The Pawar Paradox Never Ends

As speculation over Sharad Pawar’s equations with the NDA resurfaces, Maharashtra is reminded that its most enduring political constant has always been uncertainty. There is an old Mumbai saying that seasoned political observers have long enjoyed repeating: “Ghode ki laath aur boss ki baat par kabhi bharosa mat karna” (never trust a horse’s kick or a boss’ word; either can come without warning). If Maharashtra’s politicians were updating the proverb today, one more cautionary line would...

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As speculation over Sharad Pawar’s equations with the NDA resurfaces, Maharashtra is reminded that its most enduring political constant has always been uncertainty. There is an old Mumbai saying that seasoned political observers have long enjoyed repeating: “Ghode ki laath aur boss ki baat par kabhi bharosa mat karna” (never trust a horse’s kick or a boss’ word; either can come without warning). If Maharashtra’s politicians were updating the proverb today, one more cautionary line would surely be included: “Sharad Pawar ke siyasi faisle par kabhi bharosa mat karna” (never assume you know Sharad Pawar's next political move). Few leaders in independent India have reinvented themselves as often, confounded both allies and adversaries with equal regularity, or remained politically relevant across nearly five decades quite like Sharad Pawar. Every major realignment in Maharashtra has, in one way or another, borne his imprint. Backstairs Intrigue That reputation has once again set the state’s political circles buzzing. A late-night meeting between senior NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Jayant Patil and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, followed by indications that Pawar's party could extend conditional support to the Centre's proposed Delimitation Bill, has revived speculation that Maharashtra may be headed towards yet another political reshuffle. Supriya Sule has firmly dismissed suggestions that her party is preparing to join the NDA, insisting that any support for the Delimitation Bill would depend entirely on safeguards ensuring fairness for every state. Yet, the rumours persist. That, perhaps, is the enduring ‘Pawar effect.’ In Maharashtra, a single meeting involving Sharad Pawar is often enough to trigger discussions of an entirely new government. Pawar’s political career has consistently demonstrated that certainty is an illusion. In 1978, barely 38 years old, he engineered one of Maharashtra’s greatest political upsets. Breaking away from the Congress, he toppled the Vasantdada Patil government and stitched together the Progressive Democratic Front, or Pulod, by bringing together parties separated by ideology but united by arithmetic. He became the state’s youngest Chief Minister, a distinction that still defines his public image. That episode also revealed the two principles that have shaped his politics ever since. Ideology, for Pawar, has rarely been an immovable barrier. Political arithmetic has almost always mattered more. Equally, power has never been viewed as permanent. The pattern repeated itself through the decades. Pawar moved between Congress politics and regional politics with remarkable ease, served as India’s Defence Minister, broke away to establish the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 over Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, spent nearly fifteen years governing alongside the Congress, and then stunned the political establishment yet again in 2019 by helping construct the Maha Vikas Aghadi. Few believed the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP could coexist under one roof. Pawar proved otherwise. Even the dramatic dawn swearing-in of Devendra Fadnavis and the late Ajit Pawar in November 2019 ultimately enhanced Sharad Pawar’s reputation. Within days, he had reunited most of his fractured party and succeeded in installing Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister. What initially appeared to be his biggest setback became another demonstration of his political resilience. Today, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP is no longer the formidable organisation it was before the split of 2023. While he retains considerable public goodwill, national stature and a respectable parliamentary presence, his legislative strength within Maharashtra has diminished considerably, prompted questions about the party’s future. Reports suggest that sections within the NCP (SP) are increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of remaining in perpetual opposition and favour exploring some form of understanding with the BJP. Pawar himself is believed to have resisted such suggestions, while Supriya Sule has repeatedly ruled out any immediate shift. Yet the existence of internal debate appears difficult to dismiss. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has publicly asserted that there is no question of new entrants joining the Mahayuti. His statement reflects political logic. The BJP already enjoys numerical dominance alongside Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP. Bringing Sharad Pawar into the alliance may strengthen the NDA externally, but it could also generate fresh leadership ambitions, competing centres of influence and unnecessary internal tensions. Issue-Based Cooperation If there is any movement, therefore, it is more likely to begin with issue-based cooperation in Parliament than with an immediate formal alliance. That explains why the Delimitation Bill has assumed such significance. Supriya Sule has indicated that her party could support the legislation provided the Centre guarantees a uniform 50 percent increase in parliamentary seats for every state. The position differs from that adopted by several INDIA bloc partners and has naturally fuelled speculation. Yet issue-based support should not automatically be interpreted as political surrender. Sharad Pawar has rarely subscribed to the idea that opposition requires opposing every government initiative. Throughout his career he has maintained working relationships across party lines, often separating legislative cooperation from electoral competition. That flexibility has repeatedly helped him preserve political relevance even when his party's electoral fortunes fluctuated. If, despite present denials, Pawar eventually chooses to support or formally align with the NDA, the consequences would extend well beyond Maharashtra. For the INDIA bloc, it would represent perhaps the most damaging psychological blow in western India, depriving it of one of its most experienced strategists and consensus-builders. Congress would lose a veteran ally at precisely the moment it is attempting to rebuild its organisational strength in Maharashtra. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) could find itself increasingly isolated, forcing a reassessment of both alliances and political strategy before the next Assembly election. And for the BJP, it would amount to the political neutralisation of perhaps its most accomplished regional rival. Sharad Pawar’s greatest political strength has always been his refusal to close any door before absolutely necessary. Strategic ambiguity has been one of its principal instruments. At 85, he remains among the last practitioners of an older style of coalition politics, where negotiation often counts for more than confrontation, and where tomorrow’s ally may well have been yesterday’s fiercest opponent. (The writer is a political observer. Views personal.

Sanskrit Stands a Chance as an Elective Language in Indonesia

Pulind Samant
Dec 27, 2025
5 min read

Far from being foreign, Sanskrit is a civilisational inheritance woven deeply into Indonesia’s history, language and statecraft and deserves renewed academic recognition.

This title may appear shocking for many, but the subsequent text may hopefully convince mostof them about the strength of the argument it presents throughout, to turn it into a case worthchasing. There is obviously a historical background that explains the beginning of the presenceof Sanskrit in Indonesia, which was almost simultaneous to the contact of Indians, the agentsof the Indic civilisation, with the archipelago, which can recognisably be traced back to at leasttwo millennia before.

Although the Indic civilisational contact spread throughout the archipelago over a large timeframe and in more or less degrees, its most intense impact was felt in four of its islands –Sumatra, the second largest, and facing India; Java, separated from Sumatra in its east, bythe Sunda Strait; Kalimantan, placed in the north of Java, separated by the Java Sea;Bali, thinly separated from Java in its east, by the Bali Strait.

Indic Footprints

The names of the two major ones out of these four, viz. Sumatra and Java, derive respectively from Sanskrit words – Samudra, meaning sea and Yava, meaning barley (then prevailing major crop there before the entry of rice).

Similarly, Borneo, the previous name of Kalimantan, is said to have been derived fromSanskrit Varuna, just like Brunei, a sovereign state located in its north-east. Even the Sundaname of the strait that separates Sumatra and Java is said to be of Sanskrit origin. The mightythalassocracy that hailed from Sumatra and reigned between the 6th and the 11th centuries CE,controlling the Malacca Straits and the international trade that traversed through it during thatperiod, had the Sanskrit name of Sri-Wijaya. Similarly, the famous kingdom on the island ofJava had the Sanskrit name of Mataram.

While in Indonesia, one often comes across Sanskrit names of people such as Dharma,Santosha (Santosa), Kusuma, Gunawan, Mulya (Mulia), Widya, Buddhi (Budi), Vayu (Bayu),Vichakshana (Wicaksano), Anugraha (Nugroho), Putra/Putri, Dewi, Maharani etc., some witha bit of a mismatch in the English transliteration, as indicated in the brackets. This fact ofSanskrit base of many Indonesian names was highlighted by none other than the currentPresident of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto, during his meeting with Prime Minister Modi, President Murmu and others, that took place on the sides of India’s 76th Republic Day celebrations in January this year, where President Subianto was the chief guest.

In fact, the original Sanskrit version of the name Prabowo himself is ‘prabhawa’, meaning influence. It wouldn’t be out of place to recall here that the names of five out of the total eight presidents of Indonesia so far, including the current one, have been Sanskrit or Sanskritised.

Apart from this, there are a number of places – cities, provinces, regencies, rivers and mountains - spread throughout the archipelago carrying Sanskrit or Sanskritised names.

Secondly, the presence of Sanskrit is not restricted to the names of people and places only; it shows in many usages pertaining to Indonesia’sstatecraft and even its armed forces. The most noticeable among them are the nation’smotto, ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’, meaning ‘unity in diversity’, where the word bhinneka is aderivative of Sanskrit ‘bhinna’, meaning diverse. The constitutionally adopted statephilosophy of Pancasila (Pancha-Shila), meaning five virtues, is Sanskrit. The Indonesiannavy’s motto, ‘Jalesveva Jayamahe’ is Sanskrit, literally meaning ‘victorious on the waters.’

Widespread Influence

This widespread and deeply entrenched presence of Sanskrit in Indonesia has a rich history ofits own, laden with rich literature, having blossomed majorly in the 10th and the 11th centuriesCE, in Sanskritised Old Javanese language and its derivative form of Kawi, which was moreheavily Sanskritised. The word Kawi means poet in Sanskrit, but this language-from was usedto convey ‘Kavya’, meaning poetry in Sanskrit, practically meaning literature compiled inpoetic language in then Indonesia.

The Old Javanese literature encompassed varied subjects like religion, cosmology, philosophy, ethics, governance and even linguistics. Kawi produced the ‘epics’ or ‘Itihasa’ (as known to the natives) Indonesian Ramayana, which drew from a number of Ramayana versions from India and also probably from those circulating within the Southeast Asian region. Similarly, it produced ‘Bharata-Yuddha’, the Indonesian version of India’sMahabharata. Apart from that, it is astonishing to know that, it also produced a number ofworks inspired by the Sanskrit plays of legendary ancient Indian poets Kalidasa, Harsha andJayadeva.

Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia, is said to be containing around 750Sanskrit loan words. The name ‘Bahasa’ itself is nothing but Bhasha, meaning language inSanskrit.

This figure of 750 could have been larger had there not been two major historicaldevelopments in the meantime - competing influence of Arabic language, post risingIslamisation of Indonesia from the 15th century onward and the introduction of Europeanvocabulary for almost all modern scientific and technology related usages, thanks to over threecenturies of Dutch colonisation. Given these facts, how should Sanskrit be viewed in Indonesia today? As a ‘foreign’ language? Or as a language of the past that remains deeply intertwined with the nation’s cultural evolution and civilisational growth?

An interesting development took place last October when Lula da Silva, President of Brazil,visited Indonesia. During their meeting, President Prabowo, imaginably in a bid to buildstronger ties with the fellow Global South leader and the partner country at the BRICS as wellas the G20 intergovernmental platforms, announced that Portuguese, the national language ofBrazil, would be taught as a priority foreign language in the Indonesian schools. Could this bethe right opportunity for the lovers of Sanskrit language as well as the carers for stronger India-Indonesia cultural ties to push the case of introduction of Sanskrit as an elective language at the university level at least? Let us look at the comparatives. India, the mother country ofSanskrit, is also a founding member of the BRICS just like Brazil (and where Indonesia hasjoined only this year), as well as a member of the G20. India too is a Global South player,and a mightier one compared to Brazil.

India is Indonesia’s maritime neighbour in the IndoPacific, deeply involved in various joint naval exercises, whereas Brazil is very far, at the other end of the Pacific. To top it all, while Portuguese is out and out a foreign language for the Indonesians, Sanskrit, recording a two millennia old presence in Indonesia, that too not through any territorial or political conquest but through a smooth cultural assimilation, and having contributed immensely towards the latter’s high culture, stands above all claimants, when it comes to teaching it to today’s generations of Indonesians.

Sanskrit, if made part of Indonesia’s education system, can bring in a number of benefits likerefreshingly reconnecting the young Indonesians with the cultural roots of their ancestors.Secondly, though indirectly, it is also likely to affect the rising religious extremism among themasses negatively, through exposure of young minds to the diversity-cherishing Sanskritliterature. And, inevitably, it would draw India and Indonesia - two giant neighbours and Global South partners - closer together. The only question that remains: who will bell the cat?

(The writer is a research scholar in international relations. Views personal.)

1 Comment

mOMAH mObilkeMAH

Dec 28, 2025

There is an unique modern cafe in Surabaya named Sansekerta. It is interesting to learn the root of many language and aksara been used (and might is using by several) in our place or birth and living.