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August 04, 2017

India: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's pragmatic choice reinforces a fraught idea — of Hindu consolidation and Muslim peripherality

Written by Ashutosh Varshney | Updated: August 3, 2017

The significance of Nitish Kumar’s embrace of the BJP cannot be overstated. The BJP’s stunning victory in UP, and now its return to power in Bihar, undoubtedly consolidates its hold over Indian politics. But is that all?
Over the last few days, it has repeatedly been said that ideology has ceased to matter in Indian politics, and a full-blown political marketplace, where the price of victory and defeat is calculated with the finesse of a stock-broker, has emerged. It has also been suggested that the so-called millennials, those born in the decade of the 1990s, are less ideologically inclined and more interested in economic aspirations and India’s glory on the world stage. They are ushering in an ideological erosion in Indian politics.
FULL TEXT AT: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/nitish-kumar-bihar-jdu-bjp-alliance-lalu-prasad-yadav-corruption-4779525/