A Nehruvian socialist presides over India's first non-Congress 'Hindu nationalist' government. K.R. Narayanan is cut from 1950s cloth, owing allegiance to the three pillars of the Nehruvian consensus: socialism, secularism and India's leadership of the non-aligned world. The BJP, by contrast, is committed to redefine the very consensus for which Narayanan stands. Between the First Citizen and his government, there could be an unstated clash of civilisations.