Visakhapatnam: During the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign, when asked why he would vote for Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Bansuri Swaraj (whose mother, late Sushma Swaraj, also BJP, fought tooth and nail against nepotism in the Congress party in 2014 against ‘shehzada’ Rahul Gandhi), one elderly citizen from Adchini locality which falls under the New Delhi constituency quipped, “Ye parivaarwad nahi hai, yeh maa ka pyaar hai (This isn’t family politics, this is mother’s love).”
Andhra deputy chief minister K. Pawan Kalyan has showered similar familial “love” upon his brother. As a ruling ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), JanasSena Party (JSP) celebrated its 12th formation day last week with much pomp in the Kapu-dominated Pithapuram constituency in East Godavari, now Kakinada district. The constituency elected party chief and film star Pawan Kalyan for the first time to the state Assembly, while his second elder brother, K. Nagendra Babu (Nagababu), has been elected to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council unanimously unopposed as an MLC.
Interestingly, this appears to be in line with one of the seven ideals professed by the party – “protection of traditions and culture” – nepotism, in our case. This also aligns with his other declaration in the state Assembly recently that Andhra people are “mad about caste”; already, two of three JSP ministers are Kapus.
While this “relentless fight against corruption” (read: nepotism) – another of the seven ideals – is understandable, Nagababu’s history and personality point to the fact that there is more to this than meets the eye.
Who is Nagababu?
It is difficult to describe Nagababu without referencing him as “megastar” K. Chiranjeevi or “powerstar” Pawan Kalyan’s brother. In fact, it has become a running joke to do so. He has been mocked as someone who lacks an absolute identity, having only a relative one.
Nagababu himself is an actor who has worked in multiple languages and produced movies in Tollywood. When he incurred losses after producing his nephew K. Ram Charan’s not-so-successful movie Orange, Nagababu revealed later that he contemplated dying by suicide.
He has always been outspoken. Nine years ago, when Pawan Kalyan did not turn up for Chiranjeevi’s 60th birthday celebration, Nagababu lost his temper with supposedly rude Pawan Kalyan fans at the event, expressing great anguish by saying, “We have invited him, but if he doesn’t turn up, what can we do?”
Nagababu entered politics in 2009 through the Praja Rajyam Party, founded by Chiranjeevi, and later aligned with Pawan Kalyan’s JSP, where he serves as general secretary. His political activities include contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Narasapuram, where he lost, and stepping aside for BJP’s C.M. Ramesh in 2024 from Anakapalle Lok Sabha seat.
Controversies
Nagababu also became a household name when he appeared as a judge for many years on a popular prime-time comedy show Jabardasth, which is very similar to Kapil Sharma’s Comedy Nights – at least with respect to the type of comedy if not the format – and has faced criticism for promoting misogynistic, casteist, queer-phobic, and body-shaming humour. Nagababu was often seen encouraging such humour and actively promoting these comedians, many of whom later joined the JSP and campaigned in the recent elections.
Once Pawan Kalyan joined hands with the BJP, a familiar and emboldened Nagababu took it upon himself to carry the BJP’s ideological albatross around his neck. In a remarkable display of epistemic charity, he glorified Godse when he posted on social media on May 19, 2020: “Nathuram Godse, a true patriot. Whether his killing of Gandhi is correct or not is debatable. Those days, no media presented his side of the story, and the media was in favour of the then ruling government. He did what he did even after knowing that he would be made a villain. We should never doubt his love towards his country. It is our duty to remember him on his birthday and wish that his soul may rest in peace.” A backlash ensued, and he quickly clarified and deleted the tweet.
Earlier in 2019, his remark about not knowing Balakrishna (an actor and son of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N.T. Rama Rao or NTR) sparked controversy, as it was seen as disrespectful to the actor-politician by TDP supporters and Nandamuri family fans.
In May 2024, through a post on X, he took a dig at family member Allu Arjun when he campaigned for a YSRCP candidate who happened to be his childhood friend. Though Nagababu deleted the tweet, the whole affair led to a fan war between Kalyan’s fans on one side and Arjun fans and YSRCP supporters on the other.
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He is alleged to have made derogatory comments against the Reddy community when he said: “Many are saying they’re afraid of Peddi Reddy and warned me to be careful. But I don’t care about Peddi Reddy or his leader, Jagan Mohan Reddy. I wasn’t afraid of Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy either. Who is Peddi Reddy to me? For us, under Pawan Kalyan’s leadership, we don’t fear Peddi Reddy, Subba Reddy, or any ‘Picchi’ (crazy) Reddy.”
In line with the NDA’s common currency of jingoism, in 2020, he suggested currency notes should include photos of all freedom fighters – not just Gandhi – and made comments on historical figures like Chhatrapati Shivaji.
Most recently, in September, he openly supported Jani Master, a dance choreographer and JSP member, who was facing sexual harassment allegations and arrest – even after Jani Master was suspended from the party officially. In his post on X, he quoted Sir William Garrow, stating, “No person can be considered guilty of a crime until he or she has been found guilty of that crime by a court of law.”
Kapus, politics and power
On the face of it, Nagababu’s actions seem innocuous and attention-grabbing. If we look at them through the prism of his struggle for identity in the context of reflected glory from his super-successful brothers, we can immediately sense deep-seated frustration. However, this frustration in the socio-political context of Andhra Pradesh takes a very specific form.
Nagababu belongs to the powerful Kapu community. Kapus are an intermediate Shudra agrarian community very similar to the Patels and Marathas. Unlike the other two dominant communities in the state, Reddy and Kamma, Kapus never had such political dominance. Moreover, like the Sunnis in Iraq, Kapus consistently overestimate – despite strong evidence to the contrary – that they are more than 25% of the people in Andhra Pradesh, claiming to be the single biggest community.
The fact that Chiranjeevi is seen as a much-needed Kapu disruptor in a film industry virtually dominated by Kammas; the fact that Pawan Kalyan has courted the Kapus to vote as a single monolith multiple times; the fact that he fought for reservations for the Kapus; the fact that the BJP has been courting this ‘restive and captive’ Kapu vote bank as part of their social engineering strategy; and the fact that the Kapus are highly Sanskritised and violently so – is evident from their burning down a train in 2016 and recently burning down the house of the social justice minister for renaming the district (where the Kapus are politically, but not numerically, dominant) after B.R. Ambedkar.
While the role of social and economic frustrations is well documented in the rise of Hindutva politics, in Nagababu’s case, this frustration is also specifically tied to the challenges to traditional hierarchies and privileges. Moreover, since Kapus feel entitled – not just privileged – it leads to a kind of resentment where the community feels wrongfully and unfairly denied what was their destiny or fate anyway. They are willing to do anything, even throw tantrums, often violent ones, unlike the merely privileged who still vacuously speak of “merit,” to capture their rightful place under the sun. It is this resentment of those who feel their relative status is threatened by the demands of democracy that Nagababu represents.
In fact, the rise of JSP and BJP in Andhra Pradesh, as seen across India recently, will heavily rely on providing a safe space for those who feel democracy threatens their status, including the relatively disadvantaged. This is because privilege and entitlement exist at various levels, not just among the elite, such as a small farmer resenting a landless labourer or a man resenting women’s rights assertions. Hindutva taps into these localised resentments and channels them into a broader political project. And Nagababu’s election and potential addition to the state cabinet soon should be seen as a harbinger for such kind of politics to take center stage in Andhra Pradesh in the coming days.
