January 19, 2026

-

Premium

The Quiet Authority

IN Nagpur's Reshimbagh ground, under the mellow October sun, Mohan Bhagwat walked to the dais with his familiar unhurried stride. Saffron flags fluttered, thousands of uniformed cadre stood in formation, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) anthem filled the air. The ritual was a familiar one, but this particular enactment of it marked a special milestone. The RSS, born in 1925, was ringing in a full centenary. If the weight of the moment needed a figure with a natural, unforced air of authority to embody it and project it outward--without shouting--the sarsanghchalak, himself now 75, answered to that description perfectlyIt's not just tradition that vests him with that authority. The year 2025 demonstrated its currency value in the political sphere, sealing beyond all doubt signs of the street power visible in 2024. Across five elections, it was made abundantly clear that when the RSS recuses itself from electoral groundwork, its political progeny suffers. On the other hand, when the vast infantry of the Sangh fans out to till the field ahead of voting, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reaps the harvest. Juxtapose the scare the BJP received in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, especially in Uttar Pradesh, against its subsequent landslide wins in Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and Bihar, and the axiom meets its QEDThat's why Bhagwat is often described as the most influential Indian after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That's also why, when he speaks, the political class listens. To his credit, he wears this power lightly and with sobriety, not venturing overmuch into everyday policymaking, nor creating rancour, but speaking just enough to perform his essential role: being the ideological compass of the larger

THE MOVER & THE SHAKER

At the start of 2025, the compulsions that drove Narendra Modi and Donald Trump were similar. Both were seen as strongmen who had entered uncharted political territory in their respective countries. With both over 70 years old, the quest for them was less about political survival and more about establishing a lasting and impactful legacyModi, 75, created electoral history when he won a third consecutive term in the 2024 general election, equalling the record set by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. With one difference, though. Unlike the Congress under Nehru, the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its third term failed to secure a simple majority on its own in the Lok Sabha, winning only 240 out of 543 seats, 32 short of the requisite target of 272. For the first time in his decade-long premiership, Modi had to depend on key allies--Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United)--of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to form the government. It could have cramped his ability to undertake bold and decisive reform. But Modi did not allow that setback to deter him in 2025, embarking on reforms that would put India firmly on the trajectory of a Viksit Bharat, joining the exclusive league of developed countries by 2047, the 100th year of its IndependenceIn the United States, the then 78-year-old Donald Trump made a remarkable comeback in the November 2024 presidential election when he became the first American president in 132 years to win non-consecutive terms. And he did so emphatically, cornering 312 of the 538 electoral votes, way ahead of the 270 needed to be President. His victory was seen as part of the deep demographic and cultural backlash of White Christian nationalists against what they perceived as the rapid establishment of a multi-racial, multi-religious America under the tenures of Democratic presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Apart from carrying 31 of the 50 states, the Trump-led Republican Party won majorities in both the powerful Senate and the House of Representatives, arming him with enough political ballast to execute his controversial vision of how to Make America Great Again (MAGA) in his second termAs the world entered the final year of the first quarter of this century, the paths taken by Modi and Trump to achieve their respective goals would not just cross each other but end up being at cross-purposes with each other in more ways than one. By the end of the year, the friction would fray the Indo-US relationship that had in the past two decades overcome the hesitations of history to become stronger. That said, despite the obvious tensions in Indo-US ties, both Trump and Modi would maintain the façade that they remained, in the US president's words, "good friends". That fraught `friendship' would dominate India's domestic and foreign policy discourse throughout 2025, even if it did not bring any obvious benefit to either countryWModi's Reform Express hen 2025 dawned, it didn't appear that things would go so wrong between the two leaders, with both hard-focused on domestic economic reform. The BJP's massive victory in Maharashtra in the November 2024 assembly election had helped Modi regain his mojo and push the throttle on what he called his `Reform Express'. Its first indication came on February 1, when finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget gave middle-class taxpay-