The Assam-Bengal Template Goes National, Hindutva Supremacy and the Vanishing of Indian Exceptionalisms
Indian politics is a story of vanishing exceptionalisms. The two most entrenched and enduring regional formations have collapsed. Kolkata has fallen; Chennai has cracked. Kerala, true to form, has seen anti-incumbency; the BJP’s hold over Assam endures. These results consolidate the unprecedented national electoral prowess of the BJP and the ideological supremacy of Hindutva. It would be churlish to deny the unprecedented power of the Modi-Shah duo in the annals of electoral politics. Even in a state that prided itself on being as distinctive as Bengal, the BJP has brought about a near-impossible electoral realignment. Even by the standards of its storied history, the BJP’s victory in Bengal is a remarkable tribute to its unmatched combination of ambition, perseverance, and political ruthlessness. It is, in a literal sense, a triumph of the will. The Assam-Bengal template will go national. It seems to fuel support for the BJP rather than resistance.
The Triumph of the Will: How the BJP Conquered Bengal
Defeat in retrospect always seems overdetermined. The fatigue, boredom, the corruption and nepotism, creeping thoughtlessness, the limits of welfare politics, and regional symbolism created background conditions for a BJP victory. But they would not have translated into victory if three things were not in place. After all, there is no evidence that the BJP will address better many of the discontent that fuelled it to power.
First, the sheer determination of the BJP, the energy of the Modi-Shah duo to persist in hostile terrain, is remarkable. The party did not give up after its setback in the 2024 general election. It regrouped, reorganised, and returned with a more aggressive, more polarising campaign. Second, the belief that politically salient identities are not given. A new Hindu consciousness can be reconfigured through sheer mobilisation to the point where Hindu-Muslim polarisation nearly displaces all other axes. Longstanding grievances—over jobs, over welfare, over dignity—are now processed through that template. The BJP succeeded in making every issue a Hindu issue, and every election a referendum on Hindutva.
Third, and something that will be studied for a while, the employment of institutional tactics, from the use of the Election Commission to the naming of the Supreme Court, to create a narrative of the cleaning of the electoral process and a violence-free election. The actual effects of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process will be studied over time. But what was remarkable about it was that the inconvenience and pain it imposed seemed to become a source of the BJP’s strength rather than a cause for punishment. Whether or not it decisively tilted the electoral outcome, it became handy for mobilisation and a demonstration of its institutional capture. The deletion of 27 lakh names—4.3 per cent of the votes cast—was not a scandal to be condemned; it was a signal to be celebrated. The BJP’s supporters saw it as evidence that the “infiltrators” were being removed. The TMC’s protests were dismissed as the cries of a party that had relied on “fake votes.” The narrative, not the facts, carried the day.
The Vanishing of Regional Exceptionalisms
The victory of the Vijay-led TVK is no less a vanquishing of another exceptionalism. Anti-incumbency is the norm in Tamil Nadu. But still, the TVK’s victory is unprecedented in the way in which it breaks the duopoly of the DMK and AIADMK. What is remarkable about it is that it breaks the standard assumption that the only way a party can win in a regional setting is by playing the regional pride card more strongly—there is nothing natural about that regionalism. For decades, the Dravidian parties claimed that Tamil Nadu was immune to Hindutva, that the state’s rationalist, anti-Brahmin, secular ethos would repel the BJP. That claim has been shown to be hollow. The TVK won not by championing Dravidian ideology but by offering a charismatic outsider alternative. And in doing so, it has opened the door for the BJP. The lesson of Tamil Nadu is that the South is open territory.
But it is also a warning that even relatively successful states like Tamil Nadu, trailblazers in industrialisation and welfare politics alike, are in the grip of dissatisfaction and restlessness, in this case powered by young people. Vijay has done what stars before him, like Vijayakanth, were not able to do, without much of a party organisation or a social moment. Is this form of politics a new canvas in the mine? The TVK’s victory is a testament to the power of persona over party, of celebrity over cadre, of the instant over the ideological. It is a warning to all parties that the old rules no longer apply.
The Consolidation of Amit Shah and the Vanishing of Countervailing Forces
The BJP has demonstrated a triumph of the will. But its triumphs, while a testament to its furious energy and political imagination, also carry a shadow for Indian democracy. This victory consolidates Amit Shah’s position as a national leader and his lead over rivals by a mile: Total command over the party organisation, and an ability to deliver wins in all kinds of contexts, including a straight two-cornered context. Shah is now indisputably the second most powerful man in India, and his influence extends beyond the BJP to the entire apparatus of the state.
It is also a new experiment for India. When one party acquires this degree of organisational dominance and ideological ascendancy, all countervailing forces and voices of dissent will gradually fall away. If Bengal’s history is any guide, the Trinamool will fade away faster than its proportion of votes share suggests, and the DMK is not a Dravidian force in the way it was. The BJP now has an opening in Punjab, and the lesson of Tamil Nadu is that the South is open territory. The party that could not win a single seat in Tamil Nadu in 2021 has now seen its vote share rise to nearly 20 per cent. It is only a matter of time before it wins a significant number of seats.
The Congress might exult in the fact that all its INDIA bloc rivals have fallen away. But Congress is nowhere near even putting up a minimal resistance and is no match for the BJP’s ruthlessness. Its lack of leadership, backward-looking ideas of caste and region, and utter listlessness mean that the regional vacuums will be filled by the BJP more than Congress. The Congress’s victory in Kerala is a false dawn. It is a victory of anti-incumbency, not of ideological resurgence. The party’s internal factionalism remains unresolved. Its national leadership is weak. Its grassroots organisation is in tatters. It cannot capitalise on the vacuum left by the fall of the DMK and the TMC. The BJP can.
Hindutva as the Reigning Ideology
Hindutva is now the reigning ideology and identity of the new India. This is not a moment that can be analysed purely in contingent political terms; it is part of the inner conflict over the idea of India since 1857. Much of the template of that conversation over India’s identity was laid in 19th-century Bengal, beginning with Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. It is only the myopia of the Left and Centre parties that they assumed that regions are irrevocable natural formations that can be opposed to Hindutva. The idea that “Kali” would be pitted against “Ram” was the kind of cultural nonsense where the Left began to believe its own cultural illiteracy.
For now, Hindutva is producing a culturally hierarchical order, where the claims of identity imperial India as a zone of freedom. The check on this ideology is not going to be external. We are on a wing and a prayer that the consolidation of this form of Hindutva does not result in deeper exclusion and violence, which is typically the denouement of such nationalisms. For now, India is in the grip of Hindutva supremacy; it has been sold as a utopian dream. There is no rival. What this supremacy does, or what brittleness it masks, only time will tell.
The Assam-Bengal template will go national. It fuels support for the BJP, not resistance. The party has learned to win in every context: in the Hindi heartland, in the Northeast, in the West, and now in the East and the South. The only region that remains relatively untouched is Punjab, and the BJP has an opening there. The party’s ability to combine ideological polarisation with welfare delivery, to use state institutions to its advantage, and to project a leader who is both a strongman and a messiah, has created a juggernaut that the opposition cannot stop.
Conclusion: A Shadow on Indian Democracy
The 2026 Assembly elections mark a turning point. The BJP’s dominance is no longer electoral; it is structural. The party has become the natural party of governance, and its ideology has become the natural ideology of the new India. The opposition is fragmented, demoralised, and ideologically bankrupt. The institutions that were supposed to check majoritarianism—the Election Commission, the judiciary, the media—have been captured or cowed. The federal balance has tilted decisively towards the Centre.
What remains is the hope that the consolidation of Hindutva will not lead to the deeper exclusion and violence that has been the historical pattern of such nationalisms. That hope is a wing and a prayer. There is no countervailing force. There is no rival ideology. There is no organised resistance. India is, for now, in the grip of Hindutva supremacy. Whether that supremacy will be benign or brutal, whether it will produce a new, inclusive nationalism or a dark age of persecution, only time will tell. But the trajectory is clear. The Assam-Bengal template has gone national. And it fuels support for the BJP, not resistance.
Q&A: The Assam-Bengal Template and Hindutva Supremacy
Q1: What does the article mean by “vanishing exceptionalisms,” and which regional formations have collapsed?
A1: “Vanishing exceptionalisms” refers to the collapse of entrenched regional political formations that were once considered immune to the BJP’s Hindutva wave. The article states: “Kolkata has fallen; Chennai has cracked.” The TMC in West Bengal and the Dravidian parties (DMK and AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu—both long-standing regional powers—have been defeated. Kerala has seen anti-incumbency, but the UDF’s victory is a return of the Congress, not a defeat of the BJP. The BJP’s hold over Assam endures. The article argues that these results “consolidate the unprecedented national electoral prowess of the BJP and the ideological supremacy of Hindutva.”
Q2: What are the three factors that translated background discontent into a BJP victory in West Bengal?
A2: The three factors are:
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“The sheer determination of the BJP, the energy of the Modi-Shah duo to persist in hostile terrain.” The party did not give up after its 2024 setback and returned with a more aggressive campaign.
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“The belief that politically salient identities are not given.” A new Hindu consciousness can be reconfigured through mobilisation, making “Hindu-Muslim polarisation nearly displaces all other axes.”
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“The employment of institutional tactics, from the use of the Election Commission to the naming of the Supreme Court, to create a narrative of the cleaning of the electoral process.” The SIR process, which deleted 27 lakh names (4.3% of votes cast), became “a source of the BJP’s strength rather than a cause for punishment”—a “demonstration of its institutional capture.”
Q3: How does the article interpret the TVK’s victory in Tamil Nadu as a “vanquishing of another exceptionalism”?
A3: The article argues that the TVK’s victory “breaks the duopoly of the DMK and AIADMK” and shatters the “standard assumption that the only way a party can win in a regional setting is by playing the regional pride card more strongly.” For decades, the Dravidian parties claimed that Tamil Nadu was “immune to Hindutva” due to its “rationalist, anti-Brahmin, secular ethos.” The TVK’s victory shows that this claim is “hollow.” The article warns that “the lesson of Tamil Nadu is that the South is open territory.” The TVK’s win is also a warning that even successful states are “in the grip of dissatisfaction and restlessness, in this case powered by young people.”
Q4: What does the article say about the Congress’s ability to resist the BJP?
A4: The article is scathing about the Congress. It states: “The Congress might exult in the fact that all its INDIA bloc rivals have fallen away. But Congress is nowhere near even putting up a minimal resistance and is no match for the BJP’s ruthlessness. Its lack of leadership, backward-looking ideas of caste and region, and utter listlessness mean that the regional vacuums will be filled by the BJP more than Congress.” The Congress’s victory in Kerala is dismissed as a “false dawn,” a “victory of anti-incumbency, not of ideological resurgence.” Its national leadership is weak, and its grassroots organisation is “in tatters.” It cannot capitalise on the vacuum left by the fall of the DMK and TMC.
Q5: What is the article’s conclusion about the future of Indian democracy under Hindutva supremacy?
A5: The article concludes that “Hindutva is now the reigning ideology and identity of the new India.” The check on this ideology is “not going to be external.” The article states: “We are on a wing and a prayer that the consolidation of this form of Hindutva does not result in deeper exclusion and violence, which is typically the denouement of such nationalisms.” There is “no rival ideology” and “no organised resistance.” The Assam-Bengal template “will go national. It fuels support for the BJP, not resistance.” The article ends with a dark warning: “What this supremacy does, or what brittleness it masks, only time will tell.” The party’s dominance is now “structural,” not merely electoral. The institutions that were supposed to check majoritarianism have been “captured or cowed.” The federal balance has “tilted decisively towards the Centre.” India is “in the grip of Hindutva supremacy,” and whether this will be “benign or brutal” remains to be seen.
