I will be honest with you. When I first heard Suvendu Adhikari say, moments after he won his constituency, that he would work only for Hindus, my instinct was the same as that of any citizen of India who firmly believes in this country’s cherished tradition of unity in diversity — a profound sense of pain and concern. The kind that does not come from wounded pride but from something deeper, something that has been quietly accumulating for years, watching communities that were once neighbours become strangers, watching a political class discover that division is more electorally profitable than governance. I have felt this before, many times.

But I stopped myself. Because I have learned, over decades of public life, that the response that feels most satisfying in a moment of provocation is rarely the response that actually helps the people you are trying to serve. And the people with a sense of Indianess I am trying to serve deserve something more useful than the comfort of a righteous statement that changes nothing on the ground.

So let me tell you what I actually think, plainly and without theatre.

Saturday, May 9, Adhikari was sworn in as Chief Minister of West Bengal. He stood before the Governor and he said these words, in Bangla, and I want to quote them in full because they matter: “I, Suvendu Adhikari, do swear in the name of God that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India, that I will faithfully and conscientiously discharge my duties as the Chief Minister of the State of West........

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