5 min readAug 10, 2026 07:06 AM IST First published on: Aug 10, 2026 at 06:30 AM ISTRecently, I wrote that the Sansad Chalo protest was Sanatan Dharma in action. Young people had come from different corners of India, from different faiths, castes, and backgrounds. They stood together for education, a cause larger than themselves. They shared food, made space for strangers, protected one another and somehow became a community without asking who belonged to which community. To me, that was Sanatan Dharma. But it met with a huge backlash. My response section got filled with labels. Sanghi. BJP stooge. RSS sympathiser. It made me wonder: When did speaking of Sanatan Dharma automatically place you on one side of Indias political divide? Perhaps the problem is not Sanatan Dharma. Perhaps it is what politics has done to it.To understand this, remember what many Indians thought they were voting for in 2014. It was more than a change of government. After generations of looking at ourselves through borrowed eyes, Indians were beginning to look inward again. Millions wanted more than economic growth. They wanted to rediscover themselves. The BJP understood that longing better than any other party. It presented itself not merely as an alternative government but as the custodian of India’s Hindu inheritance. In doing so, it came to define what “Hindu” politics looked like. But what if much of what we now associate with that politics is the opposite of the tradition invoked in its name?