Modi's 'Muscular Nationalism' in Focus, Murmurs of Discontent in Saffron Camp

The recent India-Pak ceasefire followed by Trump taking credit for it has left many in the saffron fold sour.

The punitive action by India against Pakistani terror bases as the response to the Pahalgam attack has put the spotlight sharply on the edifice of “muscular nationalism" built and propounded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

As the first round of talks between India and Pakistan since the ceasefire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on 12 May, the first time since tensions escalated between India and Pakistan on 7 May. The speech assumed significance, not just in terms of addressing the nation and the Opposition (which has been seeking a special Parliament session with the PM since the ceasefire), but also for assuaging the saffron camp followers and supporters, many of whom have expressed disappointment at how the tensions ended.

The punitive action by India against Pakistani terror bases as a response to the Pahalgam attack put the spotlight sharply on the edifice of “muscular nationalism" built and propounded by the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The aftermath of the conflict, however, promises to present new strands of majoritarian politics within India's polarised saffron camp.

Had the action, initiated under the cleverly codenamed Operation Sindoor, ended on 7 May, when India carried out precision strikes against nine alleged terror hubs in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK), the “muscular nationalism” plank of the BJP would have remained untarnished.

In fact, the BJP would still have been thumping its chest, had India and Pakistan blown the peace whistles to end the conflict on their own, without external intervention.

The majoritarian displeasure against the ceasefire, arrived at between India and Pakistan, instantly left an imprint on social media where Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri (and his family), as well as the BJP leadership, have been facing incessant trolling for allegedly taking India on the backfoot with Pakistan.

Moreover, party insiders claim that the Truth Social post of US President Donald Trump announcing a “US-mediated India-Pakistan ceasefire agreement", seems to have sunk the hearts of many within the saffron camp, both in the BJP ranks as well as among its supporters.

Muscular Nationalism: The Kozhikode Meet and Beyond

In contrast to the policy of 'strategic restraint' that India followed in the past, as after the 26/11 attack when it chose a diplomatic response over kinetic action, the BJP's emphasis on ”muscular nationalism“ has been in the making for some years now.

The first glimpse of what is being dubbed as a new foreign policy doctrine came in Kozhikode, Kerala, days after the Uri terror attack on 18 September 2016 that left 18 soldiers dead.

The attack, which took place in barely the third year of Modi's first term as PM, and at a time when the BJP was trying to grow its imprint in regions like the south, cast a long shadow over the BJP’s national executive meeting convened between 23 and 25 September in Kerala.

At Kozhikode, where this reporter was present, there were whispers of Modi "holding meetings with his key aides" and how the BJP’s then national general secretary Ram Madhav was also part of the deliberations”.

Landing in Kozhikode on 24 September, Modi gave his first speech after Uri. Facing the vast expanse of the Arabian Sea, the PM addressed a public meeting at the conclusion of the BJP’s national meet in which he dropped sufficient hints suggesting that punitive action against Pakistan for the Uri terror attack is in the offing. The surgical strikes were launched days later on 28 September.

The speech at Kozhikode was the first time since 2014 that the focus shifted from the BJP’s domestic political strategies to Modi’s possible response to Pakistan and terrorism.

Within two hours of news of the surgical strikes against PoK-based terrorists breaking out, the late Arun Jaitley held a session with the full battery of the BJP spokespersons in which they were strictly asked to avoid the “chest-thumping”. At the same time, the BJP spokespersons were armed with a new narrative, of the ”muscular nationalism“ of Modi, who withstood the US pressure and carried out punitive strikes against alleged terrorists in the PoK.

A few years later, the Balakot strike made the “muscular nationalism” plank a visible political pivot for the party.

While it hit the Opposition like a lightning bolt out of the blue, the plank helped the BJP sail through to a comfortable victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

A senior party functionary who spoke to The Quint argued that Modi built a cult-following among large sections of the people for “withstanding pressures of the US and the western nations, while showing a no-nonsense approach on matters involving the national security”.

Along with Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, “Modi stood tall against the US hegemonism," the functionary said. The BJP reaped the harvest of this “muscular nationalism”, making his supporters and voters believe that “India stands on an equal footing with developed, Western nations”.

Between Trumpism & Ghosts of Past Leaders

Former Indian diplomats have for long cautioned against Trump's unpredictability. The BJP got the undelible taste of it when the party leaders, to their utter dismay, found Trump claiming credit for the recent ceasefire between India and Pakistan on 10 May.

There was a sense that Trump’s Truth Social post was a “direct assault to Modi’s image of standing tall to any kind of external pressure”.

Worse, the BJP is without the intuitive and adroit counsel of leaders like Jaitley. The current crop of the BJP spokespersons largely lacks the finesse to walk the edge of the sword and argue the case of Modi’s leadership, especially with the shadow of Trump’s tariffs looming in the background.

The Pahalgam terror attack came at a time when India is in the midst of negotiations with the Trump administration for a trade pact. The global economic disruptions due to Trump’s tariffs are unsettling for many nations, opined a senior BJP functionary, who added that a “rebuttal of the claims of the US President could not have been advisable”.

Incidentally, one of the leading icons of the BJP is the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee. According to the "thinking heads" within the BJP, Vajpayee established a towering political personality by standing tall to “US pressures and calling out the bluff of the Western threat of sanctions against the conduct of nuclear tests by India.”

During military tensions with Kargil in the late 1990s, Vajpayee, as Prime Minister, defied the US pressures and helmed India with post-Pokhran sanctions.

In the BJP’s worldview, Vajpayee steadied India through the turbulence of western economic sanctions to lay the foundations of India's economic resilience within the global order. The BJP often eulogises Vajpayee for defying Washington's attempts to “guide India on path of self-reliance."

Similarly, the Congress has been harking back to the late Indira Gandhi's time in 1971, praising her for standing tall against the US intervention and running a surgical knife through Pakistan.

The PoK Bogey

The BJP reiterates very often that it’s only a question of timing before India reclaims the PoK.

In fact, a Parliamentary resolution dating back to 1994 has served as the fulcrum for the BJP’s pivot toward “muscular nationalism”. India’s serving diplomats also assertively state in foreign capitals that the only question about the "J&K issue" that remains unresolved is about the return of PoK to India.

It is true that in the lower ranks of the party, BJP workers and cadres had actually begun believing that PoK might soon come back to India. These beliefs came to the fore in wake of Operation Sindoor as is amply visible from a look at the pro-escalation posts on social media and the apparent disappointment at the ceasefire.

It is perhaps India's biggest fear: To be hyphenated with Pakistan. The US did just that.

Trump’s claim that he would seek to “mediate” the Kashmir issue at a neutral place, while heaping equal praise on the Indian and Pakistani leadership for practicing restraint—essentially bringing the two nations at an equal footing—put a puncture on India's PoK dream for now.

A few of the BJP leaders well-versed in geopolitics have been worrying that the Opposition will smell blood and pounce on the Modi government as the "biggest political pivot for leadership in India seems to have become slippery for Modi”.

The India-Pakistan hyphenation and the US 'brokering' are big red flags for the vocal Indian electorate.

First Bangladesh, Now Pakistan

The "muscular nationalism" plank was already being tested by the new Muhammad Yunus-led regime in Bangladesh since the ouster of former PM Sheikh Hasina and reports of violence against the minority Hindu population of Bangladesh.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s parental organisation, has accorded centre stage to the Bangladesh issue for the past few months.

Sources close to the BJP argue that the party’s support base as well as leadership is full of praise for the India’s Armed Forces. But an equal praise for foreign policy managers may be missing.

While the Prime Minister, in his address, made attempts to address some of these issues, was he be able to recreate the magic of the Kozhikode speech in 2016? Much remains riding on that.

(The author is a Delhi-based political journalist, who for over two decades worked for The New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, The Asian Age, and The Statesman. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)