The name Ram Madhav needs no introduction for those who are politically aware. For the uninitiated, Ram Madhav is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a key strategist behind the party’s expansion in several Indian states. He has played a pivotal role in shaping the party’s approach in the Northeast and strengthening its national presence. Known for his insights on politics, social integration, and governance, Madhav has been closely involved in major initiatives, including the political groundwork leading up to the abrogation of Article 370.
In this interview with The Commune, Ram Madhav discusses a variety of topics. He also shares firsthand experiences of political mobilization, strategies for social integration, and reflections on personal and professional challenges, offering a rare glimpse into both the man and the movement shaping modern Indian politics.
The Commune: You’ve emphasized social media freedom, but with pro-Pakistani propaganda circulating during Operation Sindur, how do we set boundaries?
Ram Madhav: Remember no line should be drawn by you and me, lines will be drawn by governments. There are laws in our country. Those laws will guide social media. So it is easy to call somebody names that he is doing Pakistan propaganda and all that, provide that evidence government will act. We have to counter propaganda with propaganda with facts. If it is a narrative they are trying to build, you build narrative positively.
We have to build that strength in the country. I know what you are saying. There are certain elements which are out to spread fake news, fake stories but that is happening all over the world not just in India, it’s happening in USA prestigious mainstream papers, you are talking about social media, mainstream papers are accused of spreading fake news, so it is a kind of a disease that has engulfed the entire media that includes social media. I’m not denying. So what is the answer to it? Of course certain laws should be there strictly to control. Ensure that
national interest is not jeopardized compromised, but as activists we should only see it as a challenge to my counter propaganda, my propaganda based on facts that’s the way forward for us.
The Commune: There is a lot of talk about the “Congressification” of the BJP. How do you see it?
Ram Madhav: It’s all rubbish. There’s no Congressification of BJP. In fact within Congress now the whole problem is they say many of our members of parliament have become BJP. I don’t want to name. But the discussion today is Congress is greatly worried that their very senior leaders have become saffronized or BJP-ised those names everybody knows. So there’s no question of BJP ever going down the line of Congress party. Congress introduced a very bad political culture in this country. BJP stands as an antidote to that Congress culture, that culture of corruption, culture of appeasement, culture of ill treatment of Hindus. We stand against that culture, there’s no question of BJP ever become congressized.
The Commune: You have helped BJP enter into nine states you mentioned. When will we see a BJP Chief Minister in Tamil Nadu?
Ram Madhav: I should ask you and through you all the viewers of Tamil Nadu when are you going to give power to BJP? BJP will definitely not, I don’t think it will take too long now anymore. I’m seeing lot of support growing for BJP in this state. It will be in the interest of the people of the state and of course in the larger interest of the country that BJP should come to power. Tamil Nadu has this habit of alternating the parties. Why do you alternate only between two parties? Try the third party. It will be good for the people of Tamil Nadu and good for the country.
The Commune: Can you talk about your role in the abrogation of Article 370?
Ram Madhav: Article 370’s abrogation was a decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under his guidance, the Union Home Ministry, Union Law Ministry – all of them worked together, and it was finally implemented in August 2019. Before that, we used to have a government led by BJP and PDP, a regional party in Kashmir. At that time people of Kashmir were able to understand that contrary to propaganda, BJP was actually not a bad party. They are all good people. They want they are actually they want the interests of the people of Kashmir to be protected. That aspect was understood by people of Kashmir because we were there in power for 3 years. Of course with the regional party. During that time they have seen us from close quarters. They have enjoyed the benefits of the government run by BJP and PDP. So their attitude to BJP and of course the leadership of Prime Minister Modi has completely undergone a change; that helped us in managing the affairs post the abrogation of article 370 in that state in a very peaceful way. To that extent yes our my work or our efforts to build that coalition government have certainly helped us.
The Commune: Let’s discuss the Northeast. How tricky was it politically and socially? Because we’ve seen so much come out of northeast after the BJP government came in with the hill tribes, the plane tribes and the entire cocktail of things that keep going on in that region. So, what was tricky politically and socially?
Ram Madhav: It was tricky until we reached there. Once we went there, once we started meeting the people, meeting leaders of uh the communities, even political leaders in different states of the northeast, we realized that they are they are no less Indian. They are as patriotic, as Indian as all of us. There was a kind of an image, a perception probably created about northeast because distances also matter. Because of the distance and the tyranny of distance. I would say the tyranny of distance. We all thought that it is fully lot of terrorist groups are there, insurgent groups are there etc etc. That used to be the general understanding but no, people of northeast are very good people, very patriotic people, very hardworking people. What was needed was to bridge the distance between Delhi and northeast – that under Prime Minister Modi happened very effectively. I can tell you I mean not a single month used to pass without three or four cabinet ministers from Delhi visiting northeast. It never happened before. So once the government of Delhi minister started visiting remote areas in Nagaland, Mijaram, Tripura, Manipur, people there started feeling that intimacy, closeness. So those things of those initiatives of Prime Minister Modi to bring that region emotionally closer to Delhi have helped us a lot.
The Commune: If you can make this more personal to your journey of northeast, if you have any incident or anecdote something that was challenging something that you felt were was tricky because you’re already a master politician.
Ram Madhav: In this sense, challenging yes, challenging because BJP was not strong at all in the northeast when I was there send that responsibility for example in Assam 126 MLAs will be there in Assam assembly is 126 MLA strong. We used to have 4 MLAs in 126 member assembly. From there to aspire to get 60 MLAs from 4 to 60 was not easy, but we decided that no we should get into power here. So first state to fall in BJP’s kitty was Assam in 2015. We had our challenging times. We were able to get some good leaders from other parties. I always say that while we do make lot of criticism about Congress in the whole country the politics of Congress party and all that, in northeast there were good people in Congress also, all those good people decided that now the real party came for us so they opted for BJP, the chief minister BJP’s chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh came from Congress party; the BJP’s chief minister in Assam came from Congress party; the BJP’s chief minister in Manipur came from Congress party; the BJP’s Deputy Chief Minister in Nagaland came from Congress party. I’m not giving certificates to Congress party. I’m giving certificate to those individuals and we were able to identify them. We found them to be the people really who have mass following but also who have the good of the country, good of the state in mind. So we were able to locate them. We were able to bring them on our side. That has helped. That path was definitely challenging. I mean it’s not easy to locate leaders and bring them to your side. So it was a very fantastic journey.
The Commune: What is it like on the other side? Because from for a common man, we see reports on the media that it’s time for resorts. So you know like all of these people are going to a resort and there’s going some negotiation and then people are going to come over. So what is the challenge if you have to tell common people that hey when we bring somebody over from another party who is probably not our supporter what kind of challenges exist?
Ram Madhav: Look politically what you are talking about is all called in politics is called horse trading right, we never indulged in any horse trading there. We convinced leaders, we convinced people that here is a party, a new party for you, BJP was a new party for the northeast, you should see us, I mean you should see a leader like prime minister Modi and give him a chance. We talked to them we convinced them and we brought them we never ran any camps and all. As you know northeast has different kinds of religions, there are states which are 98% Christian Nagaland and Mizoram are 98% Christian, Arunachal Pradesh is close to 50% Christian Meghalaya is 70% Christian. So in those states uh there were apprehensions about BJP, we had to convince them that look who is contesting in the name of BJP you are one person he is a good Christian. In fact I still remember since you wanted to know the anecdotes. I can give you a very funny anecdote. One very senior leader, who is a very senior leader in Nagaland now when he joined BJP from Congress, he wanted me to come to his village for campaigning. The assembly elections were being held. I went so before me he spoke. He said you see people say BJP as a Hindu party, Hindu party. You don’t know what is BJP. It is Bharatiya Jesus Party. So people clapped. People thought then he explained why he’s saying that. You see I a good Christian. Today BJP has made me the leader. Right? So that is how we convinced people. We never used any wrong methods like you know in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh we know that buses and camping taking them to Goa and all that. Politics in the northeastern region is very fair politics. I just add one more thing here. Whether we politically agree or not agree, even leaders of other parties in those states including old Congress leaders they were also thorough patriots because when we were not there they were holding the national flag there, in the most difficult circumstances when there was insurgency, there was terrorism there was China, there were others playing politics, these people stood up and held the national flag high, we should have that respect for every old-timers I’m talking about today there also politics have changed.
The Commune: If I can sort of segue into what will it take for the northeastern region to be fully socially integrated. In other cities, we hardly see any pop culture make way into our lives or in our conversations. We don’t hear so much about the northeastern region. What will it take for India to really truly integrate the northeastern region with say the best of universities or some maybe the greatest of theme parks, because they’re already leading in music. We see some great music festivals happening in the northeast but that’s about it.
Ram Madhav: Northeast has advanced tremendously in the last many years, many decades also but in the last 10 years especially. Yes, we have given them many very advanced educational institutions. There are IITs, there are IIMs, there is AIIMS today in Guwahati. So infrastructure has developed tremendously. Government has done extremely I mean enormous work in that region to create good physical infrastructure, educational infrastructure, health infrastructure. Today more than 20 airports are operational in the northeast, the small region. So government has done its bit, political parties have done its bit to create that kind of development in that region. What people like you and me have to do is now to do our part – whether it is Kashmir or it is northeast. Now people of the rest of the country have to go frequently to those places and tell those people that we are all one. There are a lot of incentives. For example, government employees get special leave travel LTC. They call it leave travel facilities. They can travel by air to if they want to go to northeast. If they want to go to Ujjain or Varanasi, they have to go by train. But for northeast government allows you air travel. There are incentives by the government. But Indian people should not always look for what government will give me to go to northeast. If you want to feel I mean if if you want north eastern people to feel more emotional integration we have to go we have to hug them you have to tell them that you are you are a part of 140 crore Indians 1.4 4 billion Indians.
The Commune: Is it because we don’t know that northeast history is so connected to the rest of India’s history, in the sense that the Ahom kingdom, for example, which existed in the northeast, one of the greatest kingdoms that India has seen, but not so many Indians know about it, is that one of the reasons?
Ram Madhav: May I ask you today, a large number of I mean in millions our people are going to Vietnam, do they know Vietnam? Do they know Vietnam history? You go to Phuket, you go to some other place in Thailand, do you know what’s Thailand? No, it’s not about that. Somehow your backyard you are ignoring. And I can tell you you go from Tejpur in Assam to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh or Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh to their eastern most border in Arunachal Pradesh 1500 kilometre, it’s a thousand kilometer long highway. You don’t have to go to Switzerland. You don’t have to go to Europe. You don’t have to go to anywhere in the world because whatever beauty you see in those regions exists here. We don’t realize that our country has so much beauty, so much so many good things for travelers. We have to go. But beyond that I say something, beyond that is it is now we wanted government to do so many things in Kashmir, to create that integration. We wanted government to do so many things in northeast to do to create that integration. Government has done its bit. Now it’s our bit we have to do. We have to go and visit there. When you have next holiday, go to northeast. When you have next pilgrimage, go to northeast. Next honeymoon, go to northeast. You may ask, there won’t be next honeymoon. There’s no rule that you can’t go again. But same couple has to go. But you go again. Go to different states. Travel there. So that is how we have to integrate with the people. Emotional integration has to be enhanced. But I can tell you people of northeast are fully integrated with the rest of the country, I can give you my example. I one day went for a campaign and my campaign village was right on Myanmar border and Myanmar border village has a big BJP flag means, where BJP is there where India is there so true we are able to take India to the last village of our country, that’s how we created political integration, it’s a great achievement.
The Commune: In one of these ceremonies where the founder of Nvidia was addressing students, he said that if I have to wish something upon you, I wish a lot of suffering because suffering is what is going to shape you. He meant it positively. So if I may ask what kind of suffering has shaped you into this person that you are today inspiring so many others?
Ram Madhav: I never looked at anything as suffering everything as I always looked at everything as challenge. You see anything you do the first and foremost requirement for you to be successful is you should have passion. It’s not just a profession for you. I’m not a professional politician. I hate that word. And nowadays, of course, you have colleges that train politicians. But you can’t create a professional politician. You only can create a passionate politician. You have to be passionate about what you are doing. I had it as my passion. So I could see challenges also as a kind of an opportunity that we can overcome. That doesn’t mean I’m the only person. I have seen in my experience in the last so many years, so many such passionate people. You know when I say that we went we had a BJP flag in the remotest village, there 20 years before me one Vanavasi Kalyanashram leader went, he had no politics. He had no knowledge of the terrain, no knowledge of the language. He was a vegetarian guy and there you won’t get anything vegetarian. Yet he went there to tell people that we are all Indians. So that passion which took people to those remotest corners that itself inspired me or 20 years before me somebody did this work.
The Commune: You didn’t think about the money like how will you earn money? How will you make a big career because you must have been young when you came into the political space.
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