Is Modi redefining India's constitutional identity through majoritarian narratives?

Narendra Modi’s critique of 'colonial mentality' hinted at reinterpreting India’s constitutional identity through civilisational values

Hoisting a religious flag above the Ram temple at Ayodhya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, described the moment as the healing of “wounds and pain of centuries”. Whether it was a civilisational triumph for the Hindus can be a matter of faith for some and debate for others.

However, the highly-theatrical event was replete with political significance. For the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) it marked the completion of an ideological project that was at the core of its attempts since the 1980s to consolidate the Hindu vote. As the leader whose tenure saw the project completed, Modi’s flag hoisting instantly elevated him above all BJP leaders, past and present. That Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat, who also hoisted the flag with him, also underlined the fusing of politics with Hindutva ideology.

However, Bhagwat was no more than a necessary footnote to Modi’s moment in history. The TV cameras focused only on Modi, his folded hands trembling with emotion, showcasing his sincerity, humility, and devotion to Lord Ram.

Nothing bars elected officials from attending or performing religious ceremonies in public. Indian political leaders, including former prime ministers, presidents, and, recently, even army chiefs, have not shied away from displaying their religiosity publicly.

However, when the executive head of the State decides to perform priestly functions on religious occasions, it symbolically conflates political and religious authority, and goes against the spirit of the Constitution. Modi’s hoisting of the religious flag was a deeply extra-constitutional gesture, blurring the firewall between State and religion, given India’s professed secular values.

Modi has consistently adopted symbols and images that cast his regime in the dharmic tradition of kingship, rather than as a constitutional prime minister: from personally installing the object called Sengol (a sacred sceptre) in Parliament besides the Speaker’s chair and the consecration of the Ram temple after 11-days of fasting, dressed in traditional attire to now hoisting a religious flag over the Ram temple. What the RSS and its family of organisations consider Hinduism is sought to be embedded into State institutions.

That the event also aimed at ‘Hindu consolidation’ was evident from the profile of the invitees to the occasion. The consecration in January 2024 had been well attended by the who’s who of India’s sycophantic political and economic elite. This time, the focus was strategically political — on the leaders of Hindu non-elite castes, the Dalits, and backward castes, especially from 350 villages around Ayodhya.

In a deliberate nod towards these castes, Modi, in fact, visited shrines to Nishadraj and Mata Shabari before the flag hoisting ceremony, underlining the connection of the deity to the backward and marginalised castes. The story of Ram is linked to figures from the marginalised communities who played a crucial role in his years in exile, such as the king of boatmen, Nishadraj, and Shabari, a lower caste woman, among others.

In the 2024 general elections, despite the much-hyped inauguration of the Ram temple, the BJP lost five Lok Sabha seats in and around Ayodhya — Faizabad (including Ayodhya), Ambedkar Nagar, Shravasti, Gonda, and Basti — due to backward caste arithmetic going against it. The BJP also lost these constituencies, largely consisting of a significant proportion of backward caste and Dalit voters.

Although the BJP won 15 of the 26 Assembly segments in these five Lok Sabha constituencies, it lost the parliamentary seats in 2024, barely months after the Ram temple inauguration. The marginalised and OBC caste groups are highly mobilised along their own caste-based parties, such as the Samajwadi Party or even the now-fading Bahujan Samaj Party that emphasise social justice and caste identity.

These constituencies contain only a minority of upper caste voters, and the temple project was perhaps seen by the majority of voters as one driven by the upper castes. An upper caste consolidation by itself is not sufficient to win an election in UP. The invitee list for the religious flag-hoisting, thus, became an occasion for strategic recalibration of the party’s OBC and Dalit outreach, and to anchor the narrative of inclusive Hinduism personified by Ram among these crucial voters whose politics is still caste-driven. Hence his claim, “Our Ram connects not through differences, but through emotions.”

The UP legislative Assembly election is due in February-March 2027, and Modi has ensured that the Ram temple would continue to be used in future election cycles to come. One can be sure that this will not be the last event to be organised at the venue to milk the Hindu vote.

But perhaps the most disturbing part of the prime minister’s speech was that his attack on colonial mentality lends itself to a covert critique of the Indian Constitution. Blaming Thomas Macaulay’s influence on Indian education and intellectual life, for creating a mind-set disconnected from India’s roots he added, “The mentality of slavery has led to the mistaken view that India borrowed democracy and even its Constitution from abroad, when, in fact, India is the birthplace of democracy, it is in our DNA.” When he said, “The next 10 years should be dedicated to reversing this colonial mind-set,” did Modi imply that the Constitution would have to be restructured as well?

In not owning up the indigenous nature of the Constitution with the same gusto as ‘democracy’, was the prime minister implicitly questioning the secular, liberal framework that has defined Indian governance since Independence? He may as yet lack the wherewithal to rewrite the Constitution, but the rhetoric signals a desire for reinterpreting it by foregrounding what he calls Indian civilisational values.

Lest this seems like over-interpretation of a straw in the wind, consider that President Droupadi Murmu, a day later, in her address on Constitution Day, echoed Modi’s narrative: “The Constitution is the guiding document to shun colonial mindset and adopt nationalistic thinking.” Does moving away from colonial legacies of governance, law, and education imply privileging “nationalistic” (BJP’s newspeak for ‘majoritarian’) narratives over pluralist secular ones? India may well be entering tumultuous waters in a bid to redefine its constitutional identity.

Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.