A distinction is in order. India’s political history has shown how regionalism and the state’s large-hearted response to its demands can in fact strengthen the ‘national’, imbue it with greater legitimacy. From the demand of the Telugu-speaking residents of the erstwhile Madras Presidency which led to the redrawing of the map of India along linguistic lines in the mid-fifties, to the most recent carving out of the new states of Uttaranchal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in response to sub-regional assertions — has been a uniquely Indian success story of co-option and accommodation. There was a vicious period in the ‘80s when the cauldron boiled over, especially in Punjab, but those secessionist fires were put out. In fact, in the ‘90s and after, admiring observers have called for a new vocabulary to fit the Indian experience — one that disassociates ‘regionalism’ from all secessionist connotations. Regional parties are now respectable, much-sought-after players on the national stage. They have re-defined the national, brought it closer to the people. But that story may be acquiring an unsavoury twist.

Today, regionalism is no longer secessionism, but it can be parochialism strutting under another name. Be it the Ulfa’s attacks on Bihari migrant labourers in Assam, or the Shiv Sena’s hate campaigns against the ‘outsider’ in Mumbai, or Narendra Modi’s smug invocations of Gujarati ‘asmita’ to legitimise his politics, India is being projected as the sum of its parts, defined by their antagonistic relationships with one another. This is dangerous. The CPM and DMK must know the terrible toll their rhetoric can take on the idea of India.