Democracy, in its most visceral and organic form, is not a monologue of agreement but a cacophony of competing aspirations. In a civilisation as ancient, polyphonic, and layered as India, the democratic experiment was never designed to be seamless; it was intended to be the friction that polishes the stone. A multicultural society, spanning linguistic, religious, and ethnic fault lines, manages its inherent contradictions not through silence, but through the noisy, often messy, institutionalisation of conflict. The Parliament, the federal assemblies, and the media are meant to be the safety valves where these pressures are released through dialogue. However, when the institutions designed to mediate these conflicts atrophy, the noise does not disappear. It metastasises into toxicity. When the forum for debate becomes a theatre of silence, democracy ceases to be a negotiation and becomes a diktat. As India navigated the turbulent waters of 2025, it found itself not merely in a state of political contestation, but in an existential deadlock where the mechanisms of dialogue had been systematically replaced by the mechanics of confrontation. The year was a testament to the fragility of a republic where the “will of the people” is increasingly interpreted as the “dominance of the majority”, leaving little room for the nuances of dissent that Nehru and Ambedkar had meticulously woven into the constitutional fabric.
In retrospect, 2025 stands out as a year of institutional impasse, where the empty chair became a defining symbol of the profound deadlock between the treasury benches and the opposition. The paralysis of the Indian Parliament serves as the bleakest metric of this institutional decline. The statistical degradation of the legislative process was stark and undeniable. Continuing the ominous trend set by the Winter Session of 2024 where productivity in the Lok Sabha plummeted to 31 per cent and the Rajya Sabha to 32 per cent, the sessions of 2025 witnessed a near-total breakdown of the deliberative process. Official records from the PRS Legislative Research indicate that the first three sessions of 2025 sat for historically low durations, characterised by “minimum work and maximum confrontation”. While government floor managers cited technical productivity in certain sessions, the quality of that engagement revealed the depth of the rot. For instance, in the Budget Session, despite claims of high functional hours, critical legislative business was bulldozed with alarming speed. The imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur, a decision of profound federal consequence, was approved by the Lok Sabha after a mere 42 minutes of discussion. The Rajya Sabha, often the house of sober second thought, saw bills passed amidst din without a division vote. The “reasons for confrontation” were systemic rather than episodic. The ruling party, emboldened by repeated electoral successes and a fractured Opposition, adopted a posture of legislative belligerence, viewing parliamentary debate not as a constitutional necessity but as an obstruction to administrative efficiency. Mallikarjun Kharge, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, captured this sentiment in a moment of exasperation, stating, “The problem is a trust deficit. The whole session they did not have a discussion. How can we trust them? They want to kill democracy.” His words underscored a reality where the government refused to engage on contentious flashpoints, leaving the Opposition with disruption as its only remaining leverage.
Yet, amidst this parliamentary paralysis, 2025 also witnessed a dramatic resurgence of electoral fortunes that redefined the political landscape. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, recovered its electoral mojo with resounding victories in both the Delhi and Bihar Assembly elections. These triumphs were not mere footnotes; they were seismic shifts that reasserted Modi’s image as an invincible winner and injected a fresh surge of confidence into the ruling dispensation. In Delhi, the BJP’s sweep securing 48 seats in the 70 member assembly shattered the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) decade-long dominance, exposing the fragility of Kejriwal’s governance model built on freebies and welfare promises. The victory was particularly sweet as it came against a backdrop of anti-incumbency and urban disillusionment, with voters rewarding the BJP’s narrative of “double-engine governance” and national security. Modi himself descended into the campaign trail, addressing massive rallies where he thundered, “Delhi has rejected the politics of freebies and chosen development,” framing the win as a mandate for his vision of a corruption-free, aspirational India. This Delhi verdict was followed by an even more emphatic triumph in Bihar, where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) crushed the Mahagathbandhan, with the BJP and its ally Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) together claiming a supermajority. The Bihar battle was a master class in coalition arithmetic and narrative dominance, where Modi’s personal interventions—through virtual road shows and strategic messaging on caste census and development—neutralised Rahul Gandhi’s aggressive push for social justice. These back-to-back electoral hat-tricks transformed the BJP’s body language from defensive to triumphalist. Party workers, who had been nursing wounds from the 2024 Lok Sabha setbacks, rediscovered their swagger. Amit Shah, the Home Minister and master strategist, declared post-Bihar, “This is the beginning of the end for dynastic politics. The people have spoken—Modi is unbeatable.” The ruling party’s newfound arrogance in Parliament, far from being unearned was now fortified by these democratic endorsements, allowing it to dismiss Opposition disruptions as the tantrums of electoral losers.
The ideological fulcrum of the confrontation in 2025 was the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. While the Election Commission of India framed the SIR as a routine administrative exercise to purge “dead, shifted, and duplicate” entries, the Opposition viewed it as a weaponised demographic tool. In a political climate charged with suspicion, the SIR was branded by the INDIA bloc as a “covert NRC” (National Register of Citizens) aimed at disenfranchising minority demographics—specifically Muslims—under the guise of data hygiene. The controversy was not merely procedural; it was existential. In states like West Bengal and Assam, fears were stoked that the revision was a prelude to stripping millions of their voting rights. Rahul Gandhi, in a rare moment of piercing clarity during a truncated debate, lashed out at the government’s intent: “If you destroy the vote, you destroy the country. You destroy the idea of India.” He argued that the SIR was being used to execute “vote theft” on an industrial scale, altering the electorate to favour the ruling dispensation in the upcoming 2026 state elections. The government’s refusal to allow a dedicated discussion on the SIR in Parliament turned the legislative chambers into battlegrounds, with the treasury benches dismissing the Opposition’s concerns as “appeasement politics” and fear-mongering. This refusal to engage on an issue touching the very citizenship of the people solidified the perception that 2025 was a year where the state was at war with a section of its own citizenry.
Beyond the capital, the malaise deepened in the federal structure, threatening the “Union of States” concept enshrined in Article 1. The year 2025 witnessed a near-total collapse of formal communication between the Centre and Opposition-ruled states. The BJP’s celebrated “Double Engine” narrative morphed into a “Single Command” reality, where states like West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu found themselves locked in fiscal and administrative combat with New Delhi. The conflict was no longer about policy differences; it was a war of attrition waged through the office of the Governor. In Tamil Nadu, the confrontation between the elected government of MK Stalin and Governor RN Ravi reached a fever pitch. The Governor’s unprecedented move to unilaterally dismiss a minister—though later retracted—and his refusal to read the customary address prepared by the state cabinet, signalled a breakdown of constitutional propriety. In West Bengal, the Raj Bhavan under Governor CV Ananda Bose initiated a “social boycott” of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, a move that would have been unthinkable in previous decades. In Kerala, Governor Rajendra Arlekar’s delays in assenting to bills and summoning assemblies further exacerbated tensions with the LDF government. These were not administrative hiccups; they were orchestrated attempts to paralyse state governments that refused to align with the Centre’s ideological wavelength. The Opposition-ruled states formed a loose “federal front” to protest the withholding of GST dues and the weaponisation of central agencies like the ED and CBI, but their cries largely echoed in a vacuum. The Centre, secure in its dominance bolstered by the Delhi and Bihar sweeps, treated these state leaders not as partners in governance but as regional impediments to a unitary national vision.
Amidst this institutional decay, the Opposition’s failure was equally stark, reaching a nadir with Rahul Gandhi’s diminished stature. 2025 exposed the inability of the Congress party and its leader to construct an alternative narrative potent enough to breach the BJP’s hegemony. Despite a decade of anti-incumbency, high unemployment, and the controversial SIR, the Congress could not mobilise public anger into a cohesive electoral force. The Delhi debacle was particularly humiliating for Rahul Gandhi, who had invested heavily in the AAP-Congress alliance, only to see it implode under the weight of voter rejection. His post-election introspection rang hollow as the party faithful questioned his leadership, with whispers of “another 2019” resurfacing. Bihar was an even greater unmitigated disaster; Rahul’s aggressive caste census rhetoric failed to resonate beyond his core base, and the INDIA bloc splintered under Nitish Kumar’s opportunistic switch. Congress managed single-digit seats in both states, reducing Rahul’s national stature to that of a regional agitator rather than a prime ministerial contender. Internal critics within the party, emboldened by these losses, began questioning his reluctance to contest elections and his focus on street protests over booth management. The Opposition remained reactive, bouncing from one outrage to another without offering a compelling vision of the future. The conflict became intensely personalised—it was no longer a clash of ideologies but a war of individuals. The ruling dispensation focused its attacks on the “Gandhi Parivar”, portraying them as the root of all dynastic evil, while the Congress struggled to shed its historical baggage. A poignant, almost surreal moment occurred late in the year—a “tea meeting” in the Speaker’s chamber where Prime Minister Modi, Priyanka Gandhi, and other leaders were seen laughing and joking. For a fleeting moment, the gladiatorial arena seemed to soften. Pundits speculated on a “thaw” or a return to civility. But this was a deceptive optic. It was a momentary pause in a war of annihilation, not a signal of detente. The underlying reality remained: the BJP has chosen to delegitimise the Opposition not just as political rivals, but as relics of a discarded era that must be erased to make way for a “Naya Bharat”.
As India pivots to 2026, the trajectory is ominous, yet the BJP’s Delhi-Bihar double triumph has positioned it perfectly for the conquest. The year promises to be the crucible that could dissolve the last remnants of the Nehruvian consensus. The upcoming state elections in West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu represent the final frontier for the BJP. These states are not merely electoral battlegrounds; they are cultural fortresses that have resisted the “Saffron Surge” and the homogenisation of Indian identity. Emboldened by 2025’s victories, Amit Shah has already signalled an aggressive push southward, declaring, “The lotus will bloom in every corner of India.” If the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the TMC in West Bengal fail to hold their ground against this resurgent BJP machinery, the psychological blow to the Opposition will be terminal. Rahul Gandhi’s further marginalisation would accelerate, potentially triggering a Congress leadership crisis. A victory here would provide the Modi government the “legitimate mandate” to pursue its most ambitious constitutional re-engineering: “One Nation, One Election” (ONOE). This centralisation of the electoral cycle would effectively presidentialise India’s parliamentary system, weakening regional parties and consolidating power in New Delhi for decades to come.
The Prime Minister’s rhetoric has shifted from the immediacy of five-year plans to civilisational epochs, amplified by his 2025 electoral resurgence. His newfound confidence is not unearned; it stems from a highly successful economy and his growing popularity both in India and abroad. The Delhi and Bihar wins have restored the “Modi magic”, with approval ratings soaring back to pre-2024 levels. With global financial institutions projecting India’s growth at a robust 6.4 per cent for 2026 and the RBI maintaining a hawkish but optimistic stance, the economic engine provides the fuel for his political ambitions. A global survey in mid-2025 ranked him as the world’s most popular democratic leader with a 75 per cent approval rating, a statistic that shields him from international criticism regarding democratic backsliding. It is this invincibility reaffirmed by Delhi’s urban mandate and Bihar’s rural consolidation that emboldens his vision. Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Modi declared that the decisions taken today “will determine our direction for the next 1,000 years.” He framed the current era as a transition from “1,000 years of slavery” to “1,000 years of grandeur”, a narrative now supercharged by his 2025 triumphs. This is not merely about policy; it is about creating a new “Indian Operating System” that overwrites the source code written by Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress. The “Viksit Bharat” (Developed India) of 2047 is the immediate goal, but the civilisational restructuring is the ultimate legacy.
2026, therefore, is unlikely to be a year of healing. It will be the year where the “idea of India” is aggressively litigated in polling booths, with Modi’s recovered talisman setting the stage for dominance. Yet, in this moment of unchallengeable power, there lies a paradoxical opportunity for statesmanship. Prime Minister Modi, facing no credible threat and sitting atop a buoyant economy fortified by Delhi and Bihar mandates, is the only leader with the capital to de-escalate the confrontation. He faces no challenger who can dethrone him; Rahul’s stature is minimised, the Opposition is decimated, and his mandate is secure. Thus, he can afford to be magnanimous. To truly build a “Viksit Bharat” that lasts a millennium, he should engage with all parties—not out of political necessity, but out of the confidence of strength. He should try to build consensus wherever necessary and disarm his detractors with his assertive charm, ensuring that the next thousand years are built on the bedrock of dialogue rather than the rubble of confrontation. If he chooses to do so, he could transform from a victorious partisan into a unifying patriarch. If not, 2026 may well be remembered as the year the silence finally overtook the noise, and the vibrant, messy, argumentative Indian democracy was finally streamlined into a quiet, efficient, and hollow monolith.