Criticisms of the Hindu far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has ruled India since 2014, usually focus on its fascist and crony capitalist character. Although well-founded, these criticisms do not quite capture the novelty of what the regime headed by Narendra Modi has managed to do.

It has aggressively pushed the interests of big capital in the face of opposition from powerful electoral constituencies and secured decisive parliamentary majorities of the kind India has not seen in decades. While the BJP has benefited from a winner-takes-all electoral system that routinely elects majority governments on minority mandates, its cadre-based organization and cohesive ideology distinguish it from the Indian National Congress (INC). The formerly dominant Congress is a catch-all party comprised of factions loosely held together by material patronage.

The story of the BJP’s rise and the INC’s roughly proportionate decline is a complex one with many threads. The historical development of different factions of capital in India and the shifting dynamics of conflict between them is a key part of the picture.