"BJP's foundation shaken; Team Modi-Shah will need Yogi in closer circuit"
Question (Raisina Hills)
TRH:
Did something significant happen politically in July 2026? Has Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered a setback to the political image he has carefully built over the years? Or was the episode essentially the result of mishandling a protest and a political miscalculation?
Nirendra Dev:
In a way, nothing happened. But still something happened.
I think the time factor is important. Between 2014 and now, 12 years have gone. Look back and you may realise it has gone pretty fast. Perhaps the 12 years prior to that, between 2002 and 2014, did not go so fast in India.
If we analyse closely, the Jantar Mantar protest, using the NEET examination paper leak issue as its immediate trigger, has almost now made even the BJP a “symbol” of the old.
TRH:
When you say the BJP has begun to look like a “symbol of the old,” what exactly do you mean? Are you suggesting that the party’s appeal among younger voters is beginning to change?
Nirendra Dev:
Well, I would say when BJP and RSS leaders say, “Let us talk to Gen Z,” there is a blatant suggestion. There may be an admission. The guilt is a realisation — the Lotus party and Hindutva politics have grown old.
I will say, politically, this is a dangerous phenomenon for the Modi-Shah duo. Hence, immediate and extremely result-oriented corrective steps for them would be necessary.
They require greater coordination with Yogi Adityanath. One formula to counter this could be greater coordination between Team Modi-Shah and Yogi.
TRH:
You have supported Narendra Modi as a politician since 2002-03. Are you therefore saying that the political ground beneath the BJP has actually shifted? Has the party’s support base begun to shake?
Nirendra Dev:
I will say the trio of Modi-Amit Shah-Yogi, which can be dubbed “MAY,” can bring Hindutva politics, rhetoric and symbolism back into the boxing ring involving the youth.
Indian youth, and even Gen Z, are extremely religious. We are at a critical stage in the flowering of democracy. See, all these years, the greatest achievement of Narendra Modi politically, or the so-called Moditva phenomenon, has been to present the Sonia-Rahul-Priyanka factor as the “symbol of the old” and as the image of the elites.
July 2026 has perhaps changed this, albeit mildly.
TRH:
So, are you saying the BJP’s political success was built partly around presenting itself as the party of a new India against an older political establishment?
Nirendra Dev:
It’s like this. In the process, for several years out of the last 12 years, the BJP and NDA have been in power. Team Modi-Shah occupied multiple political spaces.
The BJP, of course, had Hindutva and development politics. Modi also played caste politics quite cleverly, say in West Bengal. There have been repeated references in public statements by BJP leaders that Modi himself is an OBC.
There was a successful use of the Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan factor. The old elites were challenged.
TRH:
There have also been claims that forces beyond the immediate political opposition may have played a role in the campaign. Some critics have suggested that the target was not merely the then Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, but ultimately the Modi government itself.
How seriously do you take such a possibility?
Nirendra Dev:
One should not rule out anything. The manner in which all that unfolded was too effective in terms of thrusting a result-oriented protest.
Dharmendra Pradhan had to go, as Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav says, in order to shield the prime minister in office.
But the Hindutva forces should act quickly. Otherwise, a campaign by the CJP and its “strategy makers” — whether in India or overseas — is already on to convince the younger generation that it may now be a “time’s up” moment for the old values and old politics.
TRH:
Are you therefore suggesting that the July protests could have implications far beyond the immediate education issue — potentially becoming the beginning of a longer political mobilisation among young Indians?
Nirendra Dev: To a large extent, what you are saying is correct.
In 2013-14, everyone wanted to throw out a corrupt system pampered and glorified by the Congress. See in 2026, we had the “gaali” or abusive-language sloganeering.
These were part of some campaigns — sinister and also long-term.
The ill-intent planning is done with a lot of research. The near-perfect coordination by all elements and behind-the-screen stakeholders only suggests that the biggest stakeholder in the entire game is someone not named.
Having tasted blood in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, there are enough reasons for them now to try such experiments in India. The middle-class Indians are always unhappy.
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| Politics of caste : Rajasthan - 2018 |
TRH:
So, in your assessment, was the Jantar Mantar protest successful precisely because it went beyond the immediate issue of education and the alleged examination irregularities?
Nirendra Dev:
The July protest in Delhi attributes its strength to many sources. In terms of politics, we need to go deeper. Around 2004, Rahul Gandhi was the symbol of the new generation and youth. Maybe Manmohan Singh and UPA-2 benefited from that logic for some time. In 2009, the veteran L.K. Advani was easily rejected by India.
But importantly, even BJP leaders like Rajnath Singh and the late Arun Jaitley understood this, and hence Sushma Swaraj was made Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
By 2013, both Jaitley and Rajnath Singh were more than determined to make Modi the prime ministerial face. The man in Gandhinagar and even the RSS were keen to oblige them.
TRH:
And do you believe that strategy succeeded because Modi was able to successfully position himself as the face of a new generation of Indian politics?
Nirendra Dev:
Yes, absolutely right. Once Modi came to national politics as the face of the BJP for the 2014 elections, the Congress base simply shrank.
In April 2014, I travelled across western Uttar Pradesh. This is a Yadav heartland, and here too everybody was talking only about Narendra Modi.
In 2026, the CJP has challenged and shaken that foundation.
TRH:
Why, then, do you believe Team Modi and Amit Shah would require Yogi Adityanath more closely in the national political equation? What does Yogi bring to the BJP at this particular moment?
Nirendra Dev: Primarily because Yogi is still very popular. He has been a performing chief minister. In 2023, Shah and Narendra Modi sidelined a few other performing faces in the BJP — Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje Scindia.
They will soon realise that such strategies can boomerang.
If we see the so-called flowering of democracy, it marks the historic growth of self-rule, pluralism and civic freedom in India. Rooted in ancient traditions, it blossomed fully under the blessings of the Constitution of India.
But there are elements. Under Modi, in 2014, the BJP not only wrested power from the Congress; it virtually rejected and “dumped” India’s grand old party. The prime minister uses the words and phrases himself — Lutyens’ Delhi or the “Khan Market”... culture has been rejected. Modi has given a “New India,” but with a new idea under which “anything and everything” linked to the Congress style and tradition is bad.
The younger lot has been accepting this and kept rewarding the BJP in every election. Modi and the BJP became symbols of aspirational India.
Here, the aspiration was not only development. It was largely pro-Hindu and communal in that sense.
That is why by 2019-20, as the Supreme Court mandate on the Ram temple came, India almost became Bharat, if not Hindustan, by default. And it became unapologetically Hindu — and the youngsters were included in that.
Now see, further, the prime minister has called for a 10-year national mission leading up to 2035 to eradicate India's lingering “colonial mindset” and mental slavery.
Modi’s counter-strategy against English focused on reviving indigenous knowledge systems, promoting regional Indian languages, and shifting away from Western-centric intellectual and governance models.
All these cannot make the Western bloc too pleased.
ends
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