India may be at the dawn of a social movement: Christophe Jaffrelot

ELI5 / TLDR

A French scholar who has studied Indian politics since the 1980s sits down to explain why the BJP looks stronger than ever — and why that strength is also a sign of weakness. His argument: the ruling party can no longer win fair elections, so it has quietly changed the rules of the game (voter rolls, redrawn constituencies, captured institutions). Meanwhile the RSS has built something deeper than a government — a web of organizations and street-level enforcers that won’t vanish even if the BJP loses an election. But there’s a crack: a worsening economy and angry, jobless youth could spark a genuine social movement, the one thing that might actually reverse the trend.

The Full Story

This is a conversation between journalist Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay and Christophe Jaffrelot, the French political scientist who has been studying Hindu nationalism since the 1980s. It is the inaugural episode of a rebranded interview series. The framing throughout is long-horizon: Jaffrelot keeps insisting that almost nothing happening today is new — it was written down decades ago, and is only now reaching its “logical conclusion.”

The unitary state was always the plan

Jaffrelot’s first move is to puncture the idea that the BJP’s centralizing push is recent. He has spent decades reading the party’s own publications, and points to a specific document.

“1957… this is the moment when Jan Sangh in its election manifesto says very clearly that they are against linguistic states, that they are disapproving of the redrawing of the Indian map that started in the early 50s.”

A bit of background helps here. After independence, India redrew its internal borders along language lines — Telugu speakers got Andhra Pradesh, Tamil speakers got Tamil Nadu, and so on (the big wave was 1956). The logic was that people govern themselves better in their own language. The Jan Sangh — the BJP’s ancestor party — hated this. To them, linguistic states were “many nations dividing the patriotism of India.” They wanted India governed as one unit, with sub-state administrative blocks (“janpads”) instead of culturally distinct states.

So when Jaffrelot says the BJP is “never been so close” to a unitary state, he is describing the end of a 70-year journey, not a sudden lurch. Two things bring it within reach: capturing new states (West Bengal being the big trophy this round) and inching toward the parliamentary supermajority needed to amend the constitution. A third lever is “delimitation” — redrawing how many parliamentary seats each state gets. Because the populous Hindi-belt north is the BJP’s stronghold, a redraw based on population would hand the north a permanent political majority over the south.

The RSS and the BJP: a marriage that never quite works

A recurring theme is the tension between the RSS (the ideological parent organization, run by unelected “pracharaks” or full-time volunteers) and the BJP (the party that actually has to win votes). Jaffrelot calls this tension “consubstantial” — baked into the relationship from the start.

The problem is structural. The RSS needs politicians who can attract voters, but it is ideologically allergic to charismatic individuals. Its founding ethos, going back to its second chief Golwalkar, was “no angularities, no personality that should prevail over others.” The organization is supposed to matter more than any person.

Narendra Modi is the ultimate “angularity.” Jaffrelot traces how Modi systematically freed himself from RSS control:

“RSS did not canvass for him [in 2007]… and that was in fact one way to make him even more independent, because if RSS did not canvass for him, he had to create his own parallel power structure. And that’s what he did.”

By 2014, Modi was running his own media-based, direct-to-voter machine. He reportedly told the RSS chief he didn’t need his advice. The RSS has tried repeatedly to clip his dominance — and failed every time. Jaffrelot’s read: the RSS is playing a waiting game. As long as Modi delivers on the ideological agenda (and he does — Kashmir, Ayodhya, the position of Muslims, even a new committee on “demographic imbalance” lifted straight from RSS resolutions of the 1960s-80s), they have little to complain about. They are biding their time for the post-Modi succession, hoping to become the kingmaker again. His guess for their preferred successor is Nitin Gadkari — though, he notes, in a real race you don’t always get to back your first choice.

Elections are no longer a level field

This is the conversation’s sharpest claim. Jaffrelot argues that 2024 was a turning point not because Modi won, but because he nearly lost — the BJP failed to get a majority on its own.

“2024 the Lok Sabha elections showed that Modi could lose. And if there is one thing he cannot afford, it’s to lose… So how do you retain power when the risk of losing increases? Well, you make the election moment something different.”

He lists the mechanisms: the SIR (a voter-roll revision process he frames as a tool to control who gets to vote), gerrymandering in Assam (redrawing constituency boundaries so minorities can’t swing results), lopsided press coverage, and the ruling party’s vastly larger financial resources. His verdict is blunt: “We can’t look at these elections as fair.” The paradox he draws out — Modi is weak because he cannot win without changing the rules, but by changing them he becomes stronger.

The interviewer pushes the obvious follow-up: if the game is rigged, should the opposition even contest? Jaffrelot’s answer is grim and clear-eyed. Contesting a rigged election legitimizes the winner. But boycotting only works if everyone boycotts — otherwise the parties that stay in benefit, and the ruling party can even manufacture fake opposition parties to fake a contest. He points to Bangladesh, where the BNP’s boycott simply didn’t work. His broader, darker observation: in almost every country around India, real political change has come not through elections at all.

Disenfranchisement as ideology, not just tactics

A crucial nuance: Jaffrelot does not see the targeting of Muslim voters as mere electoral cunning. He roots it in a century of written ideology. Golwalkar said that Muslims who don’t pay allegiance to Hindu culture should not be citizens. Jaffrelot claims even Vajpayee — long seen as the moderate face — wrote something similar in a later-suppressed piece. The point: disenfranchisement is “exactly what Hindu nationalists have said and written over now 100 years.” It is the agenda arriving on schedule, not an improvisation.

The captured institutions

The conversation walks through the hollowing-out of India’s referee institutions — the judiciary and the Election Commission. Jaffrelot’s mechanism is a system of incentives: behave, and you get a post-retirement plum (a Rajya Sabha seat, a governorship); be selected only if the government finds you “suitable.” The collegium that picks judges, he argues, now selects justices “of the liking of the government.” The Election Commission has lost the independence it had under figures like T.N. Seshan (who once postponed elections days before voting to enforce the rules).

But he insists there are three forces at work, not one: career incentives, the appointment filter, and genuine ideological belief. Hindu nationalism, he says, has become “hegemonic as a mindset” — Islamophobia “so all-pervasive” that officials act on conviction, not just careerism. This is the answer to his interviewer’s nagging question: was secular India ever real, or was the prejudice always there, just politically incorrect to voice? Jaffrelot’s reply is that everyone in Delhi underestimated the decades of patient grassroots work the RSS did in villages, slums, and every professional sector — lawyers, teachers, ex-army officers all have their RSS-linked organizations. The Ayodhya movement was the mass event that flipped society’s mindset.

The “deeper state”

Here Jaffrelot offers his most original concept. Pakistan, he notes, has a “deep state” — the army secretly remote-controlling a civilian facade. India, he argues, has something different: a deeper state.

“The state goes deeper in society… RSS is for controlling society, not for controlling the state, the government. They don’t believe so much in the state. The state is artificial.”

The mechanism: vigilantes (cow-protection groups, for instance) supplement what the police can’t or won’t do. Stopping a truck, lynching a driver suspected of transporting cattle — illegal, yes, but, in Jaffrelot’s chilling distinction, treated as legitimate because it’s done in the name of Hinduism. The police, sympathetic, look away. The RSS’s stated goal, after all, is for society itself to become the RSS.

Why this matters: it makes the situation different from other ethno-nationalist regimes. When an Erdoğan or a similar strongman loses power, Jaffrelot notes, “they disappear” and the politics shifts. In India, even if the government changes, this vigilante network is “deeply rooted in society” and won’t go away. The deeper state outlasts the electoral state.

The interview ends on a sliver of hope. If elections are rigged and institutions captured, what could reverse the trend? Only a genuine social movement — and Jaffrelot thinks the conditions are forming.

“We are just at the beginning of a major economic and social crisis. It is just the beginning… unemployment had become so chronic, so all-pervasive.”

The trigger in the air is a viral moment: a chief justice reportedly used the word “cockroach” for people who were the casualties of failed policy, and instead of recoiling, they owned it — “Yes, we are cockroaches, because of your mistakes” — and it spread across social media. Jaffrelot contrasts this with the 2011-13 India Against Corruption movement, which he flatly calls “fabricated” — built by a few people and an RSS-aligned network, with corruption cases (Coalgate, 2G) that “nothing could be proven.”

A spontaneous youth movement, he argues, would be genuinely different. And it would put the RSS in a bind: if it wants to be “co-extensive with society,” it cannot back a government that alienates the youth. He surveys the neighborhood for templates — Pakistan (army kept power), Bangladesh (old parties returned), Nepal (a rap singer became PM), Sri Lanka (a party that was “nowhere in the picture” suddenly won and dislodged a 70-year dynasty). Which scenario India gets, he can’t say. His one caution: a movement needs leaders, and these would have to emerge from within the youth themselves, because any existing politician who tried to lead it would be accused of hijacking it. The scale — “semi-continental” — makes that hard. But, he says, “who would have expected such a huge backlash.”

Key Takeaways

The BJP’s drive toward a “unitary state” (centralizing power, weakening states) is not new — it was spelled out in the Jan Sangh’s 1957 manifesto, which opposed the language-based reorganization of Indian states. Today’s push is the end of a 70-year project.
“Delimitation” — redrawing the number of parliamentary seats per state by population — would permanently advantage the populous Hindi-belt north over the south, a key step toward a de facto political majority.
The RSS-BJP tension is structural and permanent (“consubstantial”): the RSS needs vote-winners but is ideologically opposed to charismatic individuals (its ethos: “no angularities”). Modi escaped its control by building a direct-to-voter machine; the RSS has repeatedly tried and failed to clip him.
Jaffrelot’s diagnosis of 2024: Modi nearly losing was the real turning point. “If there is one thing he cannot afford, it’s to lose.” The response was to change the rules — voter-roll revisions (SIR), gerrymandering in Assam, resource asymmetry — rather than risk a fair contest.
The central paradox: Modi is weak (can’t win fair) yet becomes stronger by rewriting the rules.
On election boycotts: contesting a rigged vote legitimizes the winner, but a partial boycott only helps the parties that stay in, and the ruling party can manufacture fake opposition to fake a contest. Reference point: Bangladesh’s BNP boycott failed.
Sober historical claim: in nearly every country around India, real political change has come not through elections.
Voter disenfranchisement is framed as ideology fulfilled, not tactics — traceable to Golwalkar’s century-old position that Muslims not pledging allegiance to Hindu culture forfeit citizenship.
Institutional capture runs on incentives: post-retirement rewards (Rajya Sabha seats, governorships) for compliant judges and officials, plus an appointment filter that selects for “suitability,” plus genuine ideological belief — three forces, not one.
The “personalities matter” thesis: institutions protected by law (like the Election Commission under T.N. Seshan) only stay independent if the right people occupy them.
The “deeper state” concept (Jaffrelot’s coinage, distinct from Pakistan’s “deep state”): vigilante networks embedded in society do illegal-but-legitimized enforcement that the police can’t, so the RSS controls society rather than the government. Crucially, it outlasts any electoral defeat — unlike other strongman regimes where the leader “disappears” when he loses.
The grassroots blind spot: Delhi elites underestimated decades of RSS organizing in every sector (lawyers, teachers, ex-army), with the Ayodhya movement as the mass event that shifted society’s mindset.
The path to reversal is a genuine social movement, made plausible by mounting economic crisis and chronic youth unemployment — and distinct from the 2011-13 India Against Corruption movement, which Jaffrelot calls “fabricated” and RSS-adjacent.
The RSS’s bind: to remain “co-extensive with society,” it cannot indefinitely back a government that enrages the youth.
Regional templates for change: Pakistan (army retained), Bangladesh (old guard returned), Nepal (total outsider), Sri Lanka (a nowhere party dislodged a 70-year dynasty).

Claude’s Take

Jaffrelot is the real thing — four decades on this subject, and it shows in how little he reaches for drama. The strongest part of the conversation is the “deeper state” idea, because it does actual analytical work: it explains why India’s trajectory might not follow the usual ethno-nationalist script where the strongman falls and the fever breaks. If the apparatus lives in society rather than in the state, an election can’t undo it. That is a genuinely useful lens, and it earns the runtime.

Where the listener should keep a hand on the wallet: this is an interview between two people who clearly share a diagnosis, so there is no friction, no counter-case, no one asking “what if you’re overfitting a 100-year ideological text onto messier ground reality?” The claim that the India Against Corruption movement was “fabricated” with RSS involvement is asserted, not evidenced, and it’s a strong charge. Likewise, “we can’t look at these elections as fair” is a sweeping verdict delivered without walking through the actual contested numbers. The framework is coherent and the scholarship is real, but coherence is exactly what you’d expect from someone fitting events to a thesis he’s held for decades — and a thesis that explains everything explains a little less than it seems to.

The ending hope — a youth social movement — is honest about its own fragility (no leaders, hard to scale, easily hijacked), which I respect more than a tidy uplift would deserve. Score reflects a high-signal, well-reasoned conversation from a top scholar, docked slightly for the absence of any adversarial pressure on a strongly held worldview.