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India has been governed by coalition governments for most of the period since 1989. Of the twelve coalition governments formed between 1977 and 2024, eight were "minority coalitions" — where the leading party or coalition depended on outside support to survive. Four were "oversized coalitions" — where more parties joined the government than were strictly needed for a majority.  The current NDA government (2024–) represents a new technical category: the first "surplus majority coalition without a majority party" in Indian parliamentary history, as political scientist Eswaran Sridharan described it in his post-election analysis for CASI. The BJP has 240 seats — 32 short of a majority — but its NDA alliance totals 293.  Representational Image: How Coalition Politics Works in India The surplus arithmetic means that no single coalition partner is "pivotal" — losing any one partner (TDP's 16 seats, or JD(U)'s 12 seats, or Shiv Sena's 7 seat...

Religion has always been a dimension of Indian electoral politics. The Constitution's architects knew this and explicitly prohibited appeals to religion as a basis for seeking votes under Section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act. Despite this prohibition, religious identity shapes Indian elections through three distinct channels: the mobilisation of Hindu voters around Hindutva nationalism; the strategic consolidation of Muslim voters behind secular parties; and communal political rhetoric that polarises electorates along religious lines before and during campaigns.  These channels are constitutional violations when they cross specific thresholds, but are persistent features of electoral competition that the law has not effectively suppressed. Representational image: How Religion Shapes Indian Elections India's demographic reality gives religious polarisation structural political significance. Hindus constitute approximately 79.8% of India's 2011-census popula...

India has approximately 750–800 million active internet users, of whom 535 million use WhatsApp, 467 million use YouTube, and 362 million use Instagram. These platforms have become the primary venues for political communication in a country where television reaches approximately 900 million but is increasingly supplemented and bypassed by mobile-first digital communication. The 2024 Lok Sabha election — conducted against a backdrop of this mass digital penetration — was described by researchers at Oxford Internet Institute as "a Modi-centric election" defined by "the strategic use of journalism, social media, and internet governance."  Indian political parties, particularly the BJP, have developed sophisticated digital infrastructure: BJP manages over five million WhatsApp groups to distribute its election messaging; it has over 7.8 million Instagram followers; its IT Cell produces viral content in over 20 Indian languages simultaneously. No other Indian political p...

The criminalisation of Indian politics is documented, systematic, and — by the data — worsening over time. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha election found that 251 (46%) of 543 newly elected Lok Sabha members have criminal cases registered against them — the highest ever proportion. Of these, 170 (31%) face serious criminal charges including rape, murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and crimes against women. This represents a 55% increase in MPs with declared criminal cases since 2009.  The ADR's 2025 analysis of state assemblies found that 45% (1,861 MLAs) across 28 states and 3 union territories have declared criminal cases, of whom 29% (1,205 MLAs) face serious criminal charges. Andhra Pradesh leads with 79% of MLAs having criminal cases; Kerala and Telangana follow at 69% each; Bihar, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu show 59–66%. Representational image: How Criminals Enter Indian Politics These figures come from mandatory self-declar...

India's parliamentary democracy provides the formal architecture for opposition: a Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in the Lok Sabha with cabinet minister rank and specific statutory rights in appointment committees; opposition benches in both houses that can move cut motions, ask questions, participate in debates, and form parliamentary committees; and state governments controlled by opposition parties that provide alternative governance platforms.  The quality and effectiveness of parliamentary opposition varies enormously across India's parliamentary history — from the organised, disciplined BJP opposition of the 2004–2014 UPA era to the fragmented, ideologically diverse INDIA alliance that contested the 2024 election and now occupies the opposition benches of the 18th Lok Sabha. Representational Image: How the Opposition Functions in India After the 2014 and 2019 elections, in which BJP won single-party majorities, the Congress party did not meet the threshold of 10% of Lok ...

Hindutva — literally "Hindu-ness" or "Hindu-ism" as a political identity — is the ideological foundation of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The term was first politically defined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 booklet "Essentials of Hindutva," written while he was under house arrest following his release from the Andaman Islands prison. Savarkar's definition was deliberately political rather than religious: a Hindu, in his formulation, is someone who regards India as both their pitribhumi (fatherland) and punyabhumi (holy land) — meaning Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains qualify as Hindus under his definition, while Muslims and Christians do not, because their holy lands are in Arabia and Palestine respectively. This ethnic-civilisational definition of Indian national identity — rather than the territorial-secular definition embedded in the Constitution — is the foundational claim of Hindutva as political ideology. Representatio...

The Bharatiya Janata Party's rise from 2 Lok Sabha seats in 1984 to consistent parliamentary majorities between 2014 and 2019, and continued dominance despite losing its majority in 2024, is one of the most dramatic political ascents in democratic history. In 1984, the year Congress won 415 seats in the sympathy wave following Indira Gandhi's assassination, the BJP — then five years old — won just 2 seats from a nationwide campaign.  By 2024 it had become what the Carnegie Endowment describes as "the pole around which Indian politics is arrayed" — a party that "draws in votes from every corner of the country and supporters from across castes, communities, and even religions." Understanding this transformation requires distinguishing between the three overlapping sources of BJP's strength: the RSS organisational network; the Hindutva ideological project; and Narendra Modi's personal political brand. Representational Image: How BJP Became India's D...