Durable and Office-Dependent Power

The distinction between office-dependent and durable power is the most important qualification in the Atlas. The baseline composite of 45.7 includes the readings of executive office, public expenditure, the police and agencies, the civil services and appointed bodies, and the transactional share of business and party money, all of which would change hands with government.

With the BJP out of office at the Union and in every state, the composite falls to 36.7. The 9.0-point difference measures how far the present distribution of power rests on continued electoral success. The durable component (organisation, belief, religious institutions, committed money, media audiences, and the parts of the State that do not change with government, such as the judiciary) amounts to 36.7 points.

The implication is symmetrical. For Hindutva-aligned actors, the durable reading is well below the contested band. For their opponents, the arenas that do not depend on office, above all knowledge, the elite press and much of organised civil society, remain a substantial base that has not been displaced by a decade of electoral defeat.