One nation, one foreclosure

A pluralistic Indian state based on Ganga-Jamuni syncretic culture was always a transitory bargain, a holding pattern until the underlying reality asserted itself. Ambedkar's Constitution was as alien to the casteist realities of India as he was to the religion of his birth. It was merely a face-saving arrangement for a Westernised elite to prepare the world for India's eventual descent into prejudiced madness. Fundamentally, this secular republic was a loan underwritten by the real owners of the land: the businessmen whose panic over Liaquat Ali Khan's 1947 tax-heavy budget helped dictate the borders of partition. The so-called Brahmin-Bania alliance, if you will. Today, that debt is being collected with interest.

What is this underlying reality? In his foundational 1966 text, "Bunch of Thoughts", the second supremo of the RSS, MS Golwalkar, laid out the blueprint. The goal, he wrote, was clear: "The most important and effective step will be to bury deep for good all talk of a federal structure of our country's Constitution, to sweep away the existence of all 'autonomous' or semi-autonomous 'states' within the one State viz., Bharat and proclaim 'One Country, One State, One Legislature, One Executive'." A long journey which begins with One Nation, One Election.

But to what end? On 30 November 1949, just four days after the Constituent Assembly adopted the document, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser openly lamented that it ignored the caste-based hierarchies of ancient India: "To this day his (Manu's) laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing."

See how the Manusmriti excites this admiration: Chapter 8, Verse 417: "A Brahmana may confidently seize the goods of Sudra (the lowest varna, mostly today's OBCs); for, as that (slave) can have no property, his master may take his possessions." Chapter 10, Verse 129: "No collection of wealth must be made by a Sudra, even though he be able (to do it); for a Sudra who has acquired wealth, gives pain to Brahmanas." Chapter 10, Verse 51: "But the dwellings of the Kandalas and Svapakas (Dalits) shall be outside the village; they must be made Apapatras (permanently dispossessed), and their wealth (shall be) dogs and donkeys." Chapter 10, Verse 52: "Their dress (shall be) the garments of the dead, (they shall eat) their food from broken dishes, black iron (shall be) their ornaments, and they must always wander from place to place." This attitude towards property rights will become abundantly clear shortly.

You may argue India's complexity makes such regression impossible. For evidence, look at the current regime. The incumbent recently had his cabinet declare him the longest-serving prime minister in history, a fiction achieved by erasing Jawaharlal Nehru's first five years from the records. Despite tanking the economy and carrying the shadow of the Gujarat massacres, his grip remains absolute. He rules with unyielding centralisation, reducing even the mighty RSS to a subservient echo chamber.

Institutional independence is now purely decorative. The state machinery is captured. Unsurprisingly, the ruling establishment is the world's richest political party, bankrolled by a handful of billionaires. The system is entirely compromised to ensure these tycoons face no federal hurdles.

The final stumbling block is the South. The Dravidian states, with their entrenched pluralism and secularism, represent everything the new order must destroy. To neutralise them, the establishment deployed two Trojan horses: "One Nation, One Election" and a looming delimitation exercise. Both are designed to permanently disenfranchise the southern opposition and reduce autonomous states to modern-day apapatras.

When a compromised election commission holds simultaneous elections, it produces magical results. But the case of delimitation is even more surgical.

For decades, parliamentary representation remained frozen to reward southern states for controlling their populations. To break this freeze, the establishment deployed a brilliant Trojan horse: the Women's Reservation Bill. By inserting Article 334A into the 106th Amendment, the government hardwired the 33 per cent gender quota to take effect only after a post-2026 delimitation exercise. Oppose the redrawing of the electoral map to save federalism, and you are anti-women.

Once that trap springs, the mathematics of an expanded 848-seat Lok Sabha is ruthlessly stark. Uttar Pradesh is projected to gain up to 63 new seats and Bihar 39. Two states alone will capture over 100 new seats, permanently anchoring national power in the cow belt, which is keener on Modi than others. Conversely, the Dravidian states, rewarded for their governance success, will see their parliamentary share slashed from 24 per cent to about 20 per cent. This political erasure cements an economic one. Tamil Nadu receives roughly 29 paise back for every rupee it sends to the Centre, whereas Uttar Pradesh receives nearly 3 rupees back.

Once the South's voice is made irrelevant and the establishment captures a two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament, the constitutional fiction can be discarded, and a Hindu Rashtra formally proclaimed. In practical terms, this means the country's overwhelming majority will lose their constitutional protections and, eventually, their property rights. This targets lower castes like Shudras or OBCs at roughly 60 per cent of the population, Dalits and Scheduled Castes at 16.6 per cent, and Adivasis and Scheduled Tribes at 8.6 per cent. The ongoing protests by marginalised communities against massive land acquisitions by regime-aligned billionaires like Adani are proof of the concept. They are the blueprint in action. Foreclosure at last.

I am often asked how this domestic restructuring is relevant to Pakistan or the broader region. The Hindu Rashtra project is intrinsically linked to the geographical fantasy of Akhand Bharat. Once the new state successfully renegotiates India's internal social contract, it plans to export this model to the neighbourhood. This expansion will not rely on conventional military invasions. Instead, the blueprint involves dismantling a target country's political and social order from within, engineering a collapse so complete that dismemberment and absorption into India appear as voluntary choices. Here too, property matters more than people.

Through state-promoted cinema like the Dhurandhar duology, the establishment is already making the exceptional claim that its operatives are permanently embedded within the power structures of neighbouring states. Even if entirely fictional, this broadcasts their ultimate ambition.