Does political ideology matter in developing countries? If so, around which issues is it structured, why, and what can we learn from its study? We investigate these questions in India, where as in much of the Global South, scholars have traditionally explained politics as a contestation over material resources rather than ideas. We argue for more attention to the role of ideas in such contexts, and we theorize that ideological divides in India will be salient, structured around long-standing debates, and that the dominant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will hold an outsized role in shaping the terms and focus of disagreement. We find support for our theory in two nationally representative surveys with embedded endorsement experiments, one conducted online (N=2,393) and another over the phone via random-digit dialing (N=1,255). Specifically, we observe that respondents can be placed along a single ideological dimension, that divides map onto historical debates over state interventionism, cultural pluralism, and minority accommodation, and that one's placement predicts a wide range of political behaviors and attitudes. We also find that feelings toward the BJP are particularly predictive of ideological placement and that endorsements from BJP politicians are more influential, especially for cultural issues. Our findings indicate that ideology is consequential for Indian politics and may differ in important ways from the West, and call for greater attention to the study of ideology in developing country contexts.