Traditionally, North Indian Hindi-speaking states are referred to as the “cow belt” and religious fanaticism in the name of cow is historically reserved to that part of India. There is a perceived North-South divide in Indian politics partly attributable to this issue.
But Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and his deputy Pawan Kalyan of the National Democratic Alliance have gone all out in raking up a major controversy in the name of cow in the past few days with the startling allegation that the sacred Tirupati laddu has been contaminated with beef tallow and animal fat under the aegis of former CM Jaganmohan Reddy. Reddy happens to be a Christian by faith.
Naidu, in tandem with state BJP leaders, has gone so far as to question Reddy’s faith openly and chastised him for attempting to go to Tirupati in the wake of the laddu controversy. Reddy, on the other hand, unwittingly walked in to the laddu trap by giving a call to his party cadre across the state to throng Hindu temples as penance rather than maintaining focus on actual people’s issues such as the deaths of more than 45 people in Vijayawada floods, a series of infectious disease outbreaks in government-run hostels for students and non-implementation of welfare schemes promised by the NDA in the run up to assembly elections.
The north-south divide when it comes to majoritarian politics appears to be blurring visibly. It is imperative and profoundly pertinent in this context to examine the role of Andhra Pradesh politics (vis-a-vis another southern state such as Tamil Nadu) in perpetrating the grand scheme of BJP-led NDA that just came back to power for a third term, banking on Chandrababu Naidu.
The 20-seat difference
In the run-up to the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge lamented that a 20-seat deficit in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections had stopped them in their heels.
It is precisely those 20 seats (and one more) that the southern state of Andhra Pradesh handed over to the NDA making Modi’s third term a reality. The Congress-led INDIA alliance was caught dumbstruck and unaware in a crucial state like Andhra Pradesh where they not only drew a blank but also failed to have any game plan for the 25 seats at stake where the battle lines were clearly drawn between the NDA led by TDP on one hand and Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSRCP that fought a lone war on the other side.
This was in stark contrast to neighbouring Tamil Nadu (and Puducherry) where the INDIA alliance swept the polls with 40-0 tally against the NDA. While there are several factors that account for this diametrically opposite verdict from the two southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, it is already costing the country dear in this hat-trick term of the Modi-led NDA with far-reaching implications for the future as well.
The myth of NDA partners such as Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar reining in the BJP’s Hindutva agenda is being busted day in and day out as cow hooliganism goes unabated in several states claiming innocent Muslim lives and the mayhem in Manipur continuing with no end in sight. Amit Shah is showing no signs of slowing down his assault on federalism with the Union cabinet clearing the ‘one nation, one election’ bill for introduction in the parliament.
NDA allies that are cocooned in deep slumber at a critical juncture. In spite of conveniently ignoring longstanding demands of Andhra people – such as special category status for the divided state and stopping the privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has been able to throw a jumla of arranging a loan for the development of Andhra capital Amaravati that kept the “kingmaker” Chandrababu Naidu quiet, a sign again of the unchecked power of the BJP bosses in this supposedly beleaguered third term.
Also read: How the Tirupati Laddu Lent Itself to Politics
Hindutva 2.0: Is Andhra the gateway to the South?
This storm at the Tirupati Balaji temple’s famous laddu being made out of animal fat kicked up by none other than the state chief minister Naidu himself shows the extent to which Hindutva agenda is now being mainstreamed in the south.
Naidu has outdone even hardcore Sangh Parivar leaders by taking up a communally sensitive topic such as this and making it a national headline. His claim is that the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy had utter disregard towards the TirumalaTirupathi Devasthanam and filled it with people of “outside faith”.
This perhaps epitomises the falsity of the North-South divide that has already been shattered by the 2024 election results where Uttar Pradesh trounced the ‘Jai Shri Ram’ narrative while Andhra Pradesh seems to embrace the crass politics of Hindutva. While maintaining stoic silence on real tragedies unraveling before us, BJP’s junior partner Pawan Kalyan of the Janasena Party has called for a “Sanatana Dharma Rakshana Board” in the wake of the laddu adulteration affront. Nothing else exposes the south-south divide between Andhra and Tamil Nadu politicians more than the fact that exactly a year ago in September, Udayanidhi Stalin had declared Sanatana Dharma itself to be a scourge that needed eradication.
Such a vociferous critique on the lines of the inimitable Dravidian stalwart Periyar was unheard of in post-Kamandal India. It stirred up a nationwide debate. It is perhaps a strange coincidence that Kalyan happens to be the Deputy CM of Andhra Pradesh while Udayanidhi Stalin has come to take up the same role in Tamil Nadu.
Of note is the fact that today’s Andhra Pradesh was once part of Madras Presidency that gave birth to the Dravidian movement that successfully thwarted Hindi and Hindutva imposition on the south. A hundred years later, it is paradoxical that Andhra Pradesh is being so instrumental in giving Hindutva a new lease of life. Both NTR and YSR, the tallest leaders of erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh played an instrumental role in thwarting BJP’s ambitions in the state during their respective tenures. BJP started taking a foothold in the late 1990s in alliance with Chandrababu Naidu. Since then, it has been able to garner the support of a certain section of people in what would later become separate Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Post-2014, Pawan Kalyan became an unexpected torch-bearer of Modi-style Hindutva throwing his support behind the NDA that helped them romp home in the state.
It is no coincidence that after NDA’s rise in 2014, cow hooliganism, a rare occurrence in the South, raised its ugly head in Amalapuram, a small town in coastal Andhra Pradesh in 2016 where Dalits were stripped, tied to a tree and beaten. Barring a one-off stint in 2019, Chandrababu Naidu flocked back to the NDA in 2024 and went so far as to declare BJP a “natural ally” in lock step with Pawan Kalyan. Now with the Sanatana demand, they seem to be buttressing Hindutva politics in the state while conveniently deflecting away from welfare, the traditional bedrock of Dravidian politics.
One would wonder if it is by design that the NDA-ruled Andhra Pradesh has taken up such an openly Hindutva stance while paying no heed to the caste census demand being backed by INDIA alliance. Pawan Kalyan brought to the fore an ill-defined skill census in lieu of caste census, an ardent demand of the downtrodden people. This seems to be a tactic to throttle a comprehensive caste census. While Bihar set a sterling example by conducting a detailed caste survey, this feat is yet to be achieved by any state in the South.
With this new Hindutva thrust, Andhra Pradesh seems to be entering unchartered waters and it remains to be seen where this will end up with BJP grinning ear to ear at the prospect of solidifying its presence in the south to make up for its potential losses in the Hindi belt.
G. Naveen is a physician who writes on politics and social justice.
