The Saffron Storm

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enjoys the predominant position in Indian politics today. In its journey from coalition politics to single-party hegemony, the party has changed as much as it seeks to transform India. Veteran journalist Saba Naqvi tells the story of the party’ s journey under two very different prime ministers drawn from the same ideological family. In 1998, tasked with covering the BJP, the author would attend the very modest swearing-in ceremony of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the courtyard of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In 2014, she would be at the much larger mega-event at the same venue when Narendra Modi would be sworn in.

The Saffron Storm is both a first-person account of racy events as they unfolded in the nation’ s history, and a work that raises larger analytical points about the BJP’ s growth. It examines the role of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh cadre and its equations with elected leaders, the calibration of ideology, the issue of political finance and the social expansion of the party, as also the cults of personality that would emerge around, first, Vajpayee and then, more forcefully, around Modi. The book provides a riveting account of the party’ s journey from ‘ untouchability’ (when allies were unwilling to join) to its presumed ‘ invincibility’ today.

The updated edition of the book also describes the enforcement agencies’ action against the party’ s opponents, the increasingly centralized command structure of the BJP in a diverse country, and the implications of the delimitation exercise that involves remapping and increasing parliamentary constituencies, due in 2026. This book is a fascinating and readable dive into the contemporary history of the BJP.