After 12 years of Modi, I’m not sure if my decades-long friendships can survive politics

I met Suresh and Avinash* in 2005 as part of a local train group in Mumbai. Suresh and I both worked at a publication aimed at young people. Back then, none of us cared much about politics. We cared about getting our foot in the 8.59 am train during rush hour, stretching our salaries till month-end and pondering over Suresh’s utterance, “Dost ek kutta hota hai” – a friend is just a dog.

Twenty years later, I don’t know if I can be friends with them. Not because they betrayed or wronged me. But because they support Narendra Modi with ferocity I no longer know how to understand.

This isn’t yet another story about political differences ruining a friendship. Political differences are normal, even necessary for democracy. It is about what happens when political differences start feeling moral. That is what has happened to me. Suresh and Avinash are not bad people, and that is the problem.

Suresh is that friend who shows up when you need him. Avinash who would never intentionally hurt anyone else. We have spent 20 years drinking together, celebrating birthdays, sending cringe WhatsApp forwards, visiting each other’s homes and surviving the various disasters that adulthood throws at friendships.

If you met them at...

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