Taking on Modi's BJP

The future challenger to Narendra Modi would be somebody who can bring the Hindus and Muslims together again. The Hindus as Hindus, not broken caste groups

In the second of this three-part National Interest series on Hindu-Muslim relations, new definitions of the old secular-communal binary and the way ahead, we had raised a question. Can politics reunite what religion divided?

This draws from our central argument— that since the decline of the Congress as the dominant political force across states in 1989, power in Indian politics has fluctuated between two competing ideas. That you can use caste to divide what religion united. Or religion to re-stitch what caste divided.

For about 25 years, caste dominated. But in 2014, religion won that battle for the Hindu vote in our