“Ideology, Organization and Electoral Strategy of Hindu Nationalism: What’s Religion Got to Do with It?” (original) (raw)

Hindu Nationalism What's Religion Got to Do With It?

2003

: It is sometimes said that generals fight the last war. Similarly, political analysts tend to find the most recent global scourge in every societal ailment they encounter. In the 1940s and 1950s many populist movements and regimes were mistakenly viewed as fascist; in the 1960s and 1970s numerous third world nationalist movements were perceived as and professed to be communist; and since the Iranian revolution of 1979 fundamentalisms seem to have flourished. Sometimes more than one of these labels has been applied to the same movement. In India, Hindu Nationalism was - and often still is - perceived as fascist, particularly by its Indian critics, while outside observers have found it altogether too easy to treat it as the Hindu equivalent of Islamic radicalism. Consequently, we should consider whether Hindu nationalism is religious at all. The first part of this paper accordingly will examine the evolution of Hindu Nationalist ideology to emphasize a point that has been made many t...

The Resurgence of Hindu Nationalism

In spite of India’s growing middle class and significant economic development over the last decade, its democracy has been challenged by the growing number of right-wing organisations and their supporters in India. At the centre of this research is the question why modernization and economic growth have not led to increased secularization of society, as it happened in the West? Additionally, what are the factors which pose a threat to democracy and secularism? I argue that the way modernization and economic growth have come about in India have not led to increased democratization and secularization but lent support to the right wing and caused the resurgence of Hindu nationalism. This resurgence and the consequent stagnating, or one can argue reversed, secularization process resulted from the combined effect of some deeper (indirect) determinants and proximate (direct) causes. In the first category I include the retreat of the state together with an expanding private and unorganized sector, the problem of 'jobless growth', additionally, the one-sided focus on institutional/procedural democracy and the relative neglect of substantive/representative democracy. Resulting from these, the proximate causes are the spread of grassroots, service-providing right-wing organisations, and the successful rhetoric applied about a new, rising and united India, envisaged by the right wing to gain support.

Hindu Nationalism in Theory and Practice

2016

Nationalism suggests that the majority community gains the upper hand in setting the nationalist and patriotic agenda while expecting compliance from the minority groups. In India, Hindu nationalism, also known as Hindutva, seeks to establish a Hindu India (Hindu Rashtra) that visualizes a Hindu-self‖ and the minority (Muslim & Christian) ‗‗other.'' Hindutva is an ideology propagated by the Hindu rightwing elements that aspire to establish India as a Hindu state by uniting the Hindus who are divided along the lines of caste, class, language and other differences. Hindutva is on the ascendance in India in the last 25 years. What strategies and tactics have the adherents of this chauvinistic, sectarian movement employed in order to gain an ideological, cultural, organizational and political foothold in a caste-ridden, multi-religious, multi-linguistic, secular, pluralist and democratic society dependent on coalition politics? This research is an attempt to understand the various facets of Hindutva in India, where violence has become central to India's socio-political order. It will investigate the multiple ways in which the discourses of nationalism, the self and the other, social unity, insecurity, identity, gender and violence manifest in the society. The origins of Hindu nationalism in the socio-political mainstream can be traced back to the pre-independence era struggle. However, in the last two decades or so, the Hindu nationalist movement in India has become a dominant cultural and political movement that on the surface presents itself as v an inclusive and pro-development establishment, but at the core seeks to sustain Hindu upper-class hegemony in a nation with heterogeneous identities not only within the Hindu community but with other minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. This project takes the form of an academic essay that relies on secondary sources but also use primary sources. In it, I discuss Hindutva through the various definitions of nationalism and the ways in which majority and minority communities are imagined in a nation-state. This essay assumes a framework in which majoritarian discourse self assigns to one people the authority of the-self‖ and views minorities as the-other.‖ I will examine how the national, religious and cultural symbols are used to mobilize the public opinion and consolidate the self behind a certain agenda where myths form an important factor in the theory and practices of Hindutva establishment. Within this framework, any drive to homogenize the society will result in creating a stigmatized other, whose loyalty is always questioned. This research is a qualitative study with historical orientation, complimented by anthropological, sociological and political science dimensions. It is an attempt to understand the ideology, history, discourse, religion, culture and politics in shaping perceptions about the Self and the other. It focuses on the formative assertions, challenges in its imagination of Hindu vi collective, its discourse on the threatening other and how violence against the other is normalized which requires examining its fascist roots.

The Global Roots of Modern Indian Radical Nationalism

Passato e Presente, 2023

The review takes as its starting point the book by Marzia Casolari In the Shadow of the Swastika: The Relationships Between Indian Radical Nationalism, Italian Fascism, and Nazism in order to look at the impact of global ideologies on the growth of interwar period Hindu radical nationalism (Hindutva), focussing on the transnational developments that influenced it. The tumultuous nature of Hindutva continues to have a stronghold in India even today, especially since the coming of a right-wing Bharatiya Janta Party government, which makes it even more important to study its origins.

HINDUTVA: THE SHAPING OF A NEW “HINDU” IDENTITY

Southeastern Political Review, 1998

This paper examines the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India within the context of nationalist par@ politics in the sub-continent. This paper analyzes the environment within which the Hindu nationalist message was and is currently being formulated; the organizational structure of the movement; and the symbols and strategies that have helped to popularize the message on Hindutva in recent years. The paper concludes with an analysis of the popular response to Hindutva and the problems facing the BJP and its parent organizations in cartying out the program toward a revolutionized Hindu rashtra. The aim is to provide an understanding of the historical and political forces at work in the recent anti-Muslim violence in India.

‘Willing’ ethnic-nationalists, diffusion, and resentment in India: A micro-foundational account

Modern Asian Studies, 2022

Using evidence regarding the consolidation of Hindu nationalism in India we put forward new ethnographic data about the variety of popular support for a Hindutva project and a new framework that proposes an interactive theory of social identity. This framework helps us understand how Hindu nationalism becomes embedded in society. We assert that Hindu nationalism in India could be fruitfully analysed by focusing on the processes through which ideas of exclusive nationalism spread among ordinary middle-class people and are expressed in micro-level psychological changes at the individual level. The consolidation of Hindu nationalism in India is being authored not only by parties or the state, but also by societal actors, specifically, ordinary middle-class Indians. Hindu nationalism has been spreading in micro-public spheres in a time of apparent peace and between elections, and with the participation of willing supporters. Building on our fieldwork and research in psychology and history, our conversations have also helped us to identify profiles of different types of nationalists, which we categorize as willing ethnic-nationalists, hardliners, bystanders, and moderates. Further, we suggest the need to focus on inter-linked micro-level mechanisms such as diffusion and emulation of Hindu-centric beliefs and ideas, mobilization by hardliners and organizations, and impunity resulting from protection by state agencies, which helps to create willing ethnic-nationalists and sustains Hindu nationalism. Evidence regarding social interactions from a variety of survey organizations concurs with our findings and our ethnographic material allows us to delve deeper into varieties of Hindu nationalist support across diverse ordinary people. 1 While the phrase 'willing' comes from Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners (1997), we do not draw a direct comparison with Germany of that time, which was a fragile Weimar republic that turned into a genocidal system. We adopt the metaphor of 'willing' to denote how ordinary Indians participate in a Hindu-centric project and therefore are important to examine. A comparative examination of Germany and India is beyond the scope of this article. Thus, our use of the phrase 'willing' is quite selective and specific in referring to ordinary people's participation in a larger Hindutva world view.

Globalization and the Conduct of Hindu Radicalism in Authority*

Journal of World Sociopolitical Studies, 2023

Following the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, the sociopolitical rivalry between Hindu religious nationalists and secular democratic nationalists that arose during the independence struggles, and whose intolerance precipitated the conflict, persists to this day. Following an extended period of dominance as one of the two major political parties in India, the Indian National Congress Party (INC), which espouses Indian secularism rooted in Gandhian socialism, social democracy, secularism, and democratic socialism, has been at the helm of Indian politics for approximately three decades. However, Hindu nationalism will soon supplant INC's political preeminence, which forms the foundation of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) political ideology. This article aims to shed light on the voting patterns of supporters of radical Hindu political parties over a three-decade period (1980-2014). Additionally, it will examine the impact of globalization on the dynamics of interaction between radical Hindus and adherents of other religious minorities in India, including Islam and Christianity. The primary research inquiry of the article is as follows: To what extent has globalization influenced the voting patterns of radical Hindu political party supporters? Furthermore, what impact has globalization had on the dynamics of interaction between adherents of Hinduism and other faiths in India? Its hypotheses assert that Hindu radicalism is shifting toward moderation due to globalization. In addition, individuals are distancing themselves from radical Hindu parties, and these parties are losing their political base as a result of the effects of globalization. Keywords: Bharatiya Janata Party, Globalization, Hinduism, Hindutva, Radicalism, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)