June appears to be the cruelest month for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), although the former seems unfazed if his silence is any indicator.
The Islamic world is furious with a BJP spokesperson’s re-marks on the Prophet Muhammad while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called out India for rising attacks on religious minorities.
What the world and the nation aren’t aware of is the challenge facing the Indian prime minister on his home turf.
The Patidars or Patels, who form the backbone of the BJP’s political support base in Modi’s home state of Gujarat in we-stern India, are furious with him.
The members of this financially and politically influential agrarian caste who claim to have descended from Lord Ram are also staunch followers of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a former federal home minister credited with securing India’s unity in the aftermath of independence preceded by a bloody partition.
The sardar or chieftain of the Patel peasants thus came to be known as India’s “Iron Man” and his name was given to a cricket stadium originally built on the outskirts of Gujarat’s principal city of Ahmadabad in 1982.