Gandhi's Ram Rajya: Inclusive, secular, and democratic

 Mahatma Gandhi talked a lot about Ram Rajya and the BJP and RSS are using this to show that Gandhi would have been okay with what they are doing now. In 2014, Modi said in an election rally in Ayodhya:

“Jab log Mahatma Gandhi ko puchha karte the ki raj kaisa hona chahiye… to Mahatma Gandhi ek shabd me samjha dete the ke agar kalyankari rajya ki kalpana karni hai to Ram Rajya hona chahiye. ( Trans. When people used to ask Mahatma Gandhi about what kind of rule should be...Mahatma Gandhi would explain it in only one phrase that if we want a Welfare State then it should be Ram Rajya).” 

A week after Ram Mandir's inauguration, CM Yogi Adityanath tweeted on Gandhi ji's anniversary:

Bapu's ideology calls for humanity, freedom, and harmony. His teachings pave the way for the realization of the concept of Ram Rajya and world peace.

 

Source: CNBCTV18

But is it true? Did Modi's and Yogi's want Gandhi's Ram Rajya? What Gandhi meant when he said he wanted Ram Rajya?

Mahatma Gandhi's Ram Rajya was not Hindu Raj

S. N. Sahu in his article Gandhi’s Ram Rajya Was No Hindu Raj in The Wire writes:

Speaking in Bhopal on 10th September 1929, Gandhi made it very clear that his idea of Ram Rajya was not theocratic in nature and scope  and remarked, ‘By Ramarajya’ I do not mean Hindu Raj”. “I mean by ‘Ramarajya’ the Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God… For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity”. Rahim, or the merciful, is one of the synonyms of Allah.

He added, “I acknowledge no other god but the one god of Truth and righteousness”. “Whether the Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth, the ancient ideal of Ram Rajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure,” he added.

Muslims can understand Gandhi's Ram Rajya as Khudai Raj and Christians as the Kingdom of God

Gandhi ji tried to clarify further that Muslims should not be afraid of Ram Rajya as Ram Rajya is the same as the Khudai Raj. In Haimchar, Bihar, Gandhi ji said in 1947. 

My Rama is another name for Khuda or God. I want Khudai raj, which is the same thing as the Kingdom of God on earth.

 In the Harijan on 18th August 1946, he wrote:

When I visit the Frontier Province or address predominantly Muslim audiences I would express my meaning [of Ramrajya] to them by calling it Khudai Raj, while to a Christian audience, I would describe it as the Kingdom of God on earth (Source: A. K. Lal Secularism, p-106)

 Mahatma Gandhi's Ram Rajya was about freedom and democracy

Sahu further explains in Gandhi's own words that Gandhi's Ram Rajya was about freedom, without inequality, and a perfect democracy where there would be prompt and cheap justice and freedom of worship, speech, and the press.

Just two years before the attainment of independence, Gandhi outlined the religious and political dimensions of Ram Rajya. When one Sailendra Nath Chattopadhyaya asked him, “Why do you wish to live for 125 years, and what is Ram Rajya?”, he explained that his wish to live for 125 years depended on the quality of selfless service he would render. On the issue of Ram Rajya he explained that when  religiously translated this meant  Kingdom of God on Earth but its political components were “perfect democracy in which inequalities based on possession and non-possession, colour, race or creed or sex vanish.” He went on to add that in such a Ram Rajya “…land and State belong to the people, justice is prompt, perfect and cheap and, therefore, there is freedom of worship, speech and the Press.”

 

Mahatma Gandhi's Ram Rajya was about swift justice

Rishika Singh in her article With Ram Temple consecration in Ayodhya, recalling what Gandhi said about Ram Rajya in the Indian Express gives further evidence of Gandhi's Ram Rajya not being what Modi, the BJP, and the RSS are trying to make. She writes, "Gandhi's ideal State, 'Ramrajya', was not associated with a particular religion but was more about moral values – justice, equality, and truth, dispensed even to the most marginalised." It was never about the Hindu religion: 

He[Gandhi] wrote in the magazine Young India in the same year [1929], “Whether Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth, the ancient ideal of Ramarajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure. Even the dog is described by the poet to have received justice under Ramarajya.”

Conclusion

As Professor Ira Bhaskar writes on Gandhi's assassination anniversary, the Ramrajya of Gandhi and Modi/RSS are completely different:

As a devout Ram bhakt, Gandhi’s idea of Ram and of Ram Rajya was a completely different one from the exclusionist and majoritarian Hindutva one that we see in circulation today. Gandhi’s Ram was a benevolent leader whose “ moral quality and habitual adherence to truth” were  key for the realization of the peace, plenty and harmony of an imagined Ram Rajya. Unlike Gandhi’s imagining of the new modern nation as one based on “Hindu and Muslim unity” which was for him “the cornerstone of swaraj,” the Hindutva project from the 1980s onwards transformed Ram into a virulent crusader of the rights of the Hindus against the minorities. In contrast, Gandhi stood for “minority rights, religious freedom, justice and forgiveness” and is one who sacrificed his life for communal amity. 

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.

Hindutva civilizational populist BJP’s enforcement of digital authoritarianism in India

 

Source: https://www.thefinancialexpress.com.bd/

Abstract:

The largest democracy in the world is now moving towards authoritarianism under the Hindutva civilizational populist prime minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s rule. This article focuses on digital rights in India that have seen a sharp decline in recent years. It explores the transformation of the internet and social media, from a relatively open and liberal space to a restricted one. This survey of India’s digital landscape finds that the rise of civilizational populist Modi and his eight years long rule have led to an upsurge in digital surveillance and control and has fostered an environment of online harassment and bullying for those who are critical of the BJP’s views and politics. The article uses a four-level framework (Full Network, Sub-Network, Proxies, and Network Nodes) to explore digital authoritarianism by the BJP government. At each of these levels, the Hindutva populist government has closed avenues of open discussion and exchange of views by enforcing new rules and regulations.

Read the article at the European Center of Populism Studies

Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindu Populism in India: An Analysis of Party Manifestos of Indian Rightwing Parties

Abstract:

Since the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a lot has been written on Hindu nationalism. Prime Minister Modi’s ascendency has similarly resulted in a plethora of books and articles on Hindu populism. However, most of the literature does not distinguish between the two. Hindu nationalism and Hindu populism overlap, particularly in Modi’s India and Modi’s BJP, but they are not the same. In this article, after a discussion on Hinduism’s affinity to populism, an attempt has been made to distinguish between Hindu nationalism and Hindu populism based on an analysis of Hindutva parties’ election manifestos. Since independence, three Hindutva parties have made a name for themselves at the national level: Hindu Mahasabha, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), and BJP. Based on their importance and success at the national level, one manifesto of Hindu Mahasabha, two manifestos of BJS and four manifestos of the BJP were analyzed based on criteria chosen after the literature review. The results show that while Hindu nationalism was strong and visible in early Hindutva parties (Hindu Mahasabha and BJS), Hindu populism was weak and sporadic. Interestingly, for the BJP, there is a rise and then drop in Hindu nationalism while Hindu populism has consistently increased. 

Article:

1. Introduction

Prime Minister Modi’s approach and strategy to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic has been universally acknowledged as a disaster. The second wave exposed the deficiencies of his leadership style and his overall grasp of problems facing his 1.3 billion people. Many experts are blaming it on his populist politics and pointing as evidence to other populist leaders, such as Presidents Trump and Bolsonaro, who also failed to manage the pandemic (Collinson 2021; Friedman 2021; Santoshini et al. 2021). Others have criticized his Hindutva ideology, disregard for science and constitutionally ordained secularism and the othering of minorities that divided the nation instead of uniting it against the pandemic (Guha 2021; Viswanath 2021). Hindutva and Hindu populism have been part of Modi’s success story from the start. He is a man from a very humble background who dethroned the famed Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and their party, the Indian Nation Congress, which was the dominant political party in India for more than fifty years. While Modi is not the first Hindu nationalist Indian prime minister, he is certainly the first one who has used both Hindu nationalism and populism. Although there has been a plethora of scholarship on Hindu nationalism, Hindu populism is mostly studied as an auxiliary component of Hindu nationalism or of the broader rightwing1 populist movement that has taken the world by storm during the last decade. There is a need to trace Hindu populism’s history in India and to distinguish it from Hindu nationalism.

2. Religion and Populism

Populism is a concept that is difficult to define and highly contested. Populism can be leftwing or rightwing and it can instrumentalize the majority religion and exacerbate religious conflicts in the society or it can stay away from religion. It can be national or civilizational (Brubaker 2017). Scholars have defined it based on ideology, rhetoric or policies but no definition can accommodate the protean concept and efforts to conceptualize this intriguing idea are continuing (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021; Mackert 2019; Plagemann and Destradi 2019). For this article, populism refers to a kind of politics that divides the population into two parts, a small, corrupt ruling elite and an oppressed, exploited pure majority. Sometimes, besides this vertical dimension, there is also a horizontal dimension where the righteous majority is threatened by perfidious insiders and outsiders that are in cahoots with the corrupt elite. A temporal dimension is often also part of the populist politics where populist leaders disown and repudiate the present while singing about the glories of an imagined past and an impending future if the populist leader is allowed to lead.

Before the 1970s, for almost a hundred years, secularization theory was the dominant sociological paradigm. The major assumption of the theory was that religion would gradually decline as human societies progress. Its role in the public sphere would probably completely disappear while its role in the private sphere would be limited. The idea seemed to make sense as the increased knowledge about nature, scientific and technological progress, pluralization of religious field, functional differentiation, enlightenment, theory of evolution, more archaeological data falsifying religious myths, sexual revolution, etc., made a modern person less amenable to accept certainties of divine edicts. The functions that religion used to perform in the ancient and medieval world were performed by secular concepts in the modern world. The secularization of Western Europe, since the 17th century, seemed to be the model that other regions were destined to follow as they moved up the ladder of human progress.

The 1970s, however, reasserted or re-established the role of religion not only in the private sphere but also in the public sphere. The Iranian Revolution, the emergence of the moral majority movement in US politics and rise of religious parties and fundamentalist movements in many developing countries were few of the many indications of the change. The re-emergence of religion that was supposed to be consigned to the dustbin of history as a key explanatory factor in domestic, regional and international politics was surprising for many scholars (Grzymala-Busse 2012). The 1980s and 1990s came up with further evidence of the impact of religion on politics. The religious fervor and avidity of Pope John Paul II, President Reagan and Islamist mujahideen in the fall of Communism and the Soviet “evil” empire was critical. These developments perhaps forced Samuel Huntington to come up with his controversial theory of “Clash of Civilizations”, where civilizations are primarily defined on the basis of religion (Huntington 1993). The start of the 21st century totally debunked secularization theory or thesis as 9/11 attacks made religion one of the most significant factors in international politics, although there are still some scholars that believe in a much-diluted form of the secularization theory...

6. Two Distinctions: Hindu Nationalism (Hindutva) vs. Hindu Populism and Populist Political Leaders vs. Populist Parties

Hindu nationalism started to become popular in the late 19th century. It came out of the Hindu revivalist movements which tried to “modernize,” unite and Semitize Hinduism. For these Hindu revivalist movements, the British were a source of both envy and threat. Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj are two of the most famous revivalist movements. These movements and developments created a Hindu consciousness which later became the basis of Hindu nationalism. The first ideologue of Hindu nationalism was V. D. Savarkar who wrote the book Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? in the early 1920s and associated Hindutva with not only religion but also with land, culture and language (Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan). He argued Hindu is the one who considers India as the land of his forefathers (pitribhumi) as well as his holy land (punyabhumi). Savarkar was a nationalist but there is debate whether his politics in the Hindu Mahasabha party can be called populist or not. Savarkar was certainly rousing a large majority of people against the corrupt elite, but his prime target changed depending on the time, from British, the Congress, to Muslims. Moreover, as far as strategy and style were concerned, he was not a populist leader, trying to lead an unorganized mass against the enemy using dirty rhetoric and bad manners (Visana 2020; Tharoor 2018, pp. 40–50). Similarly, his party Hindu Mahasabha cannot be called a populist party as it was not anti-elite. It was much more pro-British than Congress and relied for support on Hindu aristocracy, gentry and business elite, and had urban, high caste roots, similar to the pre-Gandhian Congress (Bapu 2013, pp. 26–43). So, Hindu Mahasabha was Hindu nationalist but not Hindu populist. This difference between rightwing nationalism and rightwing populism is important to keep in mind.

Although numerous rightwing populist parties are nationalist and a few nationalist parties have become populist, this does not mean that nationalist and populism are the same or always exist together. Rightwing nationalism has been growing since the 1970s. Israel had thirty years of leftwing governments before it had its first rightwing nationalist government in the late 1970s. However, since then, Israel has steadily moved rightward and this rightwing shift has helped make Benjamin Netanyahu the longest serving prime minister of Israel, without being populist. There were less remarkable rightwing shifts in both the US and British politics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Populism in the US and Europe is a comparatively new phenomenon and with the rise of rightwing populism, there is also a less consequential rise in leftwing populism. Former President Trump was a rightwing nationalist populist but he was not the first rightwing nationalist president, and the Republican Party had long espoused rightwing nationalism. Almost every rightwing populist is a nationalist, but every rightwing nationalist is not a populist.

Keeping in view the above, while discussing the rise of Narendra Modi there is a tendency to extend Modi populism to the BJP early days in the 1980s or even to Hindu nationalists before India independence. As discussed above, Hindu nationalism has existed since the start of the 20th century. Hindu sabhas were formed and later many joined to form the first Hindutva or Hindu nationalist party. Now, one can argue that Hindu Mahasabha was also populist but just because Modi was populist, all Hindu nationalist parties cannot be painted populist. If one has to demonstrate the link between Hinduism and populism since the early 20th century, then one has to define populism, select a measuring scale and show the existence of populism. Modi populism is even insufficient to declare the BJP populist before Modi’s rise. In fact, some scholars have argued that the BJP before Modi was not populist. The anti-elitism was missing before 2013. Plagemann and Destradi (2019) argue that Hindutva, although itself fuzzy, is the core and “thick” part of the BJP ideology and has defined the BJP during its whole life. In contrast, (Modi’s) populism is the “thin” ideology and is a recent addition to BJP’s repertoire. It may or may not survive Modi. This raises many questions. Was the BJP populist in 1984 or 1994 or even in 2004 under Vajpayee and Advani? There are no rigorous studies to decide one way or the other...

The rest of the article can be read here.

Shashi Tharoor:The Battle of Belonging: On Nationalism, Patriotism, and What it Means to Be’

Shashi Tharoor has delivered another tour de force. We have already discussed his book Why I am a Hindu on this blog Hinduism and Hindutva Debate. In 2020, he has come up with another book that broadly focuses on the same issues but from a different perspective. While Hinduism and Hindutva Debate unpacked the differences between Hinduism and Hindutva, the Battle of Belonging examines the differences between patriotism and nationalism and what it means to be patriotic and nationalist in India. He then contrasts the idea of India and the Hindutva idea of India. In the ongoing battle of belonging chapter, he analyzes various recent actions of the BJP government, such as the building of Ram temple, revocation of Article 370 for Jammu & Kashmir state, and Citizenship (Amendment) Act, and attempts to impose of Hindi language. In the final chapter, writing in a prophetic mode, he explains how the battle for the Indian soul can be won against the forces of Hindutva.

Source: Secularism as principle and practice in India is in danger': Shashi Tharoor

Following is a link to Shashi's 35-minute interview with Karan Thapar in which he talks about his book.

Are Some Indians More Indian than Others?'— Shashi Tharoor Echoes the Pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm

Following are some excerpts from Shashi's interview with the PTI (More excerpts can be found here 'Secularism as principle and practice in India is in danger': Shashi Tharoor):

I don't agree, because the 37% vote won by the BJP last year is not a majority! Yes, Hindutva has successfully exploited fear of the 'Other', just as most reactionary ideologies do. The Hindutva ideologues in power have also had no qualms about appropriating or undermining the ostensibly independent branches of governance, from autonomous bodies like the Election Commission or the RTI (Right To Information) commissioners or the Reserve Bank to even media and the courts, in the service of their version of nationalism. This creates a sort of self-reinforcing echo chamber, in which the government is able to constantly push Hindutva ideas.

That is why I would caution against the idea of Hindutva being 'popular', as you suggest. How can we tell? Sure, the BJP holds a commanding parliamentary majority, but it has worked overtime to suppress dissenting voices. In that sense, it is difficult to get an accurate gauge of support for Hindutva among ordinary Indians. I do not think that a majority of the country supports the hateful rhetoric and exclusionary nature of Hindutva...

Judging by the number of times I have been asked this question, I do recognise that there's a very real and tangible concern for some liberal Indians. But as I have often pointed out, we in the Congress Party are very clear that we cannot allow ourselves to become a BJP-Lite. I have long argued that any attempt to emulate 'Pepsi Lite' by 'BJP Lite' will end up with us becoming like ‘Coke Zero' that is, Congress Zero. Congress is not BJP in any shape or form, and we should not attempt to be a lighter version of something we are not. Nor are we trying to, in my view.

The Congress party makes a distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva. The Hinduism we respect is inclusive and non-judgemental, whereas Hindutva is a political doctrine based on exclusion. So we are not offering a watered-down version of the BJP's political messaging: Rahul Gandhi has made it explicitly clear that, for all avowing of his personal Hinduism by going to temples, he does not support any form of Hindutva, neither soft nor hard. 

As a Congressman, I understand that whereas Hinduism is a religion, which is the personal concern of every individual, Hindutva is a political doctrine that departs fundamentally from the principal tenets of my Hindu faith. While Hinduism is inclusive of all ways of worship, Hindutva is indifferent to devotion and cares principally about identity. Hinduism is open to reform and progress, which is why it has flourished for 4,000 years; Hindutva is reactionary and regressive, with its roots in the racial pride' ethos that spawned fascism in the 1920s, which is why it is unlikely to outlast its current peak this century.

Also, see Shashi discussing his book and his ideas with Shekhar Gupta:

Shashi Tharoor on ThePrint Off the Cuff with Shekar Gupta

Hinduism and Hindutva debate

An interesting debate on the differences between Hinduism and Hindutva between Shashi Tharoor and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe. Shashi Tharoor is a member of Lok Sabha member from Congress Party while Vinay Sahasrabuddhe is a Rajya Sabha member from the BJP. 

Issues discussed are triple talak, Sabarimala temple,  cow slaughter ban, lynchings, Gandhi's use of religion, Muslim appeasement, citizenship in Northeast India, etc.

Shashi is a well-versed scholar on this subject. He has published a book, Why I am a Hindu, on this subject that has been well-received and praised by many for the succinct analysis of a very complex subject. Some excerpts from Urmi Chanda-Vaz's review for Scroll.in are copied below. The review can be read here. 

Why I Am A Hindu, running close to 300 pages, is divided into two sections, the first of which offers a brief history of Hinduism. The first chapter is titled “My Hinduism”, presented in what can be called the Devdutt Pattanaik mode. It is a clever and necessary disclaimer underscoring subjectivity – especially useful for times when religious sentiments are easily hurt. Tharoor acquaints us with the kind of Hinduism he was raised with, and, along with a sprinkling of anecdotes, gives an overview of the religion...

The second part of the book is titled “Political Hinduism”. This is where Tharoor’s meticulous context-building through the history of Hinduism is particularly useful. He starts building his case with the idea of secularism, which becomes a moot point when viewed through the prism of Western political theory. The right term in the Indian context, he argues, is “pluralism”, for India is and has long been a land of many religions. Further, he says, religion when defined as “dharma” is impossible to divorce from the Hindu way of life...

The author explains the BJP’s brand of Hindutva politics as being based on a victim-turned-avenger complex, a narrative of failure and defeat, and hatred for the Muslim community. Even if one were to turn a blind eye to the clear lack of Muslim representation (at least in the Lok Sabha) in this government, one can hardly ignore visible and worrying trends such as lynching and cow vigilantism. Ideas like ghar waapsi and love jihad, and groups like gau rakshaks and “Anti Romeo squads” operate and thrive under the aegis of the ruling party, and Tharoor correctly echoes the alarm of peace-loving Indians in this context. 

He also critiques the “cultural project” of Hindutva, which aims to “nationalise and spiritualise”. By all means acknowledge the great accomplishments of ancient Indian science, but keep fact and fiction separate, he enjoins. 

“We should take pride in what our forefathers did but resolve to be inspired by them rather than rest on their laurels. We need to use the past as a springboard, not as a battlefield. Only then we can rise above it to create for ourselves a future worthy of our remarkable past.” 

He also strongly condemns the whitewashing, or saffronising, of India’s cultural past vis-à-vis the actions of vigilante groups such as the Bajrang Dal and, most recently, Karni Sena. Not just tolerance, but acceptance, is the hallmark of Hinduism, he reminds the reader again and again.

Gau rakshaks' (cow protectors) rise under Modi/BJP: Is there a more sinister agenda?

In November 2017, Reuters published an investigative report Cash Cows: Emboldened by Modi's ascent, India's cow vigilantes deny Muslims their livelihood by Zeba Siddiqui, Krishna N. Das, Tommy Wilkes and Tom Lasseter. This report explains that, along with the physical threat, cow protection movement is also an economic threat to the Muslim minority. Due to the Hindus' aversion to the killing of cattle, the slaughtering, animal transport and hides businesses had been primarily in the hands of Muslims. These businesses are now all under threat. The slaughterhouses are being closed. The cow vigilantes not only beat and kill Muslims but also take away the cattle and these cattle are later sold to Hindus. So, assets are transferred from the poor indigent Muslim minority to Hundi majority, making Muslims more destitute.

Some excerpts of the report are reproduced below (full report can be accessed here):

The beating that ended Pehlu Khan’s life was televised nationwide. Cell phone video captured a group of men punching and slinging Khan around the middle of a road in north India, stomping on him and then slamming the 55-year-old farmer down on concrete as he begged for mercy. 

Khan had been stopped by the lynch mob of right-wing Hindus as he rode home from a market in April with two cows and two calves in the back of a truck. The crowd was furious at the sight of a Muslim transporting animals held sacred by Hindus, according to the accounts of his sons and two fellow villagers who were also attacked. Before the men beat Khan so badly that he later died, breaking his ribs in multiple places, they screamed that he was planning to slaughter the cattle for beef. 

Outside the frame of the video, something else was happening: Pehlu Khan’s cows were seized. They were hauled off to a nearby Hindu-run shelter that takes in cattle snatched from Muslims and sells them. 

Assaults meted out in broad daylight against India’s Muslim population, some 14 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion people, have sparked concern about the direction the country is taking under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There has been another, less noted dimension to the violence: The theft from Muslims and redistribution to Hindus of cows that provide crucial income in the Indian countryside. 

Such scenes clash with India’s image as an investor darling in Asia and the pro-business message Modi broadcasts to foreign investors. But three and a half years after his electoral victory, the cow seizures illustrate how the nation’s right-wing Hindu factions that propelled Modi to power are now shaping India and stirring religious upheaval. 

Having stoked Hindu nationalist passions in his bid for the highest office, it’s unclear to what extent Modi can now control them. The bands of right-wing Hindus who seize the cows are operating essentially as private militias. They are undeterred by the prime minister’s public calls on them to end the violence. States governed by Modi’s party have seen a marked increase in cow theft from Muslims as well as funding for cow shelters that in many cases take in the stolen cattle. 

Interviews with nationalist Hindu leaders and militia members across the country reveal an impatience for Muslims to demonstrate obeisance to the Hindu majority. 

There are no official statistics for how many cows have been stolen from Muslims in incidents involving such groups since Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to national power in 2014. Reuters’ reporting across India, though, puts actual numbers on the extent of the cow theft. It also provides the first in-depth look at how the actions of cow vigilantes are leading to further economic marginalization of the country’s Muslim minority. 

In northern India, the leadership of just two of the main organizations of “gau rakshaks” – right-wing Hindu cow vigilantes, or literally “cow protectors” – said they have taken about 190,000 cows since the year of Modi’s election, some in the presence of police and almost every single one of them from Muslims, the reporting shows. 

Separately, Reuters surveyed 110 cow shelters or farms, known as “gaushalas,” across six Indian states that were led by BJP chief ministers from before or just after Modi’s 2014 election win. The survey found an increase of 50 percent in their cattle holdings - from about 84,000 head before Modi came to power in 2014 to more than 126,000 today.
The survey, conducted by phone and in person, covered a fraction of the thousands of cow sheds nationwide.It was not possible to determine how much of the 50 percent increase was due to cow vigilantes, because record-keeping in many cases is non-existent. But of the 110 cattle facilities surveyed, all but 14 said they receive cows from the Hindu vigilante groups. About a third said they sell or give cows away, nearly all to Hindu farmers and households.

In a separate survey, Reuters found that only three of 24 cow facilities in four states not ruled by a BJP chief minister said they sold or gave away cattle - mainly to Hindus - after receiving them. While cattle stock has risen about 40 percent in these gaushalas since Modi took office, only a small part of the increase was due to vigilantes. In many of the cases, cows were donated to the shelters for religious reasons or purchased from cattle markets for fear they would be slaughtered.... 

Cow slaughter is illegal in most of India, while committing cruelty to cattle by transporting them crammed into small spaces is outlawed across the country. Slaughtering buffalo, an animal not considered holy, is allowed, fueling a multi-billion dollar meat export industry that is dominated by Muslims. Penalties for killing a cow differ from state to state, with most ranging from six months to five years in prison....
People involved in snatching cattle from Muslims speak with a triumphant sense that their moment in history has arrived. “Everyone in this world is born Hindu. They are turned into Muslims when they are circumcised and Christians when they are baptized,” said Dinesh Patil, a district head of the Bajrang Dal group in the southwestern state of Maharashtra.

The Bajrang Dal organization is closely linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the nation’s umbrella right-wing Hindu organization. The RSS argues the purity of India was soiled by the foreign intervention of Muslims and then Christians beginning in the 8th century. The RSS helped create Modi’s political party, and the prime minister himself first attended the group’s meetings as a child.

At the complex he manages, Patil said that almost every one of the 1,700 cows grazing outside was “rescued by the Bajrang Dal” from “these Muslim slaughterers.” Patil described how a degree of law enforcement sanction is conferred on the cattle seizures: His group takes the cows and hands them over to the police, who then deliver the cattle to his facility. “The entire investigation and catching of the culprits is done by us,” Patil said.
The police, he added, “have to listen to us because the BJP is in power.” 

Told of Patil’s comments, Bipin Bihari, second-in-command of police for Maharashtra, said: “In a way their work supports the police. It eases our work. If they have some information on some illegal activities, they can share it with us, and we act on it. But they are not allowed to take the law into their hands.”.... 

Reuters found no evidence of a formal plan by the BJP to use cow vigilante groups to engineer the seizure and transfer of cows from Muslims to Hindus.

But in states where the BJP has taken power, cow seizures have ramped up. In the absence of official data on the number of cows taken, Reuters reporting and a review of past incidents show that the largest vigilante groups and the cattle seizures are concentrated in BJP-led states.

One organization of cow vigilantes in the northern state of Haryana has a golden cow with crossed swords and two AK-47s beneath it as its logo. The leaders of the Gau Raksha Dal, or cow protection group, say they have captured up to 120,000 across the country since beginning their campaign in 2013. Most of that activity was carried out after Modi’s victory in 2014, which was followed by a BJP chief minister taking office in Haryana later in the year.





Source: Cash Cows: Emboldened by Modi's ascent, India's cow vigilantes deny Muslims their livelihood

Dinesh Arya, state head of the Gau Raksha Dal, acknowledged his group is breaking the law. Arya produced a list of 27 criminal complaints lodged by cattle traders against his members that he said were still pending. “Seizing cattle is not legal and we know that well. We are not authorized to do this, it’s the police department’s work,” Arya said.

But he claims a higher calling: “Our religion has given us the right to stop our mother being butchered,” he said, referring to “gau mata,” or mother cow. “We have forcefully taken that right.” 

Outside his office, a truck converted into a “mobile cow ambulance” used to transport seized cattle bore a bullet hole – the aftermath of a recent gun battle with Muslim “cattle smugglers,” Arya said. 

Modi has at least twice publicly criticized cow vigilantism. “Do we get the right to kill a human being in the name of cow? Is this ‘gau bhakti’? Is this ‘gau raksha’?” he declared in a speech in June, using the Hindi phrases for cow devotion and cow protection. “Violence is not the solution to any problem,” he added. 

The Supreme Court has also addressed the issue. In September, the court ruled that central and state governments must deploy police officers to prevent cow vigilante violence.

On the ground, some Hindu activists aren’t heeding Modi’s calls. The leader of a group of cow vigilantes, which claims 10,000 members concentrated mostly in western and northern Indian states, said they were unmoved by the prime minister’s condemnation of what he called the vigilantes’ “anti-social activities.” 

“The cow protection movement totally belonged to the BJP before 2014,” said the group’s leader, Pawan Pandit, a part-time software engineer. “Now groups like ours have the momentum.” 

Pandit said networks of vigilantes operating under his Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal – or Indian cow protection group – captured as many as 60,000 cows in the three years before Modi came to office. Since 2014, Pandit said, the group has grabbed more than 100,000 cows, often working with police.....

This lawlessness extends beyond the 18 states Modi’s BJP now controls directly or with coalition partners. In the southern state of Telangana, one of 11 states where the BJP is not in power, a man named Purushottam Gupta was arrested shortly after Modi gave a speech in August last year condemning cow vigilantes. Gupta had refused a court order to hand back 20 cattle seized by cow vigilantes and kept them with some 5,000 other cows at a facility next to the ashram where he is the de facto deputy head. Gupta said he was released the same day he was arrested and that the cows have yet to be returned to their Muslim owners.

India’s laws against cow slaughter predate Modi’s administration, and cow vigilantes were operating in India before Modi came to power. At the federal level, the BJP’s predecessor, the relatively liberal Congress party, funded the cow sheds via a federal animal welfare association at higher levels than Modi. Spending from the association’s four main gaushala grants, the primary source of federal funding for the facilities, was about 150 million rupees for the 2010-11 fiscal year, compared with some 58 million for 2015-16, the most recent period available. 

But at the state level, BJP politicians have in many cases sharply increased funding for the cattle shed facilities through government bodies. In Haryana, the state where Pehlu Khan lived, the Gau Seva Aayog, or cow protection commission, went from allotting 18.5 million rupees to cow sheds in the 2014-15 fiscal year, when a BJP chief minister took over, to more than 37 million for 2016-17. In Rajasthan, the state where Khan was killed, funding doubled from about one billion rupees in 2013-14, as the BJP captured the state, to more than 2.3 billion rupees in 2016-17, according to a state official... 

For Hindus, the cow has long been holy. In ancient scriptures, it is celebrated for its ability to nurture humanity and is compared to deities.  

During Modi’s Hindu nationalist administration, the cow has taken on additional political significance. In his campaign for office, Modi referred to the danger of a “pink revolution” under the relatively liberal Congress party, the domain of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. 

It was a play on Congress’ “green revolution,” under which agricultural output increased, suggesting the party had allowed the production and export of meat including beef to surge. 

Those in hardline Hindu groups supporting Modi frequently complain that Congress and its allies looked the other way when it came to illegal cow slaughter operations run by Muslims to gain favor with that community at the polls. Two spokespeople for Congress did not respond to questions from Reuters.

In May, Modi’s government banned the trade of cattle for slaughter. The measure mostly affected the buffalo industry, as killing cows for meat was already forbidden in most states. But the move was seen by many Muslims as a ploy to further squeeze them out of the multibillion dollar beef and leather industry, which employs millions in India. India’s Supreme Court in July suspended the government measure, effectively lifting the ban on the trade of buffalo for slaughter.

The list of cow rakshak attacks from September 2015 to June 2017 that caught media attention can be read in the article Una, Alwar and Delhi cow vigilantism: A list of 'gau rakshak' attacks since 2015 Dadri lynching. 

A victory for indigenous faiths in Indonesia

Indonesia's official ideology is Pancasila, which includes belief in one God but otherwise, it is quite secular. Indonesia officially recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism. Believers of other religions faced discrimination, particularly after the introduction of new legislation in 2006. The Indonesian Constitutional Court has rejected the new legislation.

Source: Religion in Indonesia

An excerpt from a news article explaining the change is given below:

Indonesia’s top court has overturned a law that denied recognition and legal rights to followers of indigenous faiths, in a surprise advance for religious freedom in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

The Constitutional Court, in a unanimous ruling Tuesday (Nov. 7) from its nine-judge panel, said articles in the Civil Administration Law were discriminatory and violated the principle of equality before the law.

“These articles are not legally binding as they contradict the 1945 constitution,” presiding Judge Arief Hidayat told the court.

The ruling is an unexpected victory for moderates at a time when religious conservatives have demonstrated growing political influence and undermined the country’s reputation for tolerance.

The discriminatory articles, in place since 2006, effectively required followers of faiths not among the six recognized by the government to list one of the official religions on their national identity card or be denied basic rights such as marriage registration and land titles.

They also had the option of leaving the religion category blank but that would risk being accused of being an atheist, an offense under Indonesia’s blasphemy law, said Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Full article can be read here 

Nepal: Rare example of decline in religious nationalism

The blog post is based on the masters' thesis of David Rangdrol, Uppsala University (Sweden). The thesis was written in 2007 and is titled, "Religious Nationalism in Nepal: Understanding the Demise of the Hindu Kingdom." Most of my blog posts are about countries where religious nationalism is increasing but this one will be focusing on a country where religious nationalism declined, something rare as Mr. Rangdrol explains: 

Until 2006 Nepal was known as “the only Hindu Kingdom in the world.” The Hindu attribute has its roots in the creation of Nepal in the 18th century; it was written down in the highest law of the land in 1854 and finally enshrined in the constitution from 1962 onwards. But 2006 marked a year of important transitions for Nepal: from civil war to peace, from totalitarianism to democracy, and from religious nationalism to secularism. This last point is particularly interesting given the larger context. The above-mentioned study [of 120 armed conflicts that occurred in Asia between 1946 and 2005] has found that a majority of conflicts (21 out of 31) that had a religious incompatibility at their core involved rebel groups that fought governments against secularism in order to establish religious states. Nepal on the other hand is the unique case in Asia in the past 60 years where a rebel group, the Maoists, has fought a government and included a demand for secularism in its agenda. Though the Maoist People’s War cannot be characterised primarily as an anti-religious war, the demand for a secular state was an important part of it. In any case, the most outstanding event that we will try to explain in this essay is that Nepal has officially shifted from religious nationalism to secularism in May 2006, effectively erasing an important, centennial feature of Nepal – to the dismay of Hindu nationalists.(p-7 of  Mr. Rangrol's unpublished thesis)

The literature used to help answer the research question is: Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State; Nikki R. Keddie, The New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do “Fundamentalisms” Appear?; and Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World.

According to Mr. Rangdrol, following were the four main reasons for the decline of religious nationalism in Nepal:

1. There was no failed post-colonial secular nation-building experience:. Most the nations where religious nationalism has arisen in the last three decades were witness to a high expectations period after independence from European powers when a primarily secular leadership took over and led the country. However, this leadership failed to deliver and there was marked disappointment. The ensuing soul-searching by the people (and efforts of the religious elite) made religious nationalism popular. Nepal was never colonized so there was no secular legacy. Nepal was united by Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1769 as a Hindu Kingdom and remained so till 2006. Rangdrol describes how Hinduism was linked to the Nepali Kingdom from the start and how Nepali Kings and Ranas promoted Hinduism and proclaimed Nepal as the real and the only Hindu Kingdom in the world as India, despite being bigger, was ruled by initially by the Mughals and then by the British:

In 1769, Prithivi Narayan Shah, brought small independent states, chiefdoms and principalities of different ethnicities and religions under his control and created modern Nepal. The first Gorkha King declared Nepal asali Hindustan, the “true land of Hindus,” and “garden of four varnas and thirty-six jats.” The kings became widely revered as an incarnation of god Vishnu, one of the main gods of the modern Hindu pantheon. Though scholars disagree on the intensity with which Hinduisation and cultural assimilation was thereafter implemented, it remains clear that Nepal espoused the identity of a Hindu state from its very inception, and that over time non-Hindu indigenous, nature-worshipping, animist or Buddhist people have been gradually ‘Hinduized’ as a result of the conquest of the Hindu Kings and the migration of Parbatiyas (high-caste hill people) to different parts of Nepal.” In 1846, members of a powerful family, the Ranas, relegated the Gorkha monarchy to a secondary role and effectively became the rulers of Nepal, establishing a legacy of dictatorial prime ministers that lasted over a century.

The Ranas chose to build on the Hindu foundations that the Gorkha Kings had laid before them: In 1854, Jangabahadur, the first Rana minister, introduced laws based on Hinduism and divided the country hierarchically, subordinating all other nationalities to the Brahmins and Kshetris (Khas) ruling class. The civil code of 1854 the Muluki Ain (law of the land) cemented the cast system and ensured that the rulers would exercise total control over a static society: “Grounded in the Hindu idea of ritual purity, the Muluki Ain regulated the lives of every citizen from birth to death, making social or political mobility almost impossible.” From then, the process of Hinduisation under the Ranas though not overtly aggressive but rather “gradual and almost imperceptible” had its effects, of which the slow, piecemeal adoption of Hindu traditions and the dominance of the Higher castes. One political function of this was to project a distinct image of Nepal vis-à-vis India which was seen as “defiled” by Mughal Muslim rule and called pejoratively “Muglan” (land of Mughals). Jang Bahadur Rana thus spoke: “We have our own country, a Hindu rajya [state], where laws prescribe the cows shall not be slaughtered; nor women and Brahmins sentenced to capital punishment…In this age of Kali this is the only where Hindus rule.” The Rana rule came to an abrupt end in the 1950s. This tumultuous decade also saw Nepal’s first democratic experiment, which lasted until 1960 when the Gorkha dynasty staged a royal coup and took back the power it has lost to the Ranas a century before. (p-24-25)

Source: Nationalism vs. Patriotism: What will save Nepal?

In 1962, King Mahendra came up with a new constitution under which the king not only reigned but also ruled on top of a panchayat regime. The new constitution enshrined rights of all Nepalis but the position of Hinduism was also secured. Nepal was declared a Hindu kingdom and cow, the national animal, and promoting conversion of religion was prohibited. The king was the source of all power and he had to be a Hindu of Aryan descent:

Article 20: His Majesty-the Source of Power
(1) In this Constitution the words ‘His Majesty’ mean His Majesty the King for the time being reigning, being a descendant of King Prithivi Narayan Shah and adherent of Aryan culture and Hindu religion.
(2) The sovereignty of Nepal is vested in His Majesty and all powers-executive, legislative and judicial emanate from Him. These powers are exercised by His Majesty through the organs established by or under this Constitution and other laws for the time being in force keeping in view the interest and wishes of His Majesty’s subjects according to the highest traditions of the Shah dynasty. (1962 Constitution)

Furthermore, the Panchayat regime safeguarded the continuance of traditional Hindu customs and religion at the lower level.

This system continued till 1990 when large-scale demonstrations forced the king to give up power. In the aftermath, for the first time in Nepal, secularism was discussed as an alternative to religious nationalism. The 1990 constitution replaced the party-less Panchayat system with a democratic multi-party system. There were more rights for minorities and the hold of monarchy and culture and tradition (of which Hinduism was a big part) was reduced. However, Nepal was still a Hindu kingdom and cow the national animal (1990 Constitution).

The 1990 Constitution continued till 2006. The period under the 1990 Constitution was tumultuous. Nepali Maoists started a civil war in 1996 and a royal massacre happened in which Crown Prince Dipendra killed nine members of the royal family (including King and Queen) before killing himself. The new King Gyanendra also showed his assertiveness by dismissing several governments and, in the end, imposing a state of emergency to directly rule Nepal.

It is obvious from the above discussion that Nepal was never secular. It remained a united Hindu kingdom from 1769 till 2006, ruled by a Hindu god-king, who claimed to be an incarnation of one of the principal deities of Hinduism, Vishnu. 

2. Nepal was a fragile and poor country: Literature on religious nationalism indicates that a weak state may lead people and elites to look for answers to what went wrong. As mentioned above, it was the failure of the secular experiment (in terms of economic, social and political development) that has resulted in the rise of religious nationalism in many countries. Nepal had the opposite experience of these countries. It did not experience the failure of the secular experiment; it experienced the disastrous consequences of a religious experiment. As Rangdrol explains, Nepal, social and economic indicators were one of the worse in the world:

Things were not well in the Hindu Kingdom. Nepal has a history of totalitarianism, punctuated by coups, popular revolutions, and democratic experiments that only highlighted the governing elite’s political immaturity and proclivity for corruption. As the authors of People Politics and Ideology: Democracy and Social Change in Nepal explain, legitimacy rests to a great extent on economic development.125 Nepal is one of the poorest nations in Asia. Four out of ten people live with less than one Dollar a day. Nepal ranks 138 and 147 out of 177 in the Human Development and Gross Domestic Product indexes.126 The infrastructure, especially in the capital, cannot support its growing population. Traffic is abysmal and dangerous; sewage overflows daily and spreads deadly disease in the monsoon rain, and the air quality ranks Kathmandu the second most polluted city in Asia.(p-38)

Therefore, people rejected the religious nationalism and opted for something new and different i.e. secular nationalism. 

3. No internal or external enemy that belonged to another religion: Threat from religious groups, different from one's own, is one of the primary reasons for the rise in religious nationalism in many countries. When a group identifies its enemy group on the basis of their religion, religion becomes not only a marker but also the primary reason for the conflict. The enemy group can be internal or external i.e. within the borders or outside it. According to the 2001 Census, Hindus constitute more than 80% of the Nepali population. The biggest religious minority are Buddhists, who are around 8% of the population, and most Hindus consider them a part of Hinduism, not a minority. Muslims and Christians, around 4% and 0.5% respectively, are the only "real" minorities but there was no history of tension between Hindus and Muslims and Christian as described by Rangdol:

Religious nationalist movements are typically exploiting threats of an “other,” which helps them mobilise people to their cause. But that “other” is difficult to locate in Nepal. Nepal was never a colony, neither Christians nor Muslims invaded it, it has experienced no large-scale inter-religious violence nor any other type of traumatic event that can be credibly blamed on this or that religious minority...it is clear that religious demographics show a solid Hindu majority with Buddhists for main minority. It is not customary to talk about Hindu-Buddhist confrontations, and it is very difficult for most Hindus to demonise or speak of a ‘Buddhist threat’ for the simple reason that they take Buddhism as a branch of Hinduism. (p-42)

Maoists, although instrumental in the fall of religious nationalism in Nepal, were also not considered enemy:

If not the secular west, the local secular elite, or religious minorities, who else then could personify an anti-Hindu enemy? The Maoists perhaps? After all, it is them who have asked for a secular state at the point of AK-47s, and they are communists and therefore should be in principle atheists? Although many religious nationalists perceive Maoists as enemies144 – being the brute force behind the fall of the Hindu Kingdom – they have not been widely portrayed directly in terms of an “anti-religious” force.145 In general, Maoists do not fit the anti-religious/atheist communist stereotype. The Maoists seem to have managed a skilled balancing act: on the one hand harvesting the grievances left by decades of pro-Hindu discrimination, and, on the other, being careful enough not to harm Hindu or traditional sentiments. Though the CPN-M official banners display the usual communist avatars146 alongside their leader Prachanda, they have differed from Mao and some of his acolytes in that they have not proactively promoted atheism and anti-religious policies. Although it is reported that there were incidents in the People’s War, especially at the beginning, that involved iconoclastic gestures such as destroying temples or intimidating priests, they were quick to realise the strategic downside of those methods. They have managed to recruit all the marginalised people of the Hindu state system while they have also displayed respect for the Hindu religion and its traditions. (p-43)

Similarly, although Rangdol does not talk about it, there was no external enemy that belonged to another religion. Nepal has no external enemies but Nepalis often feel resentment towards India due to historic land and water disputes, the annexation of Sikkim, both actual and perceived slights by the big neighbor as well as direct intervention by India in Nepali affairs (See Bollywood Meets Nepali Nationalism). The religious "other," therefore, does not even exist outside Nepal, contributing to the decline of religious nationalism in Nepal.

4. Top-down religious nationalist structure: There were no religious nationalist political parties in Nepal during the from the 1950s to 2006. The major reason for this was the presence of Hindu king and declaration of Nepal as a Hindu kingdom. With a four-fifths majority in population and the most powerful man in Nepal on Hinduism side, there was apparently no need for a Hindu nationalist party. Compared to India, there was no history of religious mobilization in Nepal by Hindu nationalists. Therefore, when the king was ousted, religious nationalism went with him:

Part of the reason why there were no Hindu nationalist parties even in the 1990s rests on the historical structure of religious nationalism in Nepal: its top-bottom configuration. Hindu nationalism had been imposed from the top with authoritarian means from the very beginning. The institution of Kingship always secured the Hindu state, and therefore no bottom-up religiopolitical activism was ever needed to maintain religious nationalism...If one compares this trajectory to India the contrast is telling. In India, Hindu nationalism has a century of training by trial and error...In Nepal, with the King in a corner and intensified Maoist pressure, no strong alternative mediums were there to protect the interests of the Hindu state, and none of the political parties saw it as a vital part of their agenda. Hindu political parties did not emerge because there was no demand or need for them; state Hinduness was secure with the King. The 1990 secular debate was an alarming moment Hindu nationalists did not heed, there was no such instinct, no such culture. But not much could be expected in such a short lapse of time because social networks take time to form. (p-48)

BJP's religion is about order

Amit Chaudhuri, a novelist and ­professor of contemporary literature at the University of East Anglia, looks at BJP's Hindu nationalism in an interesting way (See India's new Hinduism is about order). Rather than focusing on Modi, he asks the readers to see how Hinduism has changed and is currently being used in India. Religion, 'the sacred is not meant to cause wonder, but to impose order and obedience and curb visceral urges.' He gives evidence to prove his point.

Let me provide an example. “Prophylactic Hindu tiles”, as I’ll call them, have been proliferating in India for the past two decades. You see them on walls, the sides of urinals, and staircases. They have on them a Hindu deity Shiva, Parvati, Ganesh painted in the European style that is a cliche of kitsch Hindu iconography. Their function is to discourage urinating and spitting on public surfaces, both compulsive national masculine pastimes. The argument they embody never actually inscribed in either ancient scripture or even a municipal text is that no one would dare urinate or spit betel juice on a deity. I can think of no more tasteless use of the sacred, but the bizarre interpretation of religion in contemporary India means that hardly anybody thinks the tiles an outrage.

Hinduism was always open and syncretic. What European had started is now bearing fruit. Hinduism has been changing into a modern semitic religion, with specific gods, precepts and practices. According to Chaudari, BJP has done two things to speed up this process. 

The BJP’s contribution to the reshaping of Hinduism has been twofold. First, by turning metaphorical moments such as the birth of Rama into historic events to be fought over, it has made Hinduism a literal-minded, Europeanised, Semitic-style faith. By taking away from Hinduism its complexity and contradictoriness, both the BJP and the free-market “new India” in which it has flourished have produced a generation that knows little about Hinduism.

Second, the political, instrumental use of Hinduism to defend and assert identity while assailing other identities, and a general ignorance of religious experience on the part of the most active religionists, means that not only do we live in an age when to be Hindu is to constantly take offence, but the line separating obeisance from offence, the holy from the disgusting, religious pride from poor taste, is blurred. Indians are being schooled to defend the sacred, but have absolutely no idea how to recognise it.

But why the markets love BJP/Modi? Markets love them because Hindutva promises to bring order to this humongous country. Modi's developmental model is all about completing projects and not worrying about niceties. Maybe a poor and minorities are expendable, if it later results in stability and growth for the next twelve years. Maybe the argument is that if India has to compete with China, it has to be like China where human rights are not important. Read about Gujarat model and big business love for Modi here (See Narendra Modi a 'king among kings', says Anil Ambani at Vibrant Gujarat summit),   

Who counts as a Jew?

On February 20th, Pew's report 'A Portrait of Jewish Americans' was discussed. Here (Who Counts as a Jew?) Rachel Gross discusses how Pew researcher dealt with the tricky question, who counts as a Jew. As Rachel argues there is a long history of cultural Jews. So the study not only counted 'Jews by religion' but also 'Jews of no religion', the former being 78% of the total Jews. 

Gross supports Pew's definition and argues,

'The concept of religion is a modern Protestant creation, and modern Judaism has never fit comfortably into the category, despite the best efforts of Jewish thinkers and communal leaders. In the United States, Jews have embraced American conceptions of religion as an individual matter of belief and choice rather than one mandated by ethnicity and community, giving rise to dynamic, changing community structures and rituals.'

'But beyond the door of the synagogue or Jewish communal center, American Jews’ spiritual lives are rich, complex, and hard to pin down. Divisions between Judaism (the religion) and Jewishness (the culture) are no longer useful, if they ever were. Simplistic “religious” and “secular” Jews no longer accurately describe the diversity of American Jewish practice, if they ever did. As the Pew researchers highlight at the beginning of their report, “Jews by religion” and “Jews of no religion” are both overwhelmingly proud to be Jewish and have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.'

This reminds me of reading about Hinduism and the difficulty in answering the question, who counts as a Hindu.  Hinduism, according to many scholars, was more a culture than religion until atleast the eighteenth century. It was the British colonial administration that first united all Hindus (on paper and under law) as believers in a distinct religion when it decided to make Hinduism the residual religion of all Indians. Hindu nationalists have now the unenviable task of not rejecting any major groups from the definition of Hindu but also drawing more clear boundaries so that who is a Hindu is more distinguishable.