The political in India has undergone a significant reconfiguration under the Bharatiya Janata Party. As Sudipta Kaviraj has shown the political is never a fixed category. It is a historical formation shaped by successive imaginaries of power and the state. The earlier secular developmental enchantment of the state gave way after 2014 to a cultural nationalist one. In that new arrangement, the state became the instrument for realising a majoritarian civilisational vision. Identity claims and narrative control over history and culture moved to the centre of political life. Belonging was increasingly measured by alignment with a particular cultural story. The political expanded into everyday practices of food dress worship and memory.
A further rupture is now visible. It is driven by large sections of the younger generation often called Gen Z. This generation has begun to challenge the primacy of identity as the organising principle of the political. In its place they are installing accountability as the decisive test of legitimacy. The state is no longer judged primarily by its success in cultural assertion or civilisational recovery. It is judged by its capacity to deliver fair examinations , secure employment,build honest institutions and ensure basic institutional integrity. This shift does not abolish the cultural nationalist imaginary overnight. It introduces a competing and powerful claim on the meaning of the political.
The recent youth mobilisations illustrate the change clearly. Repeated failures in high stakes examinations paper leaks and the inability of the education system to convert degrees into livelihoods produced widespread anger. Young people responded not by deepening cultural grievance but by demanding concrete answers and institutional reform. They treated the state as a service provider that had failed rather than as a sacred civilisational agent. Satirical language, digital networks and street pressure became their preferred tools. The reclamation of insulting labels and the refusal of elite contempt signalled a different affective register. Respect for authority was made conditional on performance.
Kaviraj’s insistence on the historicity of the political helps us understand the significance of this moment. The modern Indian political was built on the enchantment of the state. Citizens invested the state with redemptive power and expected it to transform society. When the content of that enchantment changed from secular development to cultural nationalism the grammar of legitimacy changed with it. Opposition could more easily be branded as anti national. Under the pressure of Gen Z expectations another alteration is underway. The enchantment itself is being tested by the demand for delivery. If the state cannot produce fair examinations or adequate employment , the cultural narrative that justifies its expanded moral role begins to lose force. Disappointment becomes politically productive.
This new rupture redefines the people in whose name democracy claims to speak. Under the cultural nationalist imaginary the people were increasingly cast as a homogeneous cultural body. Under the emerging Gen Z pressure the people appear as a body of citizens entitled to institutional fairness and material opportunity. Identity continues to matter for many. Yet for a growing cohort of the young it is no longer sufficient. Accountability becomes the higher value. Parties and leaders are evaluated less by their capacity to mobilise cultural emotion and more by their capacity to fix broken systems. The political shrinks in some respects. It withdraws from the endless politicisation of everyday cultural practices and concentrates on the performance of core governing functions.
The relationship between state and society is also altered. In the cultural nationalist vision the state claims intimate identification with a particular community while demanding loyalty from all. In the accountability oriented vision the state is held at a critical distance. It must earn continued legitimacy through results. Young citizens treat formal institutions with scepticism. They often prefer digital publicity and non- partisan pressure over traditional party structures. This does not mean the rejection of democracy. It means a reorientation of democratic energy toward outcomes rather than symbolism. The limited and restrained conception of rule associated with older forms of rajaniti remains distant. Power is still expansive. Yet the criteria by which power is judged have begun to shift from cultural fidelity to practical competence.
The rupture remains incomplete and uneven. Cultural nationalism retains substantial support among sections of the young. National pride and civilisational language continue to resonate. The opposition has not yet converted the demand for accountability into a coherent alternative imaginary of the state. Many institutions remain captured or slow to respond. Nevertheless ,the friction is real. When delivery fails the cultural claim appears less self-evident. The enchantment of the state becomes vulnerable in a new way. It is no longer enough for the state to narrate the nation. It must also educate employ and administer fairly.
Kaviraj reminds us that no political configuration is permanent. The modern Indian political emerged through long processes of imagination struggle and institutional invention. The cultural nationalist reorientation was itself the product of organisational energy and narrative success. The present challenge from Gen Z is likewise the product of specific material conditions such as high youth unemployment ,examination scandals and digital saturation. It introduces a competing claim that the political should be organised around accountability rather than identity alone. Whether this claim consolidates into a durable new common sense will depend on the capacity of political actors to respond to the material and ethical demands of the generation now entering full political life.
The political in India therefore stands at another historical threshold. The earlier rupture redirected the enchanted state toward cultural nationalism. The newer rupture tests that redirection by insisting that enchantment must be matched by performance. Identity has not disappeared. It has been placed under the pressure of a different and increasingly insistent demand. Accountability has entered the field as a rival organising principle. The unfinished character of the Indian political continues. New generations are rewriting its meaning through their expectations and their refusals.
