AFTER nearly a decade of BJP-led rule, disparate opposition parties in India have decided to bury the hatchet and put up a combined fight to dislodge the Hindu nationalist incumbents in next year’s general elections. Announced in Bengaluru, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance brings together some strange bedfellows. Along with centrist heavyweights such as Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, the INDIA grouping brings together parties belonging to the hard right, such as Uddhav Thackeray’s faction of the Shiv Sena, to at least three different communist parties. There are also several regional parties on board, including those representing South Indian states. The common denominator is, of course, to send the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance packing next year, and rebuilding a more inclusive India. As Congress head Mallikarjun Kharge put it, the parties have “come together to protect the interests of Indian people”. Mercifully, the INDIA parties are speaking of restoring democratic and human values, many of which have been bulldozed by the BJP sarkar in its quest to build a Hindu rashtra. In a resolution passed at the Bengaluru meeting, the alliance parties have declared their intention to protect “secular democracy, economic sovereignty, social justice and federalism” which they say have been “menacingly undermined” during the BJP’s watch. The alliance’s pledge to stop violence against India’s minorities must also be soothing to the ears of that country’s Muslims, Christians and followers of other faiths.

While the new alliance holds a lot of promise, especially for India’s minorities as well as other downtrodden communities that have been crushed by the Hindutva machine, the fact is that large, ideologically diverse groupings can be notoriously unwieldy, and it will take the combined political wisdom of the INDIA parties to send the BJP and its allies home. The BJP/RSS juggernaut will naturally pull out all the stops, particularly demonising Pakistan, Muslims and other minorities, to appeal to its rabid voter base, and attract the increasingly chauvinistic Indian middle classes. Talk of forming a Uniform Civil Code — in essence doing away with religious personal law as applicable to minorities — should be seen in this perspective. There is also the slim hope that the INDIA parties may try to improve relations with Pakistan, though it is also true that undoing the BJP’s toxic legacy where bilateral ties go will be no easy task.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2023