One of the many gratifying elements of the endless summer of protest that has overtaken our nation — aside from the galvanising of the young, the mobilisation of an increasingly united Opposition, and a palpable sense of discontent with “politics as usual” — has been the fact that popular agitation has transcended particularism. The public across the country has been standing up and speaking out for issues that affect every Indian citizen, irrespective of their other identities. This year’s protests have not been about minorities, specific castes, or particular occupational groups. They have been about everybody.This pleases me no end, because it is the kind of politics I believe in and have sought to practice in my nearly two decades in the profession, in the face of the overwhelming onslaught of the other variety. Every successful political dispensation requires a compelling answer to a fundamental question: “Who are we, and what do we owe one another as members of the same republic?” In India it has too often been about “Who are we, and what can we get for ourselves from the others in our fractured polity?”AdvertisementIn most democracies, enduring political majorities are built by articulating a broad civic identity, one that transcends local divisions, fosters national solidarity, and promises developmental progress for the body politic. In India, however, politics and parties have largely been about patching together identity alliances: From Brahmins+Muslims+Harijans in the classic 1950s Congress formulation, to “PDA” (the Samajwadi coalition of “Pichde, Dalit, Alpsankhyak” or OBCs, Dalits and minorities) today. While the BJP has pursued an unabashed majoritarian agenda, dressed up in the language of civilisational glory, economic growth and nationalist pride, the Opposition, rather than constructing a counter-narrative around shared civic purpose, nationwide economic progress, or universal rights, has increasingly resorted to the mechanics of particularism. Mobilisation has been reduced to numerical engineering: Assembling coalitions of specific sub-castes, appealing to localised regional pride or resentments, or cultivating sectional groups — OBCs, Muslims, Marathas, Kurmis and the like. In doing so, it has operated on the flawed assumption that a nation is an aggregation of disparate interest groups rather than a shared civic community.Also Read | The message from Ramlila Maidan: A new conversation on institutions is possibleThe central flaw of this approach on both sides is that young Indians have proved that it’s increasingly obsolete. While caste, region, and community remain salient social realities, and the joke that “when Indians cast their vote, they vote their caste” remains true in several places, voters (especially younger voters in a rapidly urbanising, aspirational, and connected electorate) do not cast ballots solely as members of a sub-group. This has become apparent in the recent Gen-Z protests. Young Indians imagine, mobilise and vote as thinking citizens who are invested in the educational and economic opportunities, societal well-being, government accountability and collective pride of their country. It was telling that many of the mocking slogans at Jantar Mantar disparaged the ruling party’s resort to “Hindu-Muslim” issues as a diversion from the authorities’ economic or administrative failures.When opposition parties address citizens exclusively through the narrow prism of their sectional identities, like caste, region or religion, two outcomes occur, both self-defeating. First, an appeal targeted at one specific caste or regional bloc inherently generates either anxiety or resentment among others, rendering a coalition built entirely on transactional sectional promises fragile. It could also be seen as opportunistic and seemingly incapable of stable national governance. Second, by focusing entirely on fractional grievances, the Opposition vacates the national stage, allowing the governing party to capture and define the very vocabulary of national purpose.AdvertisementWhen it reduces national politics to a demand for sectional benefits and religious or caste assertions, the Opposition reinforces the very atomisation that prevents a nationwide majority from forming in our support in the first place. Instead of promoting a universalist project, we offer voters a fragmented mosaic of complaints, while the ruling party’s rhetoric offers a singular, cohesive image of national ambition. Where the Opposition relies on sub-caste groups, regional blocs, and coalition arithmetic, the ruling party addresses an overarching national cultural majority through broad aspirational persuasion and public goods delivery. When the Opposition is trapped in the arenas of protest movements and caste rallies, the ruling dispensation wields state-wide machine politics and disciplined electoral mobilisation.This year’s protests have pointed Indian politics in a new direction by moving past the exhausted playbook of identity fragmentation and raising universal issues: Education, unemployment, inflation, political betrayal, voting rights, individual accountability. The Opposition must build on it in four ways. First, we must revive a narrative centred on the equal constitutional citizen, framing social welfare and economic policy around universal entitlements, such as quality public education, healthcare, infrastructure, a fair electoral system, and job creation, that elevate every citizen regardless of background, rather than relying on targeted patronage.you may likeSecond, political discourse must transcend entrenched dogma, the language of quotas and benefits for specific groups and ideological gatekeeping. Winning back the electorate requires listening to the material aspirations of ordinary voters, especially the young, and persuading them through democratic engagement that an alternative government can deliver national prosperity more efficiently and equitably to them all. We must not ignore the marginalised, but we must serve them as citizens who deserve the same benefits as everyone else.Third, we must embrace the moderate, pragmatic majority of the country, especially in the growing urban middle class, who prioritise stability, economic mobility, and administrative competence over ideological purity tests or narratives of caste injustice. We must also reclaim the issues of nationalism and the national interest from the ruling party. Congress, in particular, was the original party of Indian nationalism; it is bewildering that the very party that conceived, led, and championed the nation’s independence movement risks surrendering the language of national interest and collective pride to its adversary, allowing public narratives to obscure its own historic legacy as the original custodian of an inclusive and robust Indian nationalism.The politics of 2026 have revealed the paradox of particularism: It mobilises but divides. Let us, instead, speak the language of unity and shared purpose. It will take us much farther.The writer is a fourth-term Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram