Warrior Virgin, Warrior Queen, Champion General Mary, and Mother of Power

How can Virgin Mary be used as a symbol of war, military, imperialism, and violence? Virgin Mary was as far from war and violence as a human can possibly be. But Christian nationalists have used Mary as a militaristic icon since ancient times. 

Dorian Llywelyn, a Jesuit priest, scholar of Catholicism, and President, the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences has written a fascinating article about how Mary has become a warrior queen and a military general, who has won many battles, for many nations. 

In his article, The patriotic Virgin: How Mary’s been marshaled for religious nationalism and military campaigns, Mr. Llywelyn traces the history of the Warrior Virgin from ancient times. He gives the example of a prayer from 4th century Christians in Egypt to Christian's victory over Persians after Constantinople was besieged by the Persian navy in 626 AD. Christians believed that their prayers to Mary destroyed the Persian fleet. Mary was given the military title 'Champion General' in the Akathist hymn that has been prayed in both the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches. Since then, Mary has been used as a symbol of the military and nation. In the Argentinian and Chilian militaries, she is still considered a national patroness and a general.

 Mr. Llywelyn mentions interesting and intriguing episodes of history when both sides of the conflict invoked Warrior Mary. During the War of Mexican Independence (1810-21), local forces invoked "Our Lady of Guadalupe," a title of Mary used in Mexico while the Spanish imperialist army invoked another title for Mary, “Virgin of Los Remedios,” as their protector and supporter. 

Another such episode is the reign of English Queen Elizabeth I, called the "Virgin Queen" because she was never married. However, many of her English supporters also considered her the second Virgin Mary under whom the golden age of purity and justice was restored. She was the head of the Anglican Church and Catholic Christians suffered harsh persecution during her reign. In her book, "The Virgin Mary in The Perceptions of Women: Mother, Protector, and Queen," Joelle Mellon wrote that during those difficult times, when death or imprisonment was a real threat, the English Catholics asked Mary for protection and gave her a new title: Mother of Power.

A mural in Kyiv, Ukraine depicting the Virgin Mary cradling a U.S.-made anti-tank weapon

Source: The patriotic Virgin: How Mary’s been marshaled for religious nationalism and military campaigns

Mary as a national symbol

Mary has been used as the national symbol of many countries. Catholic countries are particularly susceptible to Mary's devotion as Mr. Llywelyn explains:

Off the battlefield, many Catholic cultures have historically felt they had a special relationship with Mary. In 1638, King Louis XIII formally dedicated France to the Virgin Mary. Popular belief interpreted the subsequent birth of the future Louis XIV as Mary’s miraculous reward, after 23 years of waiting for a male heir.

About two decades later, Polish King Jan II Kazimierz consecrated his country to Mary amid a war. Both acts reflected church and political leaders’ beliefs that their countries had a sacred mission and divine approval for their political ambitions.

This religious symbolism allows rulers to justify their actions, whether it's war, peace, theft, or imperialism, based on religion. 

Mary as a warrior

Ancient symbols and personalities are often reimagined and reinterpreted by powerful rulers or groups so that current political positions and actions can be justified. Traditions are invented and people think of them as ancient and long-standing while in reality these traditions of are relatively recent origin.

The following excerpt from a Novena/prayer to Mary shows that the "gentle maid" is also a powerful warrior. 

How strange it seems to think of Mary as a warrior.

The gentle maid of Nazareth, the Virginal Mother, the Mother of the Prince of Peace, is still called -and properly called- "More terrible than army in battle array."

And so she is....

Mary, conqueror of heresies

Mary, triumphant always in the battle with sin.

When then we put on the scapular, which is Mary's uniform, we join in a special way the regiment of which Mary is the queen and honorary colonel.

We pledge ourselves to do battle against the enemy of the human race.

We will be victorious as Mary is victorious, and conquering as Christ is conquering.

Although the battles and triumphs are spiritual, once you make someone honorary colonel of a regiment, it's easy to use it to also battle corporeal enemies that threaten us in the real world. The following image of Mary, with a club in her hand, is particularly interesting.

Source: Virgin most powerful: Catholic Belief in Mary's Strength 

Hindu Civilizationism: Make India Great Again

Abstract

Hindu civilizationism is more than a century old phenomenon that has been steadily gaining strength. Its recent amalgam with populism has made it ascendant, popular, and mainstream in India. This paper explores how Hindu civilizationism is not only an essential part of the Hindutva and BJP’s narrative but also the mainstay of several government policies. The “other” of the BJP’s populist civilizationist rhetoric are primarily Muslims and Muslim civilization in India and the aim is to make India “vishwaguru” (world leader) again after 1200 years of colonialism. The evidence of this heady mixture of civilizationism and populism is numerous and ubiquitous. This paper analyzes topics such as Akhand Bharat, the golden age, denigrating Mughals, Hindutva pseudoscience, and Sanskrit promotion to highlight the evidence.

Article

1. Introduction

Civilizationism uses a religio-civilization classification of people to define national identity. Territorial nationalism is deemphasized as the nation is imagined beyond national boundaries. Citizens, who are considered part of the civilization-nation based on religion, are asked to defend or save their civilization which is considered under threat. The state becomes a means to achieve the objective which is civilizational longevity and success.

This civilizational rhetoric has become more common as populist leaders around the world have used it to attract voters who are dissatisfied with the dominant ideologies and established mainstream parties. Numerous authors have pointed out how rightwing populist European parties and leaders defined self and the other not in national but in broader civilizational terms. Christian civilization, Christian heritage, or Judeo-Christian civilization and traditions are considered in crisis and under threat from Islam and Muslims. The “patriots” are told they have only two choices, act or go extinct (Brubaker 2016, 2017; Kaya and Tecmen 2019; Ozzano and Bolzonar 2020; Yilmaz and Morieson 2021; Marchetti et al. 2022).

Populism is generally considered a thin ideology that attaches itself to rightwing or leftwing ideologies to give coherence, strength, and program to its rhetoric. Yilmaz and Morieson (2022a) have identified civilizationism as another thick ideology that populism attached itself to. Civilizationism, for them, is an idea that divides and categorizes people based on “civilizations” that are primarily based on religion. This is different from the usual division of people based on nations and populists’ framing of “the people” as people of a country.

Hindu civilizationism, like in many other countries, is closely associated with rightwing nationalism and populism. Hindutva (literally Hindu-ness) is a popular political ideology that defines Indian values and nationalism primarily in terms of Hinduism and Hindu civilization, lays claim that only Hindus have the right to rule in India, and aims to replace a secular Indian constitution with a Hindu state (Hindu Rashtra). Hindutva political parties, organizations, and social movements raised the flag of civilizationism before Indian independence in 1947, and more than a century later, they are still its torchbearers. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is just the latest and most successful of the political rightwing conservative organizations. In terms of making Hindu civilizationism popular, the BJP plays second fiddle to almost a hundred-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindutva organization.

Hindu civilizationism, therefore, is not a new phenomenon. It started as part of Hindu revivalism in the early 19th century. Hindu revivalists, such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the founder of Brahmo Samaj, wanted to reform Hinduism and Hindu society so that it could rise above the social evils and iniquitous rituals and regain its position as a great civilization. Later, in the last century, civilizationist organizations were formed whose main objectives were political even when they were not working as a political party. For a long time, from the 1940s to the 1970s, these organizations and the political parties they supported remained unpopular. However, civilizationists started winning elections at the state level in the 1980s and won national elections in the late 1990s. They ruled India under Prime Minister Vajpayee (1999–2004) but as they did not have the majority of Lok Sabha seats, they were always dependent on other parties and could not fully implement their agenda. The second decade of the 21st century brought a sea change in their fortunes as, like many rightwing civilizationists in other countries, they discovered an affinity between their ideology and populism. The embrace of populism under Prime Minister Modi made them the supreme political force and, currently, Hindu civilizationism is the dominant ideology in India. PM Narendra Modi has trounced the opposition in the 2014 and 2019 national elections and he is by far the most popular leader in India, most likely to win the 2024 national elections (Pradhan 2022).

Modi riding a chariot reminiscence of ancient Hindu Gods, Avatars, Rajas and Hindu civilization

Source: Narendra Modi Twitter

During the last decade, Hindu civilizationism rhetoric has been rising steadily, with the support of populism. The people-elite divide of populism has been used to discredit the Congress Party and Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Similarly, the people-outsider divide, another regular feature of populist politics, was used to declare Hindus as the only original inhabitants of India and Muslims and Christians as outsiders. Fear, threat, and crisis were used by Modi, like other populists, to force ordinary Hindus to be afraid (Hindu khatray main hai: Hindus are in danger) and act as advised by Modi. Finally, Modi’s image as the only strong, decisive leader in India was carefully crafted, as in the case of many other populist leaders, to sway voters (Modi hai to mumkin hai: If there is Modi, then it is possible) (Sinha 2021; Saleem 2021; Saleem et al. 2022; Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b).

The othering of Muslims and other political forces as anti-nationals and non/fake Hindus is increasing in India. Hinduism has been presented as under threat from Muslims despite Hindus being close to eighty percent of the Indian population. Indians are being made to believe that Muslims and Westerners are again plotting to subjugate Hindus as they did many times during the previous twelve hundred years. The BJP has achieved what was unimaginable a few decades ago (Varshney 2019; Amarasingam et al. 2022).

However, it must be clear that Modi is not more civilizationist than previous civilizationists. The key difference between Modi and Hindu civilizationists of the 1960s and 1970s is the degree of populism, not the degree of civilizationism. Like Modi, Hindu civilizationists of the 20th century were also talking about Akhand Bharat, the golden Vedic age, oppressive Muslim/Mughal invaders, superiority of Hindu civilization, and Sanskrit promotion. Hindutva party manifestos of Hindu Mahasabha and Bharatiya Jana Sangh give ample evidence of civilizationalism (Saleem 2021). Populists are quite successful in the use of transnational solidarity today due to a number of reasons, such as revolution in information and communication technologies, globalization, increase in economic inequality and distrust in democratic institutions in numerous countries, rise in ethnic/religious attachments with the concurrent decline in liberalism, etc. However, they were not the first ones to use transnational solidarity. For instance, between 1987 and 1989, during the Ram Mandir movement, hundreds of thousands of bricks were donated for the eventual construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. These bricks were donated in response to a campaign by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindutva organization. The Ram Mandir movement and VHP campaign were pro-Hindutva and Hindu civilizationist. They were also transnational as bricks for the mandir were donated not only by people living in India but also by people of 55 other countries of the world (Udayakumar 1997; Hindustan Times 2021)....

In the following section, the prominence of Hindu civilizationism in present day India and Hindutva leaders’ consistent efforts to prove the grandeur and glorious achievements of Hindu civilization will be shown. The section will also demonstrate how Hindu civilizationism is being promoted by denigrating Muslim civilization and its achievements. Most of the papers on civilizationism focus on Christian-majority and Muslim-majority countries. This paper analyzes civilizationism in India, a Hindu-majority country. The key theoretical contribution of this paper is that it presents the evidence that civilizationism as a concept is as applicable and functional in a Hindu majority country as it is in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim majority countries.

Rest of the article can be read here.