The Calculus of Power, Inside the Strategic Machinations of Modern Indian Politics

The Calculus of Power, Inside the Strategic Machinations of Modern Indian Politics

The “Fly on the Wall” column by Harish Gupta offers a rare, unvarnished glimpse into the high-stakes backroom operations that define contemporary Indian politics. Through three distinct vignettes—Devendra Fadnavis’s masterful handling of a succession crisis in Maharashtra, Rahul Gandhi’s revealing anecdote about private jets, and the BJP’s caste-community calculus in West Bengal—the piece illuminates the core current affair in Indian democracy: the near-total ascendancy of cold, procedural political management over ideological contestation, mass mobilization, and even public grief. This is a politics where timing, demographic micro-targeting, and pre-emptive action are the real currencies of power, while traditional opposition politics flounders in a void of its own making. The column, therefore, serves as a diagnostic tool, revealing a political landscape where one party operates with the precision of a special forces unit, and its principal national rival struggles to mount a coherent public protest.

The Fadnavis Gambit: Realpolitik in the Shadow of Death

The most striking narrative is the depiction of Devendra Fadnavis’s actions following the sudden demise of NCP leader Ajit Pawar. This is not a story about mourning or political decorum; it is a clinical case study in crisis exploitation. Fadnavis is portrayed not as a grieving ally but as a grandmaster, viewing a personal tragedy through the prism of “risks and opportunities.” His immediate call to Amit Shah underscores a centralization of strategy where every state-level fluctuation is instantly integrated into a national command-and-control system.

The political threat was clear: the vacuum could allow the wily Sharad Pawar to reunify the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), thereby resurrecting a stronger, independent political force that could destabilize the BJP-led ruling coalition (Mahayuti) in Maharashtra. Fadnavis’s genius lay in his sequencing. He allowed the emotional ritual of the funeral to proceed but had already pre-decided the political ritual that must follow. By insisting that “the succession question had to be settled first,” he weaponized the immediacy of grief to force a structural outcome. The swift elevation of Sunetra Pawar as Deputy Chief Minister was a masterstroke. It achieved multiple objectives simultaneously: it provided a legitimate, emotionally resonant heir to Ajit Pawar’s faction; it installed a leader whose first political act—taking the oath without consulting Sharad Pawar—was a definitive declaration of allegiance to the BJP’s arrangement; and it permanently foreclosed the option of a clean merger by creating a powerful new stakeholder with her own claim to the legacy.

Sharad Pawar’s reported refusal to congratulate Sunetra, the first woman Deputy CM of Maharashtra, is a detail of immense symbolic weight. It highlights how this clinical operation successfully framed a dynastic succession within a splinter group as a historic feminist milestone, thereby insulating it from criticism and casting the veteran Pawar as the sour patriarch obstructing women’s empowerment. Fadnavis demonstrated that in modern Indian politics, control is not just about having power, but about controlling the sequence of events to make certain outcomes inevitable and others impossible. This is the “crucial truth” Gupta identifies: “timing is power.”

Rahul’s Whisper: The Personal as the Only Political Refuge

In stark contrast to Fadnavis’s decisive, outward-moving action stands the portrait of Rahul Gandhi. His “moment of candour”—sharing his mother’s advice to avoid private jets—is dissected not as a political statement, but as a psychologically revealing vignette. The analysis is sharp: Sonia Gandhi’s counsel is born of a “deep awareness of how abruptly power and life can intersect,” a trauma-informed caution shaped by the assassinations of her mother-in-law and husband. Rahul’s choice to share this publicly is framed as an attempt to “humanise” himself, to inject a sliver of the personal into a world of “scripted positions.”

However, within the broader narrative of the column, this act appears less like strategic communication and more like political introspection turned outward. It underscores a Congress that is increasingly operating in the realm of personal sentiment and inherited trauma, while its adversaries operate in the realm of institutional maneuver and pre-emptive strikes. The private jet anecdote symbolizes a politics of avoidance (of risk, of elite perception) rather than a politics of acquisition (of power, of opportunity). It is defensive, cautionary, and inward-looking. In the same corridors where Fadnavis would be plotting a succession, Rahul Gandhi is reflecting on his mother’s fears. The contrast couldn’t be starker: one leader uses a death to consolidate power; the other uses a hallway chat to reveal vulnerability. This encapsulates the Congress’s current dilemma: it struggles to project a public, actionable agenda, often retreating into the personal as its most authentic, yet politically insufficient, mode of expression.

The Bengal Equation: Demographics as Destiny

The third segment shifts the focus to West Bengal, revealing the BJP’s long-game electoral engineering. The assignment of new party president Nitin Nabin to the state’s Hindi-speaking, Bihari-dominated western belt is a lesson in granular political targeting. The BJP is no longer relying solely on nationalistic fervor or charismatic rallies; it is engaging in surgical social algebra.

The strategy involves several layered calculations:

1. Geographic Targeting: Focusing on Bardhaman-Asansol, where cultural and linguistic lines blur with Bihar, creating a natural affinity for a Hindi-speaking leader.

2. Demographic Targeting: Explicitly courting the “sizable Bihari and non-Bengali population,” a bloc often seen as outside Mamata Banerjee’s core Bengali sub-nationalist appeal.

3. Caste Targeting: Introducing Nitin Nabin, a Kayastha, to directly appeal to the influential Kayastha community in the region, attempting to splice a subsection from Banerjee’s coalition.
   The column astutely notes the “complication”: the presence of popular Kayastha MPs already in the area—Shathrughan Sinha (Asansol) and Kirti Azad (Bardhaman). This reveals the BJP’s confidence. It is not merely seeking votes; it is attempting to re-wire political loyalties, suggesting that community identity should align with the party’s ideological project rather than individual celebrity. The aim is to make the party, not the person, the default vehicle for a community’s aspirations. This is a move from retail politics to wholesale political realignment, a sign of a party thinking in terms of decade-long realignments rather than just winning the next election.

The Vanishing Act: The Crisis of Oppositional Politics

The column’s closing note on the Congress’s “MGNREGA Bachao Abhiyan” is a damning indictment of the state of opposition. The sequence is telling: a policy is unveiled (the G Ram G Bill replacing MGNREGA), the Congress responds with a familiar toolkit—Parliamentary protest, Working Committee meetings, a large rally at Ramlila Maidan, and the formation of a committee. And then, “three weeks on, the agitation has vanished without a trace.”

This failure is multifaceted. It is a failure of sustained mobilization: unable to move from a one-day event to a persistent movement. It is a failure of narrative: unable to simplify a complex policy issue into a compelling public cause. It is a failure of grassroots connect: unable to translate Delhi-centric protests into widespread rural unrest on an issue that directly affects the rural poor. Gupta’s comparison with Mamata Banerjee, who “hits the road before the ink dries on an ED notice,” is pointed. It highlights a contrast between a politics of perpetual, visceral campaigning and a politics of periodic, ceremonial protest.

The Congress’s “radio silence” after the initial flurry symbolizes a deeper existential crisis. It lacks the organizational machinery, the hunger, and the strategic clarity to wage a prolonged political battle. It plans agitations as events to be managed, not as organic expressions of public anger to be channeled. While the BJP executes surgical strikes on political vacancies and demographic niches, the Congress cannot sustain a frontal assault on a core ideological issue. This asymmetry is the defining feature of the current Indian political affair.

Synthesis: The New Political Paradigm

Collectively, these vignettes paint a picture of a new political paradigm:

1. The BJP as a Strategic Leviathan: It operates with a unified command (Delhi high command), agile state-level satraps (like Fadnavis), and a multi-layered strategy encompassing crisis management (Maharashtra), demographic re-engineering (West Bengal), and narrative framing. Its actions are proactive, pre-emptive, and relentlessly focused on altering political facts on the ground.

2. The Congress as a Reactive Institution: Trapped in rituals of protest, struggling to connect personal narrative (Rahul’s candour) with public action, and unable to maintain momentum. Its politics is often reactive, episodic, and lacks the operational ruthlessness of its rival.

3. The Diminishing Space for Ideology: The battles described are not about competing visions for India. They are about succession, caste arithmetic, and the tactical exploitation of events. Policy, like MGNREGA, becomes a political football, but the sustained ideological debate around welfare, federalism, or economic models is submerged beneath realpolitik.

Conclusion: The Fly’s-Eye View and Democracy’s Discontents

Harish Gupta’s “Fly on the Wall” column is valuable precisely because it strips away the theater of Parliament and the rallies to show the wiring underneath. The current affair it reveals is the professionalization and centralization of political power in India. Democracy is functioning, but increasingly as a complex game managed by a highly skilled vanguard that understands timing, law, administration, and social psychology as weapons.

The danger this poses is the erosion of a genuinely contested public sphere. When one side masters the mechanics of power to this degree, and the other is unable to mount a sustained challenge, the democratic process risks becoming a managed spectacle. The empathy in Rahul’s story, the raw ambition in Sunetra’s rise, and the cold calculus in Nabin’s assignment are all real. But they exist within a system where the scales of strategic capability are overwhelmingly tilted. The question for the Indian polity is not just who wins the next election, but whether the art of political management has become so advanced that it threatens to make the outcome a foregone conclusion, long before the first vote is cast. That is the sobering current affair unfolding in the corridors of power, quietly observed by the fly on the wall.

Q&A: Delving Deeper into the Mechanics of Power

Q1: The column praises Fadnavis’s “timing” in managing the NCP succession. Beyond preventing a merger, what long-term advantages does the swift induction of Sunetra Pawar as Deputy CM secure for the BJP in Maharashtra?

A1: The move cements several long-term strategic advantages. First, it normalizes BJP’s hegemony: By placing a Pawar family member as Deputy CM within the BJP-led framework, it sends a message that even legacy regional satraps are now subordinate players in a BJP-dominated system. Second, it institutionalizes the split: Sunetra’s position gives her faction tangible state resources and patronage power, making any future reconciliation with Sharad Pawar’s faction structurally difficult and financially disadvantageous for her cadre. Third, it creates a controllable regional face: Sunetra, while politically astute, does not have Ajit Pawar’s independent mass base or decades of networking. Her authority is derivative and initially reliant on BJP support, making her a more pliable ally. Finally, it demoralizes the opposition: It demonstrates to every regional party worker that defection to the BJP, even posthumously, is rewarded with power, while loyalty to the old guard yields diminishing returns.

Q2: Rahul Gandhi’s private jet comment is interpreted as humanizing but not strategically political. Could this kind of “personal brand” politics ever be an effective counter to the BJP’s managerial style, if deployed differently?

A2: Potentially, yes, but it would require a radical transformation. A personal brand politics built on consistent, relatable authenticity could be powerful, but Rahul Gandhi’s has been inconsistent—oscillating between the reluctant prince and the aggressive challenger. To be effective, it must be scalable and action-oriented. For instance, if the aversion to private jets translated into a visible, sustained practice of using trains and commercial flights for all travel, coupled with direct, unscripted engagements with citizens during those journeys, it could forge a powerful narrative of accessibility and humility. The problem is not the personal touch, but its isolation from a larger, coherent political project. The personal must amplify the political, not substitute for it. A personal brand of empathy must be linked to a policy agenda of economic justice; a narrative of caution must connect to a critique of elite capture. Currently, the anecdote stands alone as a curious fragment, not a chapter in a compelling story.

Q3: The BJP’s West Bengal strategy targets specific caste-community blocs with a tailored messenger (Nitin Nabin). Does this hyper-localized approach risk factionalism within the BJP’s own Bengal unit, and how does the party manage the aspirations of its existing local leaders?

A3: This is a significant inherent risk. The parachuting of a national figure with a specific community appeal can alienate local BJP karyakartas (workers) and leaders from other communities who have built the party’s presence from the ground up. They may feel their efforts are being instrumentalized for a narrow gain. The BJP manages this through a combination of strict hierarchical discipline, the promise of collective victory, and patronage. Local leaders are expected to subsume their ambitions for the larger goal of defeating the Trinamool Congress. The party’s formidable organizational machinery ensures that directives from the center are followed. Furthermore, if the strategy succeeds, the resulting expansion of BJP’s seat share will create new positions of power (MLAs, ministerial berths) that can be used to reward loyal local leaders, even those not from the targeted community. The party sells it as a “win-first, share-the-spoils-later” model, relying on a culture of discipline and the magnetic pull of being on the winning side.

Q4: The column scathingly describes the Congress’s failed “MGNREGA Bachao Abhiyan.” What would a successful, sustained opposition agitation on such an issue look like in today’s India, given the BJP’s dominance of the media narrative and state machinery?

A4: A successful agitation would need to be decentralized, multi-modal, and narrative-resilient. It would involve:

• Localized Leadership: Empowering state and district Congress committees, allied NGOs, and grassroots activists to lead localized protests, dharnas, and public hearings in villages, making it a widespread groundswell rather than a Delhi-centric event.

• Sustained Simple Messaging: Boiling down the complex bill to a potent, repeatable slogan about “taking away the right to work” or “breaking the guarantee,” using social media creatively to bypass traditional media gatekeepers.

• Coalition Building: Actively reaching out to other opposition parties, farmers’ unions, and labor groups to present a united front, making it a broader anti-government mobilization rather than a Congress-specific program.

• Symbology and Sacrifice: Having senior leaders undertake a visible, sustained action—like a padyatra through affected districts or a collective sit-in—that demonstrates commitment and keeps the issue in the news cycle through sheer endurance.

• Parallel Fact-Checking: Establishing a rapid-response digital war room to counter the government’s narrative on the bill with data, testimonies from affected workers, and expert analysis, fighting the information battle in real-time.

Q5: The author is a National Editor of a media group. How does the insider, “fly-on-the-wall” genre of political journalism shape public understanding of politics, and what are its potential pitfalls?

A5: This genre provides an invaluable service by demystifying power, showing the human calculations, fears, and deals behind the headlines. It moves beyond the sterile debate of Parliament to the adrenaline-filled world of strategy sessions and corridor whispers, making politics feel dynamic and real. However, its pitfalls are significant. It can:

• Normalize Cynicism: By focusing exclusively on maneuver and manipulation, it can reinforce the view that all politics is a selfish game, eroding public faith in democratic ideals.

• Overstate the “Insider” View: It risks privileging the tactics of the powerful over the substance of policy, making politics seem like a sport where only the players’ strategies matter, not the outcome for the spectators (the public).

• Become a Tool for Access Journalism: The need to protect sources within powerful circles can lead to soft-pedaling criticism or unconsciously adopting the framing of the elites being covered.

• Neglect the Structural: The focus on individual agency (Fadnavis’s acumen, Rahul’s candour) can overshadow the deeper structural factors—economic distress, institutional decay, social polarization—that shape the political arena. It tells us how the game is being played brilliantly by some, but often less about why the game itself is changing.