While referring to Swamy, late jurist Fali S. Nariman once said, “He is more than interesting; he is acutely controversial.”

With an active political career spanning over four decades, a doctorate from Harvard, and a deep knowledge of law, Subramanian Swamy’s qualifications for policymaking and politics, on paper, are expansive and impressive.

In August last year, Swamy moved the Delhi High Court seeking directions to the Ministry of Home Affairs to decide on seeking a cancellation of Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s Indian citizenship. A few days later, he called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to leave his position when he turns 75; failing which he would losce his PM chair by “other methods.”

The BJP leader has never shied away from voicing his criticism—be it against the opposition or his allies. Many even wonder where the 85-year-old’s loyalties lie. Here’s a look at the controversial figure that is Subramanian Swamy.

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Born in Madras, Raised in New Delhi

Shortly after his birth in 1939 in Tamil Nadu, Swamy and his family moved to New Delhi, where his mathematician father, Sitaraman Subramanian, worked in the Indian Statistical Service (ISS), retiring as director of the Central Statistical Institute. Swamy grew up watching his father, who worked as a statistical adviser to the Government of India and an active Congress party member, discuss economics with leaders such as K Kamaraj, C Rajagopalachari, and S Satyamurti.

His mother, Padmavati, was a devout Hindu who had a considerable influence on Swamy. He himself claims that his mother’s deep faith didn’t go along with the communist creed. His brother, RR Subramanian, a nuclear strategist formerly with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, highlighted that their mother was quite vocal about her hatred for Muslims, having seen the morbid outcomes of Partition right outside their house.

What Swamy inherited from his father was a love for mathematics. He pursued the subject at Hindu College and earned a master’s in statistics at Kolkata’s ISI. He then went ahead to do a PhD in Economics at Harvard in 1965, and during the same period, he attended MIT as a cross-registered student. He worked at the United Nations Secretariat in New York in 1963 before working as a resident tutor at Harvard—all before he turned 27.

It was also at Harvard where he met his future wife, Roxna, a Parsi Supreme Court advocate.

Jan Sangh, Emergency and Changing Loyalties

After moving back to Delhi, he taught at IIT’s economics department in 1969. But he only lasted for three years. Swamy was dismissed for marking a student present for an entire term in the attendance register who had dropped the class immediately after registering for it. He sued IIT Delhi for wrongful dismissal and won.

Swamy attended Jan Sangh meetings since returning to India. Jan Sangh, the ancestor of the BJP, welcomed the economist for his ideas and vision. The party extended protections during his escape from arrest and his return to the country during the Emergency under former PM Indira Gandhi. Interestingly, Swamy used to travel in a beard and a Sikh turban (disguises used to be common during the time). He had made a reputation for himself among the RSS after successfully entering and exiting the Rajya Sabha in his disguise.

After his 1977 win from the Mumbai North-East constituency in the Lok Sabha elections, he fell out with Vajpayee. Why? Because he was not made the finance minister in the Morarji Desai government and blamed Vajpayee for it. The Jana Sangh ceased to exist in 1980 to make way for the BJP under Vajpayee, who persuaded the RSS to break ties with Swamy. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Swamy was vocal with his criticism against the RSS.

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“It is wrong to say that Vajpayee is bitterly against me. It is the RSS that is most bitterly against me. They want to finish me off. They don’t realise that I am indestructible,” he told Rediff.com in March 1998.

In the 1990s in Tamil Nadu, Swamy helped topple the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government led by M. Karunanidhi and then railed against Karunanidhi’s rival, J. Jayalalithaa, before allying with her. He also had a deep antipathy towards Sonia Gandhi and had several conspiracy theories about her but no proof to corroborate any of them.

Swamy is known for uniting and then reuniting with allies and foes throughout the span of his career in electoral politics. He turned against Jayalalitha and filed a petition demanding an investigation into her assets, which eventually led to her prosecution and sentencing to jail in 2014.

His dreams of becoming a prime minister never succeeded, but his hopes for the post of finance minister in 1998 were a major setback for Swamy.

The Famous (and Controversial) Op-Ed

While referring to Swamy, late jurist Fali S. Nariman once said, “He is more than interesting; he is acutely controversial.”

Shortly after the 13 July 2012 bomb blasts across three localities in Mumbai that killed 26 people, Swamy wrote a nearly thousand-word-long op-ed recommending demolishing over 300 mosques that allegedly sit on sites of old temples. Other extreme suggestions included declaring India as a Hindu state and stripping Muslims of their right to vote unless they acknowledged that their ancestors were Hindus.

The controversial op-ed led to Harvard dropping two of his economic courses, followed by over 400 students signing a petition to remove him completely.

“Swamy’s op-ed [piece] clearly crosses the line by demonising an entire religious community and calling for violence against their sacred places,” Comparative Religion Professor Diana Eck said.

Those who knew Swamy were surprised by the article. His brother Subramanian, with whom he had a contentious relationship, said that the op-ed had “scared the hell out” of him and that he wasn’t expecting it from “a man like him.” Aditya Sinha, then editor of DNA, told The Caravan that Swamy was clearly “wooing the right wing.”

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Return To RSS and The BJP

Around 2005, when Vajpayee’s influence faded, Swamy made his comeback to the RSS. Soon after, the NDA announced the Janata Party was joining it. During a conference packed with Vishwa Hindu Parishad and RSS members, Swamy called for an invasion into Pakistan to fight Islamic terrorism.

Notably, Swamy’s son-in-law is a Muslim. He himself observed that there are Christians and Jews in his extended family, and being married to a Parsi himself, his relationship with the Hindu right is only strategic and not emotional.

In 2013, the remnants of the Janata Party merged with the BJP. Swamy had come full circle. But if his past relationship with allies is to be noted, Swamy couldn’t have lasted long. After taking over as BJP chief in January 2020, JP Nadda dropped several leaders from the party’s national executive. One of the dropped names was Swamy.

Already a critic of PM Modi’s economic policies, Swamy discounted the role of Modi when considering the prospects of the BJP securing a win in the 2024 general elections. He claimed that “a surge in Hindu pride” would bring victory to the party.

In August last year, Swamy described Pakistan as an “enemy country dominated by Punjabi Muslims who deny human rights to Baluchis, Sindhis, and Pathans.” He called PM Narendra Modi a “trapeze artist” for his frequent international trips.

Does Modi realise that by his silly travelling to all countries, big or small, friendly or hostile, near or far, he is being seen as PM of a nation despite its huge population, as Trapeze Artist.

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) August 31, 2024

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Three months later, he declared billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani with the same title (a trapeze artist) after a US court accused him of fraud; he also accused Adani of disgracing India unlike the Ambanis and Godrejs.

We patriotic Indians must recognise after the Trapeez Artist Adani landed in US hands and prima facie disgraced, that the Ambanis, Godrejs, many other Indian plutocrats have never shamed Indians as Adani has by cutting corners recklessly despite all the socialist barrage.

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) November 29, 2024

Swamy is a figure that is allied to no party permanently and answers to no one but himself. As Roxna Swamy writes in the book about her husband, Evolving with Subramanian Swamy, the economist is “someone who has never allowed himself to be ordered around.”