Maithili Thakur’s election victory in Bihar has been widely framed as an uplifting story: a young folk singer rising from cultural stardom to political success. It is the kind of narrative that appears refreshing in a political climate saturated with dynasty, corruption, and ideological fatigue. Yet beneath this surface lies a far older power structure that makes her rise unsurprising. Thakur did not enter politics as an outsider, dismantling convention. She entered as a Thakur woman, belonging to a dominant upper caste that has historically benefited from land, symbolic respectability, and political legitimacy in Bihar. Her caste location casts a long shadow over her public acceptance, shaping which parts of her past are remembered and which conveniently disappear.
She has always sung across traditions, including Sufi repertoires, Hindustani forms shaped by Indo-Islamic culture, and Urdu lyrical traditions. These are precisely the cultural spaces that the BJP often labels as remnants of Mughal excess or symbols of an era that supposedly suppressed Hindu civilisation. Yet none of these associations is treated as problematic in her case. The same political order that accuses Muslim performers of “spreading foreign influence” and Dalit singers of “distorting Hindu culture” easily embraces Thakur. Her victory reveals not just a shift in generational leadership, but the persistence of caste as the primary filter through which Hindu nationalism decides who belongs and who does not.
Caste as the foundation of selective moral memory
The ideological forgiveness that smooths Thakur’s entry into a Hindutva-driven political arena is not a modern accident. It is built on a long lineage of Brahmanical thinking that decides who qualifies as a respectable Hindu subject.
Within this framework, purity is understood as something inherent in upper caste bodies. Their practices, contradictions, or personal habits never strip them of this purity because it is imagined as innate. This is also why even the recent rumour that she had cooked meat, which was later proven false and shown to be based on a cropped video of a jackfruit curry, did not cause reputational damage or moral scandal. Her proximity to upper caste purity means that even being associated with an act Hindutva considers polluting does not attach stigma to her. Her engagements with syncretic musical traditions and her comfort with non-Hindu cultural forms similarly never become political liabilities. Her actions are interpreted as artistic exploration rather than ideological deviation.
Dalits and Muslims do not begin with this presumption of purity. Their bodies are marked as suspect before their actions are even considered. This is why Dalit women face moral policing even when they follow strict ritual codes, and why Muslim artists are framed as foreign influences even when they perform deeply Indian cultural traditions.
A similar pattern is visible in how upper caste women are treated within broader political and cultural spaces in India. Their actions are interpreted through an automatic presumption of legitimacy, because caste positions them as natural bearers of Hindu respectability. This echoes the way savarna women often dominate and define what is considered acceptable or respectable in public and feminist spaces, while Dalit and Bahujan women face scrutiny for the same choices. The system is designed to read upper caste femininity as inherently disciplined and pure, which is precisely why Thakur’s cultural choices and contradictions are absorbed rather than questioned.
The elements of her artistic life that should be incompatible with the BJP’s cultural messaging are recast as harmless or admirable. Caste does not merely protect her. It actively transforms her past into a virtue.
The cultural flexibility reserved for the upper castes
One of the clearest markers of caste privilege is the freedom to cross cultural boundaries without losing respectability. Upper caste Hindus enjoy this ease in ways that marginalised communities simply cannot. Upper caste Hindus have long enjoyed what can only be described as performative purity, where the claim to purity is detached from behaviour and anchored instead in caste identity. This allows them to indulge in meat consumption for most of the year and then selectively abstain on specific festival days, presenting this intermittent restraint as a sign of spiritual discipline rather than contradiction. Many continue to wear the janeu (sacred thread worn by Brahmans) even while eating meat or drinking alcohol, yet their Brahminhood or Kshatriya status remains unquestioned because purity is imagined as an inherited essence rather than a practice that requires consistency. This elasticity ensures that their social legitimacy stays intact, no matter how often they cross boundaries that would be treated as signs of impurity if enacted by Dalit or Bahujan individuals.
They can eat non-vegetarian food and still claim ritual purity because purity is associated not with behaviour but with caste identity. They can perform or appreciate Urdu poetry and Sufi music without being suspected of disloyalty. They can engage with traditions that emerge from Islamic or syncretic histories and remain unchallenged as protectors of Hindu culture. This flexibility is made possible by a caste system that sees upper caste bodies as inherently stable, morally anchored, and always recoverable from any perceived impurity. Dalits and Muslims do not have access to this stabilising effect. Their actions are interpreted through a lens that assumes impurity from the outset. This is why Muslim performers are framed as political threats when they sing classical or radical Urdu works.
The system is designed to treat one group as permanently pure and another as permanently impure. Thakur’s rise sits precisely within this structure. She performs across cultural borders, but her caste guarantees that she is not transformed into a cultural outsider. Her past performances in Sufi traditions do not threaten her acceptability. They become part of her charm. The rumour about meat was quietly dismissed. Her social location allows her to move through diverse cultural terrains while remaining positioned as a legitimate Hindu figure.
Constructing the ideal Hindu daughter
Alongside caste, her gendered public image plays a central role in explaining why she sits so comfortably within the BJP’s political story. Thakur is packaged as the ideal Hindu daughter, a figure who is soft spoken, devotional, modest, and still relatable to the aspirations of a modern Indian youth. This combination of innocence and cultural discipline is exactly what the BJP seeks in women who stand as symbols of its ideology. She embodies a femininity that appears fresh but does not challenge patriarchal expectations. She is allowed public presence but only within the limits that maintain Brahmanical respectability.
Her transformation into a strictly vegetarian, deferential, devotional figure fits neatly into this aesthetic. She becomes a representation of purity, a young woman whose moral character is never questioned because the party has already framed her as someone who embodies Hindu cultural virtue.
This logic mirrors what is described in the analysis of inverted feminist politics, where Hindu nationalist feminists adopt the rhetoric of female empowerment while reinforcing caste and communal hierarchies. Upper caste women are elevated as icons of agency only when their actions align with the cultural order, while women from marginalised castes and religions remain excluded from that empowerment. By embodying the idealised figure of the respectful, culturally disciplined Hindu woman, Thakur aligns perfectly with this logic. She brings visibility to the party, but she does so without introducing political discomfort.
What her victory tells us about Hindutva and caste power
Viewed from this perspective, Thakur’s victory is not a new chapter for Bihar but a continuation of an old story. It shows how caste continues to determine whose contradictions are excused, whose past is forgiven, and whose cultural fluidity is celebrated. It confirms that Hindutva is not simply concerned with defending Hindu identity but with preserving the caste order that defines who counts as Hindu in the first place. Thakur is embraced because she fits the Brahmanical imagination of purity, respectability, and idealised femininity. Her syncretic musical past is absorbed effortlessly because caste acts as a stabilising force that neutralises ideological discomfort. Hindutva’s cultural anxieties are not applied evenly across society. They are directed strategically toward bodies that are already marked as impure.
Thakur’s acceptance shows that the project of Hindutva can tolerate cultural diversity when it comes through upper caste intermediaries. What it cannot tolerate is the same diversity when embodied by those the system has excluded. Her victory, therefore, brings into focus the workings of caste power within contemporary politics. It shows how the language of culture, tradition, and nationalism in India is always shaped by caste hierarchies that decide who can be forgiven, who must be policed, and who gets to represent the nation. Thakur’s rise is not despite her contradictions. It is because her caste location allows those contradictions to be rewritten as virtues. Her story reminds us that in India, purity is still the currency of legitimacy, and caste and religion continue to determine who is allowed to possess it.
Vaishnavi Manju Pal is a Gender Studies graduate from SOAS, University of London, and currently a lecturer and module leader of Social Science based in London.
