your brain runs on a very simple operating system. On its main dashboard, there are two resource meters, security and liberty. According to Jouvenel, these meters are not created equal. Security is the absolute primary need, while liberty is a secondary luxury. When your security meter is full, you care deeply about your liberty meter. You want to be independent, make your own choices, and rule your own destiny. But watch what happens when the security meter drops to zero. Maybe it is the 9th century and a horde of raiders is coming over the hills to burn your village. Or maybe it is the 21st century and a sudden economic depression just wiped out your life savings and your job. Suddenly, the liberty meter does not matter at all. You do not care about your independence when you’re starving or running for your life. You will sprint to the nearest powerful entity, a feudal baron with a thick stone castle or a massive government bureaucracy with a bailout fund. And you will happily trade every last drop of your liberty just to get your security meter filled back up. You become a docile subject, pledging your obedience and your labor in exchange for a guarantee of survival. It is only years later when the danger has entirely passed and you have grown completely accustomed to being safe that you look at your empty liberty meter, realize you’re trapped, and start complaining about the strict rules and the heavy taxes. The lesson is brutal but true. The will to be free is extinguished in times of danger, and it is only revived when the primary need for security has been amply satisfied. Liberty is a luxury, security is a necessity. With this understanding, Juvenal explains that society historically has a three-tier structure, the high, the middle, and the low. At the very top sits the high. This is the central authority, whether it is a medieval king, a modern government, or the state machine itself, which Juvenal simply calls power. At the very bottom is the low. This group represents the everyday common people, the laborers, the peasants, and the general masses who are governed by those above them. Sandwiched between the ruler and the masses is the middle. This layer is made up of independent elites or social authorities, such as old feudal barons, the intellectuals, or zamindars. Juvenal argues that this middle layer is absolutely critical for preserving human liberty. To see why, you have to look at what they actually do. Because these elites possess their own independent wealth, land, and loyal followers, they do not rely on the central government for their status. This independence gives them the unique ability to act as make-weights, heavy, stubborn, counterbalances that can physically and politically resist the state. When the central power inevitably tries to expand its reach, demands more taxes, or act like a tyrant, the common people are generally too weak and unorganized to stop it. It is the powerful middle that has the strength to stand up, push back, and hold the government in check. Without these independent elites acting as a protective buffer, there is nothing to block the state from expanding until it has total control over every isolated, defenseless individual. But power, by its very nature, is an expansionist beast. It wants absolute control. All command other than its own irks power. All energy, wherever it is found, nourishes it. If human energy is confined in a private social molecule, like a wealthy caste or a feudal baron, power must break down that molecule. This is no different from the Puranic story of Samudra manthan, where asuras are bidding for immortality through absolute power, and devatas serve the dharmic order. Power is the inevitable assailant of the social order. To do this, the [clears throat] state systematically utilizes the common people, the low, to dismantle the independent social authorities of the middle. It presents itself to the masses as their liberator, elevating them into its own machinery of power. This alliance works so effectively because the low is always far more loyal to the top than the middle ever could be. The privileged middle is inherently self-reliant, deriving its status from its own independent wealth and efforts. It naturally resists the state’s expansion. The low, however, uh depends entirely on the magnanimity of power to gain and keep its new status, making its loyalty to the state rock solid. The high forms a strategic alliance with the low to crush the middle. In medieval Europe, this dynamic led to the collapse of the aristocracy, paving the way for the French Revolution. The transition from a benevolent monarchical order to democracy was thus a three-step process, where the key link was the systematic decline of the aristocracy. When a democracy is created, people naturally assume that the government’s authority will be restricted because the citizens are now in charge. In reality, the exact opposite happens. Once democracy is established, the state actually accelerates its drive for absolute, unchecked control. We are often taught that our freedom is protected by the separation of powers, the idea that dividing the government into different branches, like an executive and a legislature, will force them to check and balance each other. However, Juvenal notes that this separation is merely a constitutional conjuring trick. For a true balance of power to exist, these different branches must represent genuinely distinct, independent forces within society. Did I hear your thoughts that this looks like the varna-based division of society? Oh, bad word. I will report you to the right-wing thought police. Anyway, the point is that if the executive branch, the lower house, and the upper house all draw their authority from the exact same single source, the voting majority of the people, they will not effectively balance each other because they are ultimately just different emanations of the same force. These pieces will inevitably fuse back together into a single, all-powerful ruling body with unlimited absolutism. To to get away with this uh massive expansion of control, modern democratic power uses liberal rhetoric as a smoke screen. Instead of acting like an old-fashioned king who openly admits he’s the master, the modern democratic state hides behind a mask of anonymity. It pretends that it has no personal ambitions or existence of its own, claiming to be nothing more than the completely neutral, passionless instrument of the general will or the nation. But this idea of the people’s will is ultimately a convenient fiction. It is a myth constructed specifically to mask the reality that a small group of people is still running the show and to make their expanding authority seem acceptable to the public. By claiming that its actions are just the voice of the whole society, democratic power can justify demanding sacrifices, like mass conscription in the army and heavy taxation, that are far heavier than any monarch of the past would have ever dared to attempt. Because it operates under this democratic mask, the good old alliance between the high and the low against the middle doesn’t disappear. It actually becomes far more ruthless. The modern state forms a coalition with the dependent masses by promising them a universal social protectorate. It tells the vulnerable public that it will protect them from the exploitative capitalists and the wealthy elites. As I showed in my previous video, uh meritocracy seamlessly blends with this framework as it amplifies the gap between the rich and the poor, leaving the masses totally vulnerable and insecure. The state knows this and offers the masses a deal. In exchange for providing cradle-to-grave security, the state the state systematically crushes the independent middle layers, despoiling them of their wealth and power. It is a brilliant, terrifying trade. The masses willingly surrender their individual liberties for the promise of safety, and the state achieves a totalitarian grip, transforming free citizens into into dependent subjects. To truly understand Indian politics today, we can map the political rise of the other backward classes and large landholding classes directly onto Bertrand the Juvenal’s three-tier model. During the colonial period, the British Empire acted as the high, or power. The vast majority of the native caste groups were the low. But the empire needed a buffer. So, following the goals of Macaulay’s education system, they deliberately cultivated a new middle, an English educated class drawn from various castes and even religions. Then came 1947 and the British left. We call this the transfer of power. And that is exactly what it was. The English educated middle automatically stepped up to become the new high. An Anglophilic elite took over the center. At the same time, the powerful land-holding castes, the Reddys and Kammas in Andhra, the Gounders and the Vanniyars in Tamil Nadu, the the Lingayats and the Vokkaligas in Karnataka, the Patidars in Gujarat, the Jats in Haryana and the Marathas in Maharashtra shifted to the top to rule the states. The middle had moved to the top. And they left behind a massive vacuum. This hollowed-out middle is exactly why independent India’s intellectual output has been so dismal. Remember, the middle is the critical engine of liberty. Without it, there are few free thinkers because liberty is nowhere in sight. Over time, a very thin replacement middle did manage to consolidate. This consisted largely of the traditional upper castes who clawed their way up through the limited meritocratic churn following independence. If you want to understand why certain groups naturally rise to positions of wealth and influence due to genetic and cultural capital, check out my previous video in the Pinpoint series. So, it was from this self-made middle of upper caste Hindus that Hindutva politics first emerged. This is why the BJP was widely called the Brahmin-Baniya party in the ’90s. Without the assertion of this middle’s instinct for liberty, no masses would have ever been mobilized for the Ram temple. But, this emergence of a new middle was a passing fad because a new high-low alliance had been silently taking shape since independence. This alliance has a name. The Mandalization of Indian [snorts] politics. Its ideological vehicle is Ambedkarism. It is no coincidence that B.R. Ambedkar was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1990, right at the moment the Hindutva wave was turning into a tsunami. The state was offering a deal. As more and more caste groups recognized the sheer profitability of this new high-low alliance, they rushed to self-identify as the low. They wanted to be labeled backward. Thus, the Other Backward Caste OBC category was born. And it keeps expanding to this day as more and more castes, even erstwhile royal rulers like the Marathas, demand to be included in it. So, who is left stuck in the middle then? The upper castes who have absolutely no scope to claim backward status. The Brahmin-Baniyas and those members of other upper castes who did not find a place among the new rulers. The original Hindutva flag-bearers of the late ’80s who now in 2026 find themselves politically orphaned. Because they derive their status from their own independent efforts, they are self-reliant. Therefore, they are seen as not as loyal to the power and power has no use for them. This answers a very difficult question. Why are Brahmins so hated, despised and maligned in modern Indian politics? It is not a matter of historical grievance. It is a structural necessity of power. Power instinctively views independent social authorities as its natural enemy. It seeks to break them down to absorb the resources and human energy they contain. The state must put down the mighty to achieve absolute unhindered authority. Remember the French Revolution. The high forms a strategic alliance with the low to crush the middle. How can India prevent this political downfall into complete chaos? The ultimate antidote to this march towards democratic totalitarianism lies in Juvenal’s insights. We must first recognize how modern leaders manipulate our very language to trap us. As Juvenal points out, one of the first casualties in times of political discord is the meaning of words. Today’s politicians have deceitfully equated liberty with mere security and the possession of a ballot. They have reduced the noble concept of justice to a crude material equality driven entirely by envy. To break free from this, Juvenal prescribes a return to an unswerving acknowledgement of an objective transcendent moral code. We must reject the dangerous fiction of the people’s will. The false idea that a majority can can alter fundamental truths or that a law is just simply because a parliament voted for it. A society can only flourish and uphold the principle of liberty if it recognizes an eternal code that stands far above the shifting pressures, passions and biases of the times. For India, that transcendent moral code already exists. It is Dharma as defined and articulated at length in the Shastras. Like everything else that springs from modernity, slogans of progress and equality are passing fads. Worse, they are poison pills marketed as a cure for cancer. So, the question is, are Hindus going to watch our civilization crumble before our eyes, ravaged by the forces of chaos packaged in the shiny wrapper of democracy and equality, and unleashed on us by our elected elected representatives, or are we going to win? The way forward is not simple or easy. Indian politics has taken an Ambedkarite turn, and it is not just because Indian politicians are disgusting. Well, they are, but their depravity is only a carrier of a deeper impulse of entropy, which aligns with the design of liberal democracy and whose cause is systemic because it originates from the deep recesses of human nature. I discussed this in an earlier video on coherent pluralism. For thousands of years, the Dharmashastras, rooted in the Shruti-Smriti Parampara, acted as the backbone of India’s social order. They provided a superlative meta-framework for managing a staggeringly complex society without resorting to the imperialist erasure of differences. By establishing coherence through orthopraxy, shared rites of passage and correct conduct, the Shastras built diversity directly into the law itself, recognizing the valid customs of different regions, lineages and communities. They allowed contradictory perspectives to exist simultaneously by using the principle of Adhikara or contextual competence. The task before Hindu society today is to get the middle layer of independent social authority back to a position of strength. That cannot happen without rebuilding communities and challenging the state’s might. In other words, restoring the middle layer of independent social authorities like the Dharmacharyas, independent thinkers and traditional institutions. Freeing Hindu temples from state control would be the first step towards that. And it is a glaring sign of the absolute powerlessness of the middle layer that this demand has been reduced to a mere slogan with no progress made in the last decade. We do not need to become a bad copy of the West, chasing the mirage of a homogenized nation-state. We are a civilization of differences and real unity is about finding a way for us to be different together. Society must return to the unswerving acknowledgement of an eternal code that stands above the shifting pressures and interests of the times. As I’ve said, that code is Sanatana Dharma. I’ll try to articulate the blueprint of the road map in uh in the future episodes of Pinpoint. And I hope you enjoyed this one.