How Hindu Nationalists Took Over India

The last Indian general election concluded on May 12, 2014. Initial predictions were for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition – to capture 220 out of 545 seats. In fact, the BJP alone won 282, while the NDA coalition combined won 336. The scale of the BJP’s victory – and certainly the possibility that the party could win an absolute majority on its own – was not predicted or anticipated by even the most seasoned observers of Indian politics. Almost two years later a number of questions persist: How do we explain the surprising results of the election? What does the election indicate about the broader Hindu nationalist movement and its success? And how has the party (and the movement) used its time in office thus far?

It is worth noting that because of India’s first-past-the-post electoral system, the BJP won 51.7 percent of seats in the Lok Sabha despite winning only 31 percent of the popular vote. Thus, one should not exaggerate the extent of this victory in terms of it signifying some sweeping political consensus. Many accounts of the election and its aftermath have suggested that the public broadly embraced the Hindu nationalist movement. It is more accurate to say that almost a third of the electorate selected the BJP’s campaign platform over the alternatives.

The BJP is the political party of the Hindu nationalist movement, which consists of about three dozen organizations that are united by a commitment to an ideology of Hindutva. This ideology is based on the assertion that India is the homeland of Hindus (broadly defined to also include Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs). As the Hindu homeland, the state should serve as a champion of Hindus and their interests. The ideology papers over the many differences among Hindus, especially of caste and language, while emphasizing the separation between most Indians and their Muslim and Christian compatriots. These ideas are based on a fabricated historical narrative and poor sociology, but their aim is not to accurately describe India as much as to create new facts on the ground.

The various organizations that make up the movement are held together by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – the original group founded in 1924. Some of the organizations are made up of women’s organizations (the Samiti, Durga Vahini) and youth groups (Bajrang Dal). Others are professional groups (the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, or ABVP, and the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, the BKS) or defined by their service roles (the Vishva Hindu Parishad, or VHP, and the Sewa Bharati). At different times one or a multiple of these organizations may become relatively inactive, but the multiplicity of organizations serves an important function for the movement. When some of the groups are seen as extremists, others present themselves as moderates. They allow the movement to present slightly different versions of its ideology to different audiences. They also allow the movement to be seen as complex: made up of helpers as well as agitators. Finally, when some of the groups have been banned due to their violence, others have stepped in to help rehabilitate the movement’s persona.

What does Hindutva ideology translate to in terms of policy and practice? The aims of the movement can be understood in terms of both explicit and implicit goals, as well as short and long term ones. In recent years the movement has called for the implementation of a universal civil code to replace the religiously defined personal codes that govern family law in India; the elimination of the special status of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir; the prevention of missionary activity while maintaining the permissibility of conversions to Hinduism exclusively; the alteration of the content of school texts to reflect a Hindutva account of Indian history; the pursuit of a foreign policy that moves India closer to the United States and Israel; and, finally, the adoption of economic policies that favor the interests of the urban middle class over rural groups. These are the explicit aims of the movement as articulated by the campaign platform of the BJP and promoted in the broader movement’s journals and websites.

The implicit agenda behind these policies is to adopt a majoritarian system of governance, in which upper caste Hindu norms set the standards for the diverse population of India. They call for a form of secularism in which all Indians are treated in the same way, adopting the assumptions and attitudes of upper caste Hindu and seeking to generalize them to all. The problem with this is obvious: Hindu upper caste norms are not necessarily egalitarian or just. Thus, the puzzle that this agenda poses for political observers is that an ideology that only seeks to advance the aims of a minority (upper caste Hindu men) relies upon a much broader constituency for its support.

The Mobilization Puzzle

How does the movement get this support? One popular answer is that because the movement relies on Hindu images and ideas to mobilize support, and religion is a particularly potent source of political passion, it is able to call upon all Hindus (about 80 percent of the Indian population) for different degrees for support. Hindu nationalism is also not a new phenomenon, though its pan-national popularity might be; it has been around for over a century now. It was a potent force in the 1940s, declined in relevance until the 1970s, and became powerful again in the late 1980s. This historical variation in its power and influence is not connected to how Hindus have understood or practiced their faith. Therefore, it is unlikely that piety is a good explanation for movement support.

Another way of understanding this puzzle is to point to the rapid ascent of the movement in the aftermath of India’s economic liberalization and turn to globalization in 1991. Siddhartha Deb recently wrote a very well-received article in which he suggests that the insecurities of the Indian middle classes and their diasporic counterparts account for their embrace of BJP leader and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “From this hollowed-out form of success, bereft of love, spirituality, and justice, meaning can only emerge from banality and hatred. Modi’s contradictions and lies channel the confusions of his supporters perfectly.” The economic gains of the past two decades have mostly accrued to a few while raising the expectations of the many. Leftover cultural shame from colonization to the present sour the people. While this account is attractive in its sweeping diagnosis of a time and people, it is also a strange flattening of millions of people. And ultimately, it is not based on close studies of what academics call “everyday Hindu nationalism.”

Everyday Hindu nationalism refers to the ordinary ways in which Indians encounter the movement and its activists. For many that is in the form of private schools where children can enroll at highly subsidized rates and get a decent education, peppered with a dose of Hindutva ideology. Another common point of contact is through the neighborhood pracharak (a full-time volunteer, typically associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), who acts as a self-appointed social worker. He organizes religious events, connects people to jobs and marriage prospects, mentors young people, and generally engages with the daily rhythms of the neighborhood. There are female equivalents as well who build bonds with women and girls. For some people, their interaction with activists could come through attendance at a religious gathering or a training camp for young people. In these myriad ways, Hindu nationalism has become part of the fabric of everyday lives in India, rather than a coherent ideology that can be evaluated objectively.

Most activists within social movements around the world get involved in some movement activity – a protest, a celebration, a service project at the urging of a friend, relative or coworker. Only after they have already taken some action do they typically adopt the worldview of the movement. That is, action precedes ideology. This is the case with Hindu nationalists as well. Support for the movement comes from quotidian interactions that are not about politics. It is cemented by subsequent adoption of the ideology of Hindutva.

In Power and Beyond

Since coming to power in 2014 on a platform that emphasized rapid economic growth, and specifically more jobs, the BJP has failed at passing the legislation it needs in order to reform the tax and labor structures in India. The main obstacle has been that despite its majority in the lower house, the party lacks similar numbers in the upper house. Despite having promised a reinvigoration of state powers in the federal system, the BJP has hesitated to move power to the state level. That is likely to be the only path to economic reform in the near future.

On the issues of cultural and educational reform, however, the government has moved quickly to replace the leftists who historically dominated most intellectual bodies in India. In their place, ideologically pure but unqualified replacements have begun to alter the history that students will learn in coming years. The ongoing battles with students at Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru Universities are visible flashpoints where the government is trying to use its muscle to intimidate critics of its policies.

To counter these moves, anti-Hindu national forces are mainly engaged in ideological battles. These are important, but the history of the rise of this movement and its party demonstrate that the ordinary acts of helping neighbors will do more to draw people away from Hindu nationalism and back to the embrace of secular social movements.