New Delhi: BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s recent tirade against the Supreme Court and the chief justice of India marks a new low in the party’s contempt for judicial independence.Dubey, a four-time MP from Godda, Jharkhand, accused the Supreme Court of “inciting religious wars” and “going beyond its limits”, even suggesting that parliament and state assemblies should be “shut down” if the judiciary continues to “make laws”. He went so far as to directly blame CJI Sanjiv Khanna for “all the civil wars happening in this country.”These incendiary statements came on the heels of a Supreme Court verdict setting deadlines for presidential assent to state Bills, a move the BJP and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar (himself acting as a partisan attack dog in a constitutional office), have decried as judicial overreach.The BJP’s response was as predictable as it was hollow. Party president J.P. Nadda issued a denial, calling Dubey’s remarks “personal statements” and claiming the BJP “completely rejects these statements”.Nadda reaffirmed the party’s “respect” for the judiciary and its role as a “pillar of democracy”, instructing all party members to refrain from making such comments.The party’s media machinery worked overtime to distance itself from Dubey, following a now-familiar script: when a leader’s remarks become a controversial liability, the BJP brands them as outliers, “fringe elements” or mere personal opinions, while the ideological thrust remains untouched and the offender goes undisciplined.This is the same playbook used when terror-accused Pragya Singh Thakur hailed Nathuram Godse, or when other BJP leaders have crossed the line in recent years.This episode is emblematic of the BJP’s long-standing strategy of speaking in forked tongues and a hallmark of the Hindu Right in India. On the one hand, the party projects institutional respect and constitutional propriety, especially under judicial or international scrutiny. On the other, it tacitly enables and often benefits from a steady stream of provocative, majoritarian, anti-Muslim and anti-institutional rhetoric from its second-rung leaders and spokespersons.The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, when leaders like L.K. Advani claimed faith trumped the law, is a historic example.Even today, the Modi government has refused to file an affidavit to clarify its stand on the Places of Worship Act before the Supreme Court.This duality is no accident. It is a calibrated political tactic. The BJP’s core ideological base, rooted in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindutva, thrives on narratives of victimhood, institutional bias and an assertion of violent Hindu primacy for nearly a century.Leaders like Dubey serve as lightning rods, voicing the motivated grievances and crude resentments of the party’s base, while the official leadership maintains plausible deniability.The “fringe element” defence is used to shield the party from institutional and international backlash, as seen in previous controversies involving inflammatory remarks about Mahatma Gandhi, minorities or constitutional bodies.Such doublespeak has grave consequences for Indian democracy.The systematic undermining of the judiciary, through direct attacks and executive interference, weakens the last bulwark against majoritarian excess and authoritarian rule. When ruling party MPs accuse the Supreme Court of fomenting religious conflict or anarchy, it erodes public trust in the judiciary’s impartiality and independence.The BJP’s refusal to take substantive disciplinary action against Dubey, beyond issuing a public denial, signals to its cadre that such attacks are in fact politically useful, if not officially sanctioned.If the BJP truly disagrees with Dubey’s statements, mere verbal distancing is insufficient. A party that claims to uphold constitutional values should sack members who launch defamatory attacks on the judiciary. Anything less is tacit complicity.Dubey’s political career is itself a study in controversy. Elected four times from Godda, he is known for his aggressive rhetoric and combative style, often launching low-blow personal attacks on rivals and institutions, both inside and outside parliament.His tenure has been marred by allegations of submitting fake educational credentials. Some have cast doubt on his claimed MBA degree and apparent discrepancies in affidavits and university records.Dubey has dismissed these as politically motivated, but the fog around his qualifications remains thick.He has also faced several criminal cases and has been accused of usurping a private medical college through fraudulent means. Yet, in the current Lok Sabha, Dubey chairs the parliamentary standing committee on information technology, a telling comment on the BJP’s standards.The BJP’s handling of the Dubey episode is not an aberration but a continuation of a pattern under Modi – an aggressive assertion of Hindutva positions followed by strategic retreat or denial when backlash looms.This approach allows the party to charge its rabid base, polarise public discourse for political gains and simultaneously provide a reassuring excuse to domestic and international observers of its supposed constitutionalism.This is only possible because India’s big media refuses to critically analyse such episodes, instead using BJP formal statements to help manufacture a new truth to further a particular narrative.Dubey’s attack on the Supreme Court and the BJP subsequent distancing itself from his remarks exposes the party’s forked tongue as one that speaks the language of constitutional respect in public, while actively promoting a culture of institutional delegitimisation within.The refusal to take meaningful action against repeat offenders like Dubey only emboldens such behaviour, deepening the crisis of trust in India’s democratic institutions.If Modi is serious about his commitment to democracy, he must do more than sanction issuing of denials – he must hold his own flock accountable. Until then, the dual face of the Hindu Right will remain an enduring, and dangerous, threat to Indian democracy.