India has had a quirky political history, which is hardly surprising given that it is a sprawling country that is at least as culturally and linguistically diverse as continental Europe. Apart from the short-lived Swatantra Party, India has never had a truly liberal, pro-free-market party, though of course there have been pro-market members of the Congress Party and the BJP, among others.

The BJP has traditionally been identified as India’s right-of-center party, and there’s some truth to that. As the vessel of Hindutva ideology, the BJP is the party of nationalist self-assertion, which we tend to associate with the right.