The year ahead will be dominated by the rising edifice of a Hindu Rashtra

The recent history of the world suggests economic pain doesn't create electoral openings

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Indian footprint, measured by the number of state governments that it controls, has been shrinking. Its failure to form a government in Maharashtra and its defeat in Jharkhand has left the political map of India looking considerably less orange than it did in 2017, when the Hindi heartland was a solid bloc of saffron.
 
But appearances are deceptive: 2019 was not a normal year because the BJP won a resounding parliamentary majority in the general election in May. The pan-Indian dominance of Narendra Modi’s BJP at the level of the Union more than made