Desperation on the campaign trail is a guaranteed test of character. Faced with a stiff electoral challenge, contestants tend to fall back on core political beliefs to spell out the essential choice to voters. Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah certainly left nothing to nuance on Friday at an >election rally in Raxaul in Bihar’s East Champaran district. Should a BJP government not be formed in the State, he said, crackers would be burst in Pakistan. To drum up the rhetoric, he asked the assembled crowd if they would want that to happen. On cue, Sushil Modi, the BJP’s seniormost State leader and till the 2013 BJP-Janata Dal (United) split Deputy Chief Minister to Nitish Kumar, reinforced the divisive innuendo. In the event of a BJP victory in Bihar, there would be Diwali in India, he posted on Twitter, and if the “UPA” won, there would be “celebration” in Pakistan. This is a spectacularly shameful attempt by a party that leads the national government to cast citizens of India who vote otherwise as unpatriotic. Sangh rabble-rousers have not exactly been subtle in using “Pakistan” as code for being untrue to India. In their invocation of the “Pakistan” reference point, Muslims’ patriotism is brought into question, as well as of others who question or disagree with the BJP. In fact, in the 2002 State election campaign, Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat Chief Minister, freely addressed “Mian Musharraf” as a representative of all those who disagreed with him, and by implication all that was not good for India.

In the years since, Mr. Modi has remade his image. In the Lok Sabha campaign of 2014, he privileged economic growth over Hindutva, though assorted BJP leaders kept drumming sectarian points, especially in post-Muzzafarnagar Uttar Pradesh. After becoming Prime Minister, the impression has been conveyed that even as Sangh affiliates and BJP members return to Hindutva messaging, 7 Race Course Road was disapproving, that there was concern that the development agenda may be compromised. It is a different matter that he never publicly voiced the disapproval. This is why the Bihar campaign marks a potential turning point. On the trail, the Prime Minister himself sought to reassure voters that he would not allow “ >a particular community” to cut into reservation quotas for the backward classes. The reference was obvious. Mr. Shah’s Raxaul warning does not come in a vacuum. It feeds into, and nourishes, the official intolerance of dissent. It comes amidst the takeover of cultural and educational institutions by Hindutva ideologues and fellow-travellers. It strengthens the anxiety that the men and women who currently rule India do not hold all citizens equal. These statements are not campaign-trail indiscretions uttered in the heat of electoral competition that can be simply referred to the Election Commission for a suitable reprimand. They reflect, and encapsulate, a deeper current of majoritarianism that must be confronted as such in all its dimensions.