The crisis in contemporary India is a crisis manufactured by the political duopoly of the arrogance of the Congress Party and dominance of the BJP. Crony capitalists are the beneficiaries of today’s economic crisis and growth. A Hinduised Congress and a Congressiesed Hindutva represent the same bourgeois politics, in which corporate crony capitalists benefit at the cost of India and Indians. The Adani and Ambani groups did not come to exercise such influence over government either by accident or by corporate preference alone. The Hindutva government led by the BJP under Narendra Modi has created favourable conditions for the corporate crony capitalism founded by the Congress Party.

The Bombay Plan (1944–45) was shaped by industrialists and corporate leaders such as JRD Tata, GD Birla, and Purshottamdas Thakurdas, who influenced development planning and economic policy in postcolonial India under Congress leadership. Corporate interests were secured and strengthened by the Indian state and government under the Congress Party. This further deepened crony capitalism when the Congress Party formulated and implemented the new economic reforms of 1991. These reforms—liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation—were reinforced by structural adjustment policies designed to weaken the welfare state and squeeze public resources for corporate profit. Such policies were crucial for both the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi governments in creating conditions that facilitated the expansion of crony capitalists in India, where the Adani and Ambani groups now control much of India’s economic life at the expense of Indians. Both BJP and Congress are responsible for the corporatisation of politics to pursue corporate interests.

Indian Crony capitalism with its jobless growth and unproductive parasitic culture, destroys the conditions for innovation, growth and development that works for people. It also undermines the mobilisation of resources for national development and public welfare. The new economic reforms shaped by the Congress Party have helped BJP governments sell national assets, natural resources, and land to corporations—often at low prices or for free—in the name of job creation. The manufacturing base was destroyed by Congress-led governments and their policies. The ruinous path paved by the Congress Party is being pursued by the BJP today. These twin political forces and their class interests are not different from each other. Both represent corporate capitalism, which is destroying the lives and livelihoods of Indians and stealing national wealth and resources with the help of the BJP government led by Narendra Modi.

Indian agriculture and the rural agrarian economy were damaged by Congress economic policies that subsidised fertiliser corporations while minimising and later withdrawing subsidies for farmers. This has created conditions in which both producing food and buying food from the market are expensive. Corporatisation of agriculture has produced a rural agrarian crisis through policies pursued by both the Congress Party and the BJP. Water for industries under the Congress Party and water for data-storage companies under the BJP—at the cost of farmers and amid scarcity of safe drinking water—define the everyday corporate-capitalist practice of these two parties, which defend corporate interests at the cost of the people. From land, water, and electricity to infrastructure, everything is subsidised for corporations, while subsidies and welfare benefits face austerity measures in the name of fake economic growth and national interest. From industry to agriculture and the service sector, policies are designed to protect and promote corporate interests in India under both the Congress Party and the BJP. Both parties are pillars of corporate crony capitalism in India.

Majoritarian politics, corporate capitalism, centralised decision making and the Brahminical social order are four pillars and define these both BJP and Congress parties, their policies, and their practices. A Hinduised Congress and a Congressised Hindutva work in harmony to protect, please, and pursue corporate-capitalist interests. These two forces are against the interests of working people in the country.

Both the BJP and Congress Party have created legal structures for the empowerment of corporations and terrorise people with laws such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). These laws were created by the Congress Party and are used by the BJP to demonise democratic dissent and weaken constitutional democracy in India. They are used against people such as Binayak Sen, Umar Khalid, G. N. Saibaba, Stan Swamy, Soni Sori, Sudha Bharadwaj and many other idealist youths and students of India. The only “mistake” these people have committed is questioning power in order to democratise it, reminding the government to work for the people, and exposing the ruling class and its corporate bonhomie. Such political activists are often branded as anti-nationals and terrorists for fighting for democracy and citizenship rights. Both the Congress and the BJP persecute people who reject the politics of capitalist consensus and dominance.

This is the context in which India and Indians must seek political alternatives and political alliances beyond the BJP and the Congress. These two parties and their politics is incompatible with the interests of India and Indians. The arrogance of the Congress Party, combined with the cocktail of ignorant arrogance of the BJP, represents a twin danger for India and Indians.

The BJP that rules India today was produced in the laboratory of the Congress Party, which allowed the RSS to flourish and damage the idea of a secular India. The leaderships of both parties are corrupt, criminal, and communal in different ways with different percentage of toxic politics. Both parties curtail people’s freedoms and weaken citizenship rights. Both use the state and government to undermine citizenship rights. Both pursue different variants of authoritarianism. Therefore, it is time to reject both parties as a first step towards seeking and creating a political alternative that works for the people. The idea of a developed and strong India is possible only when Indians are prosperous and living in peace and harmony.