Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist. Views are personal

The BJP/NDA government’s survival is now dependent on two of India’s most opportunistic politicians, Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu — leaders with transactional mindsets

Almost everyone knows that what Union home minister Amit Shah says is usually a prelude to some policy action that will be to the detriment of minorities.

It is also widely assumed and with some justification, that his utterances set the BJP/NDA government’s agenda. From early days, his target has been the Muslim minority. Risen from the ashes of Gujarat’s communal harmony, established many years ago by Mahatma Gandhi and policed by the indefatigable Sardar Patel, the saffron agenda is running rampant.

Digging into the playbook of the Hindu advocacy group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Shah has established that stirring insecurity in the population is a sure-fire way to ensure election triumphs for his Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat and elsewhere.

Curiously, this strategy was used by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his Muslim League to achieve the establishment of Pakistan. Likewise, Shah presses the communal mobilisation button to ensure electoral victory for his party. It is the polar opposite of the unity and amity Gandhi propagated and Patel ensured.

It is sobering to recall, for example, in the United States, coloured citizens and women did not win the right to vote until almost two centuries after the declaration of independence in 1776. Even more surprising is the fact that India’s Constitution derived sustenance from the one signed in Philadelphia. The concept of “We, the People” unites the two countries in an unshakeable bond of self-determination that led to the shredding of colonial shackles.

At that fateful stroke of midnight clocks some seven decades ago, Indians cheered, much as Americans rejoiced at the sonorous peal of the Liberty Bell more than two centuries earlier. It was the first demonstration of the power of civil disobedience, a nonviolent revolution envisioned by the likes of Henry David Thoreau who wrote that because “…governments are typically more harmful than helpful; they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual’s conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so it is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”

No one imbibed Thoreau’s words better or more thoroughly than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Perfected as a protest against the racial discrimination of Afrikaner regime of Jan Smuts in South Africa, Gandhi’s satyagraha movement proved spectacularly successful.

When he returned to India, Gandhi joined the Indian National Congress and converted the modest Home Rule demand into a radical freedom movement. He targeted the British colonial government with his tactics of non-violent non-cooperation. Unable to find adequate response, the British Empire bowed to his pressure and quit India as demanded by nationalists.

This rich history of successful protest is being sorely tested, many Indians feel, by Narendra Modi whose government stands accused of silencing opponents, suppressing protest. Luckily for him, the opposition has been unable to coalesce around a leader, helped largely in part by the fierce, and some say unscrupulous, campaign against the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi.

However, the reality of misrule and bigotry is beginning to assert itself. Modi stands diminished by striking losses of the last national election. His survival is now dependent on two of India’s most opportunistic politicians, Bihar’s Nitish Kumar and Andhra Pradesh’s Chandrababu Naidu. Many in the opposition charge both leaders with having a blatantly transactional mindset: support will be at the cost of ruling alliance seats in the Central government, or largesse for their states.

This is a relatively new development in Indian politics but happens a lot in Western Europe, which has a history of cold, calculated coalition politics. But given the level of development in these countries, where politics is often a distraction and modernity is the norm, the question arises: Can India afford it?

Just look at Bihar, compare Andhra Pradesh with the rest of South India. Ask whether these regions can afford such mercantile politicians? Lift your gaze to the national level and ask if India can afford such bazaar politics.

Some observers might well ask if introducing such commercial elements into the body politic will help in the fundamental task of alleviating poverty. According to the second edition of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released by Niti Aayog (formerly the Planning Commission), approximately 14.96 percent of India’s population is considered to be in a state of multidimensional poverty. The index assesses simultaneous deprivations in health, education, and standard of living.

Others wonder if there is anyone in the current dispensation who understands that eradicating poverty is not about alms and charity.