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. 

What January 22 is, what it isn’t: Pratap Bhanu Mehta

One of the most prominent intellectuals of India, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, writes about the spectacle everyone witnessed on 22 January. The following article feels like an obituary of another India, an India where the Indian Constitution was supreme, Hinduism was religious, and pride came after the achievement.

There are moments in history that appear to drive wave after wave of people in a great torrent of catharsis, ecstasy, emotion and an elevated group mood that almost all conventional analysis, historical categories, moral measures and political prognosis seem beside the point. It would be foolish to deny that the pran pratishtha of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya is one such event. Just in sheer magnitude, of the tens of millions of people mobilised, whose identity, emotions and hopes are, at least for the moment, oriented towards Ayodhya, this event has almost no precedent in history. It is a watershed moment. The pran pratishtha following the foundation stone of Ayodhya, marks the consecration of Hinduism as a political religion pure and simple. It is not just a moment where the state, which has pulled all its mighty power behind this event, ceases to be secular. It is also the moment where Hinduism ceases to be religious.

           Source: prokerala
 

The sheer spectacle of the event, now fusing modified but still traditional yama and niyama, with mass broadcasting and mass mobilisation, is itself considered an achievement. The spectacle is the statement: That Hindus have asserted their collective power, reclaimed their historical agency, and overcome the deep sense of insecurity, and despite some murmurings, for once managed to make something a show of unity. The BJP has kept its promises. Prime Minister Narendra Modi now donning the mantle of Hindu kingship, has the ability to get millions of people to play their parts for an audience of One, with all institutions, corporations, sects, civil society, media singing the same tune. It is a terrifying spectacle on any proper measure of democracy. But as a form of deference to mass sentiment it is now carrying its own democratic imprimatur. There is something quite astonishing about this mobilisation of power. You have to struggle to remember its ominous origins and shadows.

Some parties may contest the ceremony. But everyone has to rush to declare their allegiance to Ram. Even Opposition parties are obliged to pay allegiance to Ram in the form that ironically was best described by Iqbal when he called Ram the Imam-e-Hind. The Ram whose role in Indian cultural and spiritual life was one whose centre was everywhere and circumference nowhere, has now been anchored to a centre. Ram has been transformed from a radiant glow of righteousness, compassion, and imaginative power into something merely instrumental: A litmus test for national loyalty. We are now more valorous devotees of Ram — more than Tulsidas or Gandhi, who rejected the logic of retaliation. You now have to swear allegiance to this Imam-e-Hind, or else.

In many ways, Bhagwad Gita 17.18 captures the spectacle being made out of this ceremony perfectly. It goes: satkara mana puja artham tapah dambehna cheva yat/kriyate tadiham proktam rajas am chalam adhruvam (Penance and austerities performed ostentatiously out of pride for the sake of gaining honour and recognition are all in the mode of a passion. Its benefits are unstable and fleeting). This is both an accurate description of this mode of worship and a warning. It names this worship for what it is: A spectacle. But the fact that the passions and emotional resonances it produces are transitory is not reassuring in this context. It will require that the deep insecurities and needs this spectacle has tapped into be constantly satiated. The passion around Ram is not a form of ecstasy finding its final repose in a radiant calm. It is going to be one in a long chain where our pride will have to be constantly fed. This is because in an inversion of dharma, the relation between pride and its object is reversed. We no longer take pride in genuine achievement; generating pride is considered the achievement.

In the Mahabharata there is an evocative word, Dharma Dhwajii. It is a pejorative for those who make a show of their worship in what is a sign of lack of real faith. The term Dharma Dhwajii refers to those who, as it were, care about the flag more than they care about dharma. The Dharma Dhwajiis have, for the moment, won the political, cultural and emotional battle fair and square. It is the overwhelming power of this moment, and the fact that we now inhabit a political universe solely dominated by power, that expressing even ambivalence about this pran pratishtha seems more like blowing straws in a hurricane. Bearing witness, fighting for republican ideals, are all now reduced to self-satisfied snarks or expressions of sour grapes. There is no real ideological counterpoint.

Rallying around the dhwaja is clear. What dharma it portends is less clear. The content of this new Ramrajya, is, for a moment, founded in a logic of retaliation and blood, rancour and division, that India’s post-1951 constitutional ideals sought so hard to avoid. That project was, first and foremost, betrayed in many different ways by its own custodians. The Dharma Dhwajiis, with popular acclaim, have reduced whatever was left of the dharma of that republic to ruins. The only content to the new dharma one can see on the horizon is, ironically, to intensify the logic of the 1930s: To create an ethno nationalist state with its cult of power and violence, its worship of purity and concentration of power. This is a project that never ends well. It produced devastating wars in Europe, and the partition of India.

This time the partition is more intimate and close: It is running through families. It is also a fissure within Hinduism. Worshipping idols is central to Hinduism, no matter what deracinated intellectuals might tell you. It gave Hinduism a playful intimacy. But the idols we worship are no longer intimate; they are mega showpieces. More grievously, concentration on the idol was a path to self-consciousness. But now, as the philosopher, Arindam Chakrabarti, once wrote, the idol has been replaced by the I-doll, the worship of the “I”. We are consecrating our own collective narcissism in the image of God.

In the Ramayana, in any version, there is always a sense of sadness around Ram himself. Bhavabhuti captured it beautifully: Ram has been filled with the rasa of pity/ kept hidden by his profound demeanour/the sharp pain of it held deep within/ like a clay pot baking in embers. This moment of triumphalism is also accompanied by a pain that cannot even be expressed. It will cook in the embers of this moment. Ram’s dhwaja has been planted. But the question of dharma is met only with a yawning and ominous silence.

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

Civilizationist Populism in South Asia: Turning India Saffron

Bajrang Dal Rally

Source: The Hindu

Abstract:

 The 21st century has witnessed a significant shift in how the concept of nationalism is understood. A political marriage between identity politics and populism has resulted in “civilizationism,” a new form of nationalism that entails an emotionally charged division of society into “the people” versus “the Other.” All too often, the divisive discourses and policies associated with civilizationalist populism produce intercommunal conflict and violence. 

This paper draws on a salient case study, India’s Hindutva movement, to analyze how mainstream populist political parties and grassroots organizations can leverage civilizationist populism in campaigns to mobilize political constituencies. In surveying the various groups within the Hindutva movement and conducting a discourse analysis of their leaders’ statements, the paper shows the central role of sacralized nostalgia, history, and culture in Hindutva populist civilizationism. By analyzing the contours and socio-political implications of civilizationist populism through this case study, the paper contributes to the theoretical understanding of the concept more generally.

Read the paper at European Center for Populism Studies website

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.

The making of lynchistan and the cow cabinet

Earlier this year, the documentary  The Making of Lynchistan: Inside India’s Deadly Gau Raksha Network won the prestigious Ramnath Goenka award.  This documentary informs how mob lynchings by cow vigilantes in India are a pre-planned organized crime supported by politicians and police. Asmita Nandy and Meghnad Bose, the documentary makers said: 

“Our documentary The Making of Lynchistan: Killing in the Name of the Cow is an explainer on the nexus between the police, politician and the gaurakshaks,” said Nandy. “We spoke to gaurakshaks, who told us how these attacks are carried out. Sitting in front of people who proudly claim to have resorted to violence is intimidating,” said Bose.

In this blog, I have been writing about the rise of Hindu nationalism and increasing focus on saving cows and violence against Muslims. Some of the blogpost related to it are as follows

Hinduism and Hindutva Debate March 2019

A national ministry of cows? September 2017

Gau rakshaks' (cow protectors) rise under Modi/BJP: Is there a more sinister agenda? November 2017

More recently, another event demonstrated the increasing power of Hindutva, Hindu nationalism, and cow rakshaks. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan after praying at a temple announced on 18th November 2020 the formation of a "cow cabinet." It consists of ministers of the following departments: farmer's welfare, animal husbandry, forests, panchayat and rural development, revenue, and home. The significant point to note is that the Congress, which claims to secular and is the main opposition party in Madhya Pradesh, did not oppose this measure but tried to say that they were better cow rakshaks. They claimed that the Congress government had started the work on the construction of 1,000 cow shelters.

Former Chief Minister and state Congress president Kamal Nath said that Chouhan did not keep his promise made before the 2018 Assembly elections.

Shivraj Singh, who announced the formation of a separate cow ministry (department) in the state before the 2018 assembly elections, is now talking about setting up a cabinet for cow protection and fostering...He has forgotten his old announcement..."There has been no work for cow protection and promotion during the 15 years' BJP rule in the state. On the contrary, they reduced the money given for cow shelters. 

Source: The Times of India

To be fair, the Congress government did pass laws against cow vigilantism after two incidents in 2019 and also amended the anti-cow slaughter law, making provision for the transport of cows with permission. 

Is Rahul Gandhi a Hindu? And is this important?

There is currently a debate going on India about whether Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the soon-to-be President of the Congress Party, is a Hindu or not. The debate started during the campaign for the Gujarat state elections. It was reported that Rahul signed the register for non-Hindus while visiting the Somnath Temple. The BJP is now accusing Rahul of not being a Hindu and falsely posing as a Hindu while the Congress is trying to prove that Rahul is a Hindu. 

Robin David, the resident editor of The Times of India's Chandigarh edition, has written an enlightening article on what this debate about Rahul's Hinduness means for Indians who are not Hindus.

An excerpt of the article is reproduced below. Rest can be read Disturbing debate on Rahul Gandhi’s Hindu-ness: India’s top national parties are reducing the importance of being Indian:

The loud and coarse debate over which register Rahul Gandhi signed when he visited Somnath temple has led to politicians of both Congress and BJP using an awkward hyphenation – the ‘non-Hindu’. With campaigning peaking in Gujarat, no one has bothered about how this ‘Hindu vs non-Hindu’ debate has marginalised those who are not Hindus. It has erased the many unique distinctions among different groups and reduced them to one broad, generalised category – the non-Hindu.

You are not a Christian or a Parsi or a Muslim or a Jew. You are a non-Hindu. Sit on the sidelines and watch us fight over who the real Hindu is, is the message BJP and Congress have driven home.

Given the manner in which both parties are fighting over the issue, it seems that the ‘Hindu’ is an exclusive club for the privileged. To become a member, you have to meet the stiff criteria set by the club management and be ready for a rejection.

By questioning Rahul’s Hindu identity, the BJP has challenged his membership to the club and asked him to establish his credentials. Although BJP leaders haven’t said it in as many words, the implicit message is that Rahul does not deserve to ask for the votes of Hindus in Gujarat because his Hindu credentials are questionable. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra even demanded that Rahul “must say who he actually is”.

Rahul Gandhi in the Somnath Temple

Source: Disturbing debate on Rahul Gandhi’s Hindu-ness: India’s top national parties are reducing the importance of being Indian

The Indian Express has noted the same phenomenon but has ignored its implications for the minorities and the future of secularism in India. In their article, Gujarat assembly elections 2017: Rahul Gandhi’s devotion to temple politics catches BJP off guard, they point out that Rahul has visited 25 temples so far and it is the first time that party leadership of both major parties is trying to outdo each other in visiting temples. A excerpt from the article is reproduced below:

There is a new facet emerging in the Gujarat Assembly elections, the first phase of voting for which ended on Friday. Never before have temples played such a major role in politics of the state, since it was formed in 1960. The individual Hindu candidates used to launch their campaigning and election exercises by paying obeisance at their local temples or to their family deities, but the party top brass leading the campaign have never bothered to visit practically all important temples in their areas or on the route of their campaign.
This time, both the major political parties — the Congress and the BJP — have made it a point that their star campaigners visit important local temples wherever they go to address public meetings. While it was quite obvious for Prime Minister Narendra Modi or BJP national president Amit Shah to do so because of their religious background and RSS connections, it is quite new for Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to visit temples.
If it is a matter of prestige for the BJP and particularly, Modi, to ensure that his party retains the political power in the state as this election is being viewed as a precursor to the outcome in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is doing everything available at its disposal to ensure that it wrests Gujarat from BJP after 22 years, to improve its prospects in 2019 general elections and come back to power at the Centre.

BJP's cow cabinets, cow ministries and cow departments to create cow-friendly ecosystem

Cow protection is a controversial but old issue in India. Under the British Raj, some sections of Hindu society pleaded for laws to prevent the slaughter of cows in India. After Independence, there was more pressure and so the rationalist and socialist Nehru agreed to introduce cow-protection in the Directive Principles of State Policy. The Article 48 of the Indian Constitution declares, “The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and other milch and draught cattle.”

Cow protection has achieved prominence since Prime Minister Modi took control of the national government in 2014. There have been new laws, the extension of quondam bans and public lynchings to protect cows. Hard-line Hindu organizations, like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, trans. World Hindu Council) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, trans. National Volunteer Organization), have long campaigned for cow protection and cow protection was one of their major demands from the BJP (along with building of Ram Mandir (where once Babri mosque stood) and legislation for a common civil code).  Currently, the BJP's popularity and control of the national government and many state governments have made the once unthinkable, possible.

In January 2014, the state government of Rajasthan, belonging to the BJP, decided to set-up a separate ministry for the protection and preservation of cows. Cow protection was part of the BJP manifesto for the December 2013 state elections and it has been part of the BJP national program and overall Hindutva agenda, so it was not surprising but still a first. Previously, leaders of many Indian states have come up with cow protection laws that impose a fine or prison term for not only the killing of cows/cattle but also for transporting them to the slaughter houses. However, there was no department/ministry for cows (See India’s First Ministry for Cows). It was the Gujarat state that had the distinction of establishing the first Gopalan Department in India. The name Gopalan comes from Hindu religion. Lord Krishna was the eighth avatar of Vishnu (one of the principal deities in Hindu religion) and a supreme Hindu god in his own right. According to the legend, he was a cow herder and one of his names was Gopala which means “the protector of the cows.” 

Source: http://hindutva.info/lord-krishna-and-holy-cows/

The vision-mission of the new Gopalan Department is "To improve State's cow wealth so in near future cow rearing will emerge as a major economic activity offering immense employment opportunities."

The objectives of the department are:

Encourage Research to popularize use of Panchgavya.

Gaushala Development and conservation, up-gradation and improvement of cattle in gaushalas.

Value Addition of Cattle Products through processing.

Regulation of temporary Migration or Export of Cattle.

Fodder Management during Scarcity.

Registration of Gaushalas and their development towards self-sufficiency. (See Directorate of Gopalan)

After the establishment of Gopalan department in Rajasthan, there was a fear that other BJP-ruled states would follow suit but it did not happen, although some states increased sentences for cow slaughter and cow trafficking. For instance, Gujarat made the slaughter of cows punishable with life imprisonment in March 2017.

Now (September 2017), there is a talk of a national ministry of cows. Perhaps this new initiative was the result of the India's Supreme Court's suspention of a newly passed national law that banned the sale of cattle for slaughter nationwide (See India Supreme Court suspends cattle slaughter ban).

The push for a national ministry has come from hard-line Hindu organizations. It was reported that the VHP would petition Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Utter Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for cow ministries at the center and the states. VHP’s Ayodhya-based spokesman Sharad Sharma said, “The issue of cow protection has always been dear to us. Now, we expect a dedicated ministry to support and boost an entire cow-friendly ecosystem.” Responding to questions about the VHP suggestions, BJP chief Amit Shah said, “Various suggestions have come. Discussions are on” (See VHP to push for separate cow ministry at the Centre and states).

Angshukanta Chakraborty has written a scathing critique of the impending decision (See No, Modi government. Cow ministry is ridiculous)

But a Union cow ministry for the whole of India? Is it really that unthought-of, given the broad tendencies that the Modi government has been displaying with brazen aggression, perfectly in line to promote and deliver by 2019 the dreamed-of goal of turning India into a Hindu Rashtra?

We have seminars on cow urine, dung being organised in hallowed institutions such as the IITs. IIT Delhi, last year, had a three-day seminar on the fabled anti-cancer properties of panchagavya, the concoction comprising cow dung, urine and other bovine derivatives. As we had said on DailyO then, it’s one thing to chance upon the anti-cancer properties, if any. It’s simply quite another to steer the whole course of research at a publicly-funded premier technology institute.

But again, not unexpected. Because we have a bevy of ministers and BJP leaders singing paeans to cow urine, including Nitin Gadkari, who wanted hospital floors to be washed with cow urine, to Devendra Fadnavis, and the latest joinees Shaina NC and Meenakshi Lekhi.

The logic behind cow ministry is all the more shrouded in mystery (beyond the usual political trappings) given we already have a National Institute of Animal Welfare, the Animal Welfare division under the Ministry of Environment and Forests. We have the Animal Welfare Board of India. In addition, we have the department of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. The rationale behind a cow ministry – not a cattle or livestock ministry – is unavailable, when not viewed through a highly saffronised cow protection-tinted lens.

Then why the sounding out of the BJP-led Centre’s plans of setting up a cow ministry? The historian Mukul Kesavan writes: “The cow is so totemic for the BJP that the murder of human beings in this animal's cause makes responsible leaders resort to silence, deflection, denial, defensiveness or arguments in mitigation that would shame the moral sense of a three-year old.” ...

In the new scheme of things, the gau rakshak is on the same pedestal as the soldier, and is therefore unchallenged in the nationalist pecking order. And even as PM Narendra Modi gently admonishes the fake gau rakshaks in his speech and tweets, after a highly impactful #NotInMyName protest in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar against Junaid’s murder, he nevertheless ensures the fake gau rakshaks are regularly confused for the good gau rakshaks, thereby making justice beyond reach for those at the receiving end of the cow zeitgeist.

Exactly as the foreign press writes disparagingly of the India story, calling Modi a “constant tinkerer”, “not much of a reformer”, ridiculing “Modi’s strongman economics”, repeatedly underlining that foregoing the economics of a secular, tolerant India would be tantamount to an economic downward spiral, such bitter pills are being spat out with the newfound arrogance of this fast becoming bovine theocracy such as ours. Only the cows themselves have little to gain from the politics in their name.

The ministry is still a suggestion and it may remain so for a long time but Hindu nationalism is definitely increasing as a separate ministry for cows is primarily based on Hindu religion. A separate ministry is also justified and considered necessary to:

• Increase milk production;
• Save several Indian cow breeds that are near extinction;
• To save cattle/cows from cruelty;
• To save Gou Mata (mother cow) that is the symbol of life in Indian culture.

But all these reasons camouflage the real reason, which is the rise of the religious right and religious nationalism. The irony is that despite all the laws, bans and lynchings, India is still the largest exporter of beef. Most of the beef is of buffalos but it is still beef:

Despite the various bans, India is the world’s largest exporter of beef, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. India exported 2.4 million tons of beef last year, compared with 2 million tons by Brazil. India alone accounts for nearly 24% of global beef exports. (See Why an Indian Hindu Group Wants a Ministry of Cows?)

Previously, The Haryana state, under a BJP government, established Haryana Gau Seva Aayog ( Haryana Commission for Serving Cows) in 2010 after passing The Haryana Gau Seva Aayog Act, 2010. The main objective was to oversee the strict implementation of laws that prohibit the slaughter and/or cruelty to cows. 

In November 2020, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan established a Cow or Gau Cabinet. It consists of six departments and five ministers, all suppose to work together for the "conservation and welfare of cows". 

India: Contest between Secular and Hindu Nationalism or between Developmental and Cultural Nationalism

Quoting Rabindranath Tagore (India has never had a real sense of nationalism), Amalendu Misra argues that there are many Indian nationalisms, not one. In his article, India has never had a single dominant nationalism – and it won’t any time soon, he writes that previously there was fight between two types of nationalisms, rightwing religious (Hindutva) nationalism and leftist secular (civic) nationalism but now the situation is different:

Interestingly, contemporary India is plagued by a miasma of voices who cannot agree on a unifying national identity. Indian nationalism has become a dog’s breakfast; it feels as if every day, a new group demands that the national imagination be reorganised according to its own vision and logic.

He gives examples of martial nationalism, cyber-nationalism, Marxism, and backward” castes' reactionary nationalism, etc. He concludes:

All the while, their sophisticated pundit and politician counterparts wage their dogfights over nationalism on live TV while cloaking themselves in one ideological colour or the other, all in the name of Indian identity. This all seems to vindicate Tagore’s original claim: the nature of Indian nationalism has never been a settled matter, and it doesn’t look set to organise itself any time soon.

It seems that Misra is not distinguishing between state and popular nationalism. At the popular level, there are always numerous types of nationalisms. In all countries, different ethnic, religious, economic and linguistic groups and classes disagree on what defines their nation. When pundits and politicians are talking about Indian nationalism, they are focusing on state nationalism. What kind of nationalism is or will be propagated by the Indian state? In India today, the fight appears to be clearly between religious and secular nationalisms. Or is it not?

For Radhika Desai, focusing on only the cultural aspects of nationalism and ignoring the economic aspects, is a reductionist approach. So, for her, religious and secular nationalisms present only a partial picture of the reality. She identifies two types of nationalism, developmental and cultural. She argues that nationalisms did not decline in the third quarter of the 20th century; they underwent went a transformation, from developmental nationalism to cultural nationalism. She explains the change in an article:

As the world entered the second half of the 20th century, nation-states could be divided according to whether they attempted to restrain (under social democratic regimes), eliminate (under communist ones) or harness (under developmentalist ones) the power of capital in the interest of wider groups. Japan’s ‘miracle’ years, Nehru’s, Nasser’s and Soekarno’s devel¬opmentalism, as well as Mao’s communism, stood in sharp contrast to the market-driven, capital-friendly regimes that replaced them two or more decades later and to the colonial and fascist ones which had preceded them. 

Nehru, Nkrumah, Nasser, Soekarno & Tito at Bandung, 1961 (Source: R. Desai's article)

Developmental regimes featured distinct developmental nationalisms. In Asia, they emerged in anti-imperialist struggles. Popular mobilisations (or minimally, as in Sri Lanka, the requirements of popular legitimacy) required these nationalisms to attempt to construct political economies of development by promoting productivity and relative equality, although accomplishment varied among the resulting capitalist developmental or communist states. While the cultural politics of these nationalisms certainly featured some more or less uncritical celebration of the ‘national culture’, developmental nationalisms typically adopted a critical stance towards important aspects of the inherited culture, as for example, the critical view of caste in Indian nationalism, or the criticism of the imperial and Confucian heritage in China. In the developmental vision, national cultures were to evolve in more scientific, rational and progressive, even internationalist, directions. In short, developmental nationalisms looked forward to brighter national futures as modern egalitarian cultures and polities and as economies of generalised prosperity in a comity of nations: they typically promised a better tomorrow. 

Rather than declining in the last quarter of the 20th century, nationalisms seemed to acquire greater force, and not just in reaction to ‘globalisation’. And their nature changed. The cultural nationalisms that displaced the earlier developmental nationalisms had different names in different nations— ‘Asian values’, ‘Hindutva’, ‘Confucianism’ and ‘Nihonjinron’, for example. The cultural politics and political economy they now embodied also underwent changes and the emphasis shifted from the latter to the former. The political economy of cultural nationalisms was typically neoliberal—flagrantly unequal and not primarily concerned with increasing production or productivity so much as with the enrichment of the (expanded but still tiny) dominant middle, propertied and capitalist classes. The new nationalisms’ cultural politics—whether conceived in religious, ethnic or cultural terms— conceived culture as static, pre-given, and original although, amid the intensified commercialism and commodification of neoliberal capitalism, it was less so than ever before, and attributed to it almost magical powers of legitimation and pacification over potentially restive forsaken majorities. Thinking of cultural nationalisms as majoritarian and homogenising is easy, but also mistaken: for in the neoliberal context, cultural difference—different levels of competence in and belonging to the national culture—served to justify the economic inequalities produced by neoliberal, market-driven policies. Cultural nationalisms often took apparently multicultural and ‘tolerant’ forms as markets performed the work of privileging and marginalization more stealthily and more effectively. In contrast to the popular mobilisations on which developmental nationalisms rested, cultural nationalisms throve on the relative political disengagement and disenfranchisement which neoliberal inequalities produced. The extremist wings that cultural nationalisms had in many countries were a function of this lack of popular support. In harking back to more or less distant ‘glorious pasts’, it seemed as though what cultural nationalisms offered was not a better tomorrow, but a ‘better yesterday’. 

In a presentation on Hindutva, Desai presents the following differences between developmental nationalism, which was dominant in India in the past, to cultural nationalism (Hindutva), which is dominant now.

Indian (Developmental) Nationalism	Hindu (Cultural) Nationalism
Developmental	Neo-liberal
Secular	Communal/Religious
Material gains	(share of ) Cultural glory
Inclusive	Exclusive
Popular	Elitist
Egalitarian	Inegalitarian
Better tomorrow	Better yesterday

While Desai's exposition of change from developmental to cultural nationalisms is certainly enlightening, it is difficult to accept that egalitarianism and popularity are intrinsic characteristics of developmental nationalism. One of the reasons, developmental nationalism could not survive, or remain dominant, was that it was not egalitarian and became less and less popular. It purported to be concerned about the lower classes and promised to build an inclusive society but it was elitist and mostly enriched upper classes, politicians, and bureaucrats. Conversely, one of the main reasons for the success of cultural nationalism is that it is less elitist and probably more popular now. If Nehru is the quintessential developmental nationalist and Modi is the quintessential cultural nationalist, it is clear that Nehru was much more elitist than Modi. Neo-liberalism, an important part of cultural nationalism according to Desai, is focused on this life and future, not on the next life and past. So, it is injudicious to claim that cultural nationalism is only about the past glories. Cultural nationalists certainly harp on the past but they also promise a better tomorrow. For instance, Modi's national campaign in 2014 was probably as much focused on the future as on the past.

In conclusion, the distinction between developmental and cultural nationalism is not clear and using Desai's framework muddles our understanding of Indian nationalism. I think secular and religious nationalism is a much better way to understand the changes Indian nationalism has witnessed since independence in 1947.