The Myth of Congress's Progressive Politics and the Rise of Modi’s Progressive Reforms

“An op-ed by Harsh Singh Dahiya on the myth of Congress-style progressivism, the politics of performative posturing, and how Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered real progressive reforms through governance, welfare, and grassroots empowerment.”

For far too long, a narrative has been carefully cultivated in India by a certain ecosystem that Congress represents progressivism while everyone else is somehow regressive. This narrative has been repeated so often in elite circles, television studios, universities, and policy seminars that many began accepting it without questioning whether the ground reality actually reflected this claim. However, when one closely examines the record of governance and reform in the country, a very different picture emerges. Congress has often indulged in the posturing of being progressive, but when it came to implementing substantial reforms on the ground, particularly those that could upset its core vote-bank of conservative hardline Muslim clerics, it repeatedly chose political convenience over genuine reform.

The Congress leadership has historically understood that its electoral coalition depended heavily upon the support of conservative religious Muslim institutions and clerical establishments. As a result, despite publicly projecting itself as liberal and progressive, it consistently avoided taking difficult decisions that could disturb these entrenched power structures. This contradiction became visible time and again during successive Congress governments.

On the other hand, the BJP and Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji have rarely indulged in loud public posturing about being progressive. The Modi Government understands a political reality that excessive ideological branding often creates maximum resistance from conservative sections of society before reforms can even take shape. Instead of performative declarations, the BJP gradually pushed reforms on the ground through implementation and delivery. Congress mastered symbolic politics, but the Modi Government focused on structural welfare and governance reforms at scale.

The difference between performative progressivism and practical progressivism becomes even more visible when one examines the social composition of the ecosystems surrounding both political models. Congress-style progressivism largely remained confined to urban, English-speaking, NGO-centric discourse. Over decades, a protected elite class emerged under Congress rule, benefitting disproportionately from access, influence, patronage, and state protection. Naturally, this ecosystem became invested in gate-keeping those privileges rather than ensuring that the benefits of the state reached the last citizen standing in the queue.

Prime Minister Modi’s governance model, however, is rooted in the idea of Antyodaya, the belief that governance must empower the last man in society. The Modi Government’s welfare architecture has focused on ensuring that state benefits directly reach poor citizens without middlemen, corruption, or elite capture. This is the fundamental philosophical distinction between the two approaches.

Perhaps no example captures this contrast more sharply than the Shah Bano case and the Triple Talaq reform. In the Shah Bano matter, the Supreme Court had ruled that a divorced Muslim woman was entitled to maintenance from her former husband under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code if she was unable to maintain herself. It was a progressive judgment that upheld the dignity and rights of Muslim women. Yet, the then Congress Government under Rajiv Gandhi overturned the judgment to appease conservative hardline Muslim clerical groups within its vote-bank. The so-called liberal and progressive Congress leadership denied Muslim women their rightful protections because electoral calculations mattered more than justice.

Decades later, the Modi Government faced a similar moment during the Triple Talaq debate. The easy political route would have been to surrender before pressure from conservative religious groups. However, Prime Minister Modi refused to budge. After the Supreme Court declared Triple Talaq unconstitutional in 2017, the Modi Government enacted The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, criminalising the practice and granting legal protection to Muslim women. Ironically, the rights denied to Muslim women by those claiming to be progressive were ultimately secured by a government constantly branded by the Congress ecosystem as anti-progressive and anti-Muslim.

In fact, if one objectively studies decades of Congress rule, it becomes difficult to identify major transformative reforms that genuinely empowered women, poor citizens, or disadvantaged communities at the grassroots level. In contrast, within just two tenures, the Modi Government implemented multiple reforms that directly impacted the lives of ordinary Indians.

The Women’s Reservation Bill, officially the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, was passed in 2023, granting 33 percent reservation to women in Parliament and state assemblies. Congress spoke about women’s empowerment for decades and repeatedly used the issue for political messaging, yet never implemented it despite ruling the country for generations with full parliamentary strength. The hypocrisy became even more visible in 2026 when the Modi Government attempted to move forward with the broader constitutional and delimitation framework necessary for operationalising women’s reservation before the 2029 elections. Congress and several opposition parties opposed the bill in Parliament and ensured that it failed to secure the constitutionally required majority. The same party that spent decades claiming ownership over the discourse of women’s empowerment ultimately stood in the way of the actual implementation of women’s reservation when the Modi Government attempted to make it a reality.

Through the Ujjwala Yojana, millions of women received LPG connections, freeing them from years of smoke-filled kitchens and wood-fire cooking. This was not seminar-room feminism. It was dignity, health, and empowerment delivered directly at the grassroots level.

Similarly, the Swachh Bharat Mission transformed sanitation infrastructure across the country by constructing toilets for millions of households. For decades, governments failed to address the indignity faced by women due to open defecation. The Modi Government delivered what previous governments could not achieve in seventy years. Sanitation was not merely an infrastructure issue. It was an issue of women’s dignity, safety, and public health.

The Jan Dhan Yojana and Direct Benefit Transfer system revolutionised financial inclusion by ensuring that government welfare directly reached beneficiaries without leakage. Rajiv Gandhi himself had once admitted that only fifteen paise out of every rupee allocated for welfare actually reached the poor. That statement reflected the scale of systemic corruption and middlemen culture prevailing under Congress governance. The Modi Government addressed this problem through digital governance, Aadhaar-linked delivery systems, and direct transfers. Prime Minister Modi believed in solving the problem instead of merely acknowledging it.

The same practical governance model is visible in welfare initiatives such as Ayushman Bharat, which became the world’s largest public health insurance scheme for poor families, Jal Jeevan Mission that brought tap water connectivity to rural households, PM Awas Yojana that expanded housing access for poor families, PM Kisan that directly transferred income support to farmers, and Mudra Yojana that democratised access to credit for small entrepreneurs. The UPI revolution and digital governance ecosystem fundamentally altered the relationship between the citizen and the state by reducing corruption, leakages, and bureaucratic dependency.

This is real progressivism. Progressivism is not holding intellectual seminars in Lutyens’ Delhi while the poor remain trapped in corruption and dependency. Progressivism is ensuring that a villager receives welfare directly without bribing middlemen. Progressivism is when a poor woman receives a gas cylinder, a toilet, healthcare access, housing, bank access, and dignity through delivery on the ground rather than through slogans.

Congress repeatedly claimed secular progressivism while avoiding reforms within conservative Muslim institutions due to vote-bank compulsions. It opposed or hesitated on issues such as Uniform Civil Code debates, Triple Talaq reforms, and broader personal law reforms because clerical approval often mattered more than the rights of Muslim women. Its progressivism became selective and politically convenient.

The difference today is clear for the country to see. While the Modi Government delivered actual reforms, Congress largely specialised in posturing. The closed elite ecosystem that flourished under Congress rule, often through corruption and political protection, resisted the idea of genuine democratisation of opportunity. Congress’s feudalistic mindset struggled to accept that poor citizens, backward communities, women, farmers, and marginalised groups could become equal participants in India’s economic and political rise.

At the same time, Congress continued appeasing hardline clerical elements while attempting to politically mobilise Muslim voters through fear of the BJP, despite the fact that many transformative welfare schemes of the Modi Government benefited Muslim communities and Muslim women as much as every other Indian citizen.

The Modi Government, meanwhile, expanded participation in governance, politics, and the economy for women, OBCs, SCs, STs, farmers, poor citizens, and marginalised communities. It focused on dignity, delivery, and empowerment rather than ideological performance.

The world understands this shift. India’s youth understands it too. That is why the country is increasingly choosing governance over slogans, delivery over posturing, and practical reform over performative politics. Prime Minister Modi did not merely posture as progressive. He delivered progress on the ground.

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About the Author:

Harsh Singh Dahiya is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and a legal and political commentator who appears regularly on leading news platforms including CNN-News18, Times Now, NDTV and NewsX.

His work focuses on Indian politics, national security and international affairs, with particular attention to questions of sovereignty, state power and India’s position in the evolving global order.