Elective Affinity between Religious Nationalism and Right Wing Populism

Professor Philip Gorski of Yale University gives an excellent account of the elective affinity between religious nationalism and right-wing populism that we see in many countries today (See Religious Nationalism and Right-Wing Populism: Trumpism and Beyond). I have copy-pasted the whole article. Enjoy.

One of the great puzzles of the 2016 elections in the United States was the extraordinary support that Donald Trump received from white evangelicals. Nearly 80% ultimately voted for Trump. It is important to note that most non-white evangelicals did not vote for Trump, and that most white evangelicals voted for other candidates during the Republican primaries. And yet, Trump was still the first choice of a plurality of white evangelicals. 

One of the great puzzles of the first 18 months of the Trump administration is the steady increase in Trump’s approval ratings amongst white evangelicals. Over 80% now approve of Trump. During the presidential elections, many white evangelical leaders were prepared to publicly excuse Trump’s patently un-Christian personal behavior—including his ill-concealed racism and misogyny—and many white evangelical voters were evidently willing to overlook them as well. Now, they appear ready to overlook his ongoing assault on American democracy, too—including the rule of law, the freedom of the press. 

This is not a uniquely American puzzle. The affinity between religious conservativism and right-wing populism is a phenomenon that antedates Trump and extends beyond America. That affinity is perhaps less obvious and less important in Western Europe, where the ranks of Christian conservatives have been in rapid decline for some time now. But even there, neo-populists often position themselves as defenders of “Christian civilization.” Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen did not borrow this move from Trump’s playbook. On the contrary, the opposite is more likely the case. 

Elsewhere in the world, the connection between religious conservativism and right-wing populism is both striking and significant. In Hungary, for instance, Viktor Orban has promised to replace “liberal democracy” with “Christian democracy,” by which he evidently means an ethno-nationalist form of one-party-rule and plebiscitary democracy. Moving eastwards, to the inner boundary of Eurasia, we arrive in Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, where the “secular democracy” of the Kemalist regime has been supplanted by an Islamic version of the Orban model. 

Source: Meetup 

Any suspicion that Western analysts might harbor concerning the European origins of this phenomenon are however promptly shattered when we arrive on the Indian sub-continent. There, civilizationist discourse is nearly a century old. The Hindu nationalist movement has long had both religious and secular followers, and Hindu nationalist discourse has long claimed that Hinduism is a way of life or a form of civilization to which non-Hindu Indians can and indeed must belong. 

While the origins of left-wing populism are usually traced to the American populist movement of the late 19th century, the genealogy of right-wing populism begins further South, in Latin America. There, too, authoritarian populist leaders found substantial support amongst Catholic conservatives. 

Of course, not all religious conservatives feel attracted to the populist message. In the US, for instance, the ranks of the #neverTrumpers include a good number of conservative Christian intellectuals, Protestants as well as Catholics. The question, then, is which religious conservatives and why? The tentative answer that I’d like to advance here is: “religious nationalists.” 

Until recently, of course, most scholars of nationalism would have dismissed the very concept as an oxymoron. Nationalism was assumed to be a wholly “modern” phenomenon, a kind of ersatz religion for secular modernity. Today, many scholars understand religious nationalism as a distinctive variant of modern nationalism, one that makes religious identity the litmus test of national belonging. 

While religious nationalism may well be a modern phenomenon, the connection between religion and nationalism long antedates modernity. Indeed, one could argue—and many including myself have argued—that Western nationalism has religious origins. For the definitional triptych of “people, land, and state” is already sketched out in the Hebrew Scriptures, which speak of a chosen people, a holy land, and a Jewish state. 

Academic analysts have often remarked on the quasi-religious character of modern nationalism. Some have explained this in functional terms. In this account, nationalism fills the “God-shaped hole” left by secularity. Others have explained it in instrumental terms. From this perspective, nationalist politicians invoke religious language to galvanize their followers. The genealogical account suggests a different explanation: modern nationalism has a religious “unconscious” that can always be summoned back to the surface again. 

In “Western” versions of religious nationalism—by which I mean versions that are historically rooted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures—this religious unconscious has at least four key elements: 

Blood tropes. Talk of blood is a red thread that runs through both the Jewish and Christian scriptures. There is talk of blood sacrifice, blood conquest, blood purity, and blood atonement, amongst other things.

Apocalyptic narratives. The histories of Judaism and Christianity are both replete with apocalyptic discourse. For most of these histories, literalist interpretations of the apocalyptic texts (viz., Daniel, Revelation) were confined to fringe movements. Today, they are a core element of evangelical Christianity.

Persecution/victimization narratives. The “pariah” status of the ancient Jews and Roman persecution of the Jesus movement left a deep imprint in the collective memories of both traditions. It is especially deep amongst present-day evangelicals, who expect to be persecuted for their faith.

Messianic expectations. Full-blown messianic movements have probably been somewhat more common in modern Judaism, but modern Christianity has certainly had its share (e.g., Mormonism) and the history of modern evangelicalism is of course rife with charismatic preachers who claim quasi-messianic powers. 

These four elements are not “key” in the sense of being “unique” characteristics of Judaism and/or Christianity that distinguish them from other religious traditions. On the contrary, they are commonly found in “non-Western” versions of religious nationalism as well (e.g., Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamist). They are key, then, not in the sense of grounding a typological distinction between religious traditions, but rather in the sense that they underlie the elective affinity between religious nationalism and right-wing populism. 

What do I mean by “right-wing populism”? There is widespread scholarly agreement that populism is not an “ideology,” at least not in the sense that, say, liberalism or communism are ideologies. Populism does not have a Mill or a Marx, a treatise or a manifesto, nor a program of reform or revolution (e.g., the expansion of individual rights or the abolition of private property). And yet, while it may lack the intellectual systematicity of these 19th century ideologies, it is not without a certain coherence. Some analysts have proposed that it is best understood as a political discourse centered around the notion of the “sovereign people” and related notions such as “popular will” and “popular unity.” This is why populist rhetoric often has a democratic ring. However, as proponents of this interpretation are quick to point out, right-wing populists also reject core elements of liberal democracy, such as the rule of law, the rights of the minority, and the internal pluralism of all peoples. 

Building on Arlie Hochschild’s work, some scholars, including myself, have argued that populism is not just a discourse but a narrative. In her widely-read ethnography, Strangers in Their Own Land, Hochschild argued that her subjects interpreted the world through the frame of a “deep story,” a narrative that they were not always able to articulate themselves, but which they immediately recognized and affirmed as “theirs” as soon she articulated it for them. The central event in the populist story is “line-cutting.” Hochschild’s subjects imagine themselves to be waiting patiently in a long line that leads to the “American dream” of material prosperity. But the line is standing still. In fact, it hasn’t moved in years, decades even. Why? Up ahead, her subjects notice, other people are cutting in line, immigrants and minorities who just recently arrived. Not only that, the Federal Government is guiding them to the front of the line. This, they feel, is deeply unjust. 

In my view, Hochschild’s deep story is just one variant of a more generic narrative that underlies right-wing populism. It features four actors: a pure people, a corrupt elite, an undeserving other, and a messianic leader. The people have been betrayed by the elite which is allied with the other, and the leader promises to restore the people to its birthright. There is also a left-wing version of this story. It features three actors: an oppressed people, a corrupt elite, and a social movement. In this account, the people are being exploited by the elite and have joined together in a movement of liberation. 

Right-wing populist movements have at least two other common, if not universal features. The first—and the most important for our purposes—is a charismatic leader. Because the populist goal of popular unity can never really be achieved it is often performed. In left-wing populist movements, unity is usually embodied in “the movement.” In right-wing populist movements, by contrast, it is more often incorporated in a leader. The second common feature of right-wing populist movements (sometimes found in the left-wing variant, too) is the performance of “bad manners,” above all by the leader, but also by his (or, occasionally, her) followers. By “bad manners,” I understand ongoing violations of social norms of polite speech and sometimes also of dress and grooming. The speech of populist leaders is often impolite and profane. And their personal appearance is often unconventional. Bad manners serves two purposes: it distances the leader from the elite and signals his or her closeness to the people. But it also distances the leader from “ordinary” people and suggests extraordinary talents or superhuman powers. 

Having enumerated some important characteristics of both religious nationalism and right-wing populism, it is now possible to identify some of the elective affinities between them. They run in both directions. Religious nationalists are attracted to right-wing populist movements and parties if and insofar as they: 

Invoke notions of blood sacrifice, blood conquest, blood purity and, more generally, attribute mystical powers to human blood.

Paint the contemporary situation in Manichean and apocalyptic terms, as a cosmic struggle between good and evil, that is hurtling towards its final denouement.

Portray the dominant ethno-cultural majority as a persecuted, religious minority; in particular, a minority persecuted on account of its faith.

Are headed by a charismatic leader who makes messianic promises and claims messianic powers. 

Conversely, right-wing populists are attracted to religious nationalism if and insofar as it: 

Emphasizes the moral purity of the common people.

Blames national decline on cultural elites, and especially on secular intellectuals.

Clearly identifies moral and/or religious others who can never become full members of the people.

Sanctifies the charismatic leader, despite or even because of his or her bad manners. 

Against this backdrop, the ongoing love affair between Donald Trump and white evangelicals becomes a good deal less perplexing. Trump has a peculiar (and possibly psychotic) obsession with human blood, particularly but not exclusively, women’s blood. He espouses a dark, “us vs. them” view of the world, always on the brink of disaster. He espies conspiratorial plots and nefarious enemies most everywhere he looks. And he imagines that he can easily fix difficult problems with simple solutions that have somehow eluded his predecessors. Conversely, Trump-supporting evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Franklin Graham envision the United States as a Christian nation that has been corrupted by secular elites, often on behalf of underserving others (typically racial, religious or sexual minorities), and they have not only given Trump a series of “mulligans” for his personal morality, they often seem to revel in his bad manners, particularly when they are aimed at those they dislike. 

The goal of this memo has been to sketch out the cultural logic that underlies the elective affinity between religious nationalism and right-wing populism and, more broadly, to dispel the view, quite widespread among Western intellectuals, that the alliance between religious nationalists and neo-populists is purely instrumental or patently hypocritical. While I am confident that this framework can “travel”—i.e., that it gives us some theoretical purchase over other cases of neo-populism, Western and non-Western alike—I do not imagine that it would survive such a journey unscathed. Further comparative work is of course necessary, particularly comparisons that go beyond Europe and the Americas to include various regions of Asia and Africa. Nor do I wish to suggest that this cultural analysis constitutes an adequate explanation much less an exhaustive account for the rise of neo-populist movements or their relative success or failure. That would require a fuller analysis, not only of national-level factors (e.g., party systems, immigration patterns, religious demography etc.) but also of global and geopolitical changes as well.

India: Religious Freedom Issues. A CRS Report on Hindutva

The Congressional Research Service, a bi-partisan research wing of the US Congress, published a report on rising Hindu nationalism and its threat to minorities and human rights in India. Below are some of the key excerpts. The whole report can be read or downloaded from here.

For roughly 500 years before British rule became direct in 1857, the Asian Subcontinent had been dominated by Muslims politically. Many Hindu nationalists, along with some historians, assert that Hindu traditions and institutions were suppressed during this period. As the Indian independence movement grew in the early 20th century, some were energized to "correct" this historic trend. Secularism became a more-or-less enshrined value for the independent Indian state, although its conception in both theory and practice varies widely. 

Because Hinduism does not have a specific sacred text to which conformity can be demanded, "Hindu fundamentalist" is not an accurate term to describe a purveyor of "Hindutva" or "Hindu-ness." Moreover, as conveyed by one scholar, "India's diversity along linguistic, regional, and caste line means defining a 'Hindu culture' is problematic." For political parties such as the BJP and its antecedents, Hinduism as a concept is almost always concurrent with nationalism, the core belief being that India is an inherently Hindu nation, even if establishment of a strictly Hindu state is not a goal. In this regard, it is the proselytizing religions—Islam and Christianity, in particular—that can be characterized as representing a threat to the "Hindu nation." 

In simple terms, the key tenets of the Hindutva ideology are three: (1) Hindus are the rightful rulers of India, which is a Hindu nation; (2) the Christian and, especially, Muslim minorities are viewed with ambivalence because their religious allegiances are not indigenous to India (in a way that those of Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains are); and (3) caste divisions undermine Hindu unity. 

According to close observers, despite fronting an overtly Hindu nationalist party, Modi's 2014 national political campaign touched upon these Hindutva themes only minimally, and instead stressed development and good governance as its guiding lights. Yet Modi himself repeatedly has emphasized his view that "Hinduism is a way of life and not a religion." According to USCIRF, Hindutva "forms the basis of an exclusionary national narrative focused exclusively on the rights of Hindus." In commenting on the role of nationalism in Indian politics, a group of Australian academics offers that, "The Hindu nationalists seek not so much to preserve existing social hierarchies in Hindu cultures as they do to rewrite social order fascistically to the benefit of Hindu populations.".... 

The report provides a brief overview of the RSS and BJP's violent and controversial history and their aversion to Muslims.

The RSS has had a controversial history in India, including connections to the 1948 assassination of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi.45 The organization has since been directly implicated in domestic terrorism. RSS members have been implicated in several incidents of "Saffron" (Hindu extremist) terrorism in India, including the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings that killed 68 people on a train that runs between Delhi and Lahore, Pakistan. In 2011, former RSS activist Swami Aseemanand confessed to involvement in this and other attacks, contending that some high-level RSS leaders had prior knowledge and were complicit.46 In 2016, Maharashtra's former senior-most police official reportedly called for banning the RSS as "the country's largest terror organization."...

The BJP (along with its 1951-1977 antecedent, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh) has been a primary political purveyor of Hindutva in Indian society. Narendra Modi and current BJP President Amit Shah are credited with orchestrating the party's national surge after 2013.56 Throughout the country's history, India's Muslims have consistently favored the Congress Party over the BJP. While at least one-third of Muslim votes nationwide were cast for the Congress in the 21st century, the BJP's share of the Muslim vote dropped from 7% in 2004 to 3% in the 2009 cycle. Some surveys suggest that Modi's party and its electoral allies received up to 8% of the Muslim vote in 2014, with the main opposition Congress Party and its allies garnering 38%.57 Of 1,400 BJP members serving in various Indian state assemblies in 2017, 4 were Muslim. Muslims comprise about 19% of Uttar Pradesh's population, but 6% of its state assembly.58 Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha peaked at 10% in 1980 and lingered at about 6% until dropping to 4% in 2014.59 A 2016 assessment found that Muslims were vastly underrepresented in the legislative assemblies of BJP-controlled states, an imbalance only exacerbated by subsequent state-level wins for the party. The problem was starker when examining state ministers: at the time, only a single Muslim was among the 151 in BJP-controlled states.

A study by India's daily Hindustan Times found that, although only a small proportion of the more than 50,000 national and state-level politicians assessed were facing criminal charges for inciting religious violence or hatred (less than one-half of one percent), the BJP had the highest proportion (1.3%) of any party, more than triple that of the Congress Party. Moreover, the politicians facing such charges—including such high-profile figures as a federal cabinet minister and Uttar Pradesh's chief minister—were nearly five times more likely to win their elections than those not facing them....

 Religious Demographics in India

Source: CRS Report

The report explains that most of the political goals of the Hindu nationalists are about restricting minority rights, especially rights of the Muslim minority:

Hindu nationalists have a relatively short, but long-standing list of political goals. Many of these are found in the BJP's 2014 election manifesto.62 RSS leaders were mostly disappointed by the BJP-led government that ruled India from 1999 to 2004, in large part because then-Prime Minister Vajpayee and his lieutenants were not seen to be taking up core RSS issues. While out of power in the latter half of the 2000s, the RSS and BJP suffered a degree of mutual alienation; at one point in 2010 the then-RSS chief suggested that the BJP be dissolved and replaced by a new party. Yet the organization's leaders appeared to view the BJP victory in 2014 as crucial to the very existence of the RSS. Its leaders thus threw the full weight of their organization behind Modi's campaign while enjoying a correlate spike in participation in 2014.63 Leading Hindutva and widely-held RSS aspirations include

• scaling back laws and government programs designed to benefit the religious minorities, Muslims in particular;

• establishing a Uniform Civil Code (to replace current personal law based on religious customs and thus standardizing all national laws regarding such topics as marriage, divorce, and inheritance);

• repealing Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which grants limited autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir (a step that would, if implemented, allow citizens from other states to buy property in Jammu and Kashmir, see "The Kashmir Dispute," below);

• redrafting public school textbooks to remove what are alleged to be insults to Hindu gods and excessive praise of the subcontinent's past Muslim rulers;

• constructing a Ram temple on the Ayodhya site of the Babri Mosque that was razed in 1992; and

• preventing cow slaughter through legislation (cows are revered animals in Hinduism)....

Overall restrictions on freedom of expression are also on the rise in Modi's India according to the report:

 A major 2016 HRW report, "Stifling Dissent: The Criminalization of Peaceful Expression in India," contended that, "Indian authorities routinely use vaguely worded, overly broad laws"—a colonial-era sedition law perhaps the most abused among them—"as political tools to silence and harass critics." More recently, HRW warned that, "Journalists faced increasing pressure to self-censor due to threat of legal action, smear campaigns and threats on social media, and even threats of physical attacks."101 In September 2017, unidentified gunmen shot dead publisher and editor Gauri Lankesh, a vocal critic of militant Hindu nationalism, outside her home in Bengaluru. Evidence suggests the existence of organized campaigns to silence critics of the Hindutva movement, sometimes called "rationalists" for their opposition to the insertion of religion into politics.102 Indian journalists report coming under increasing pressure and bullying to remove stories critical of the Hindu nationalist government, and self-censorship by media organizations is seen to be a worsening problem by many.

Even before Modi's national elevation, his supporters were known for bellicose social media activity; in 2012, one former senior Indian intelligence officer wrote, "The style of the online blitzkrieg adopted by [Modi's] die-hard followers in India and abroad are reminiscent of the methods of the Nazi stormtroopers."104 The BJP has since been accused of cultivating "an army of cyber warriors to propagate its message of Hindu chauvinism and hyper-nationalism, and to launch vicious attacks on its opponents." "Modi's troll army" is, by some accounts, an orchestrated effort by the BJP to target critics on social media. Whether officially sanctioned or not, some of the most notable offenders—who openly celebrate the murder of critics for the mere act of exercising their right to free speech—are followed by Modi on Twitter.105 One U.S.-based commentator opined that, earlier in his prime ministership, Modi could afford to associate himself with "foul-mouthed trolls on Twitter," but his 2017 choice to allow Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister "makes it much harder to argue that power will moderate the [BJP's] more feral instincts.

Ireland's waning religious nationalism

Nationalism and Christianity were very close and overlapping in 19th century Europe. Most of the European countries believed their nation had a special affinity with God. Since all of these countries were Christian-majority, so the God was Christian God (See Religious nationalism in 19th century Europe). While many European countries lost their enthusiasm for religious nationalism in the early 20th century, Ireland, primarily due to the long history of Catholic persecution by the Britishers, was brimming with Christian nationalism at that time (See Irish Nationalism, Easter Rising (1916) and Catholic Church). After independence, Ireland adopted a constitution that highlighted the role of the Catholic Church. For instance, the Preamble of the Constitution stated:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,We, the people of Éire,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation, And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations, Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

Furthermore, Article 44(1)2º stated, "The State recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens. (This clause was removed by the Fifth amendment as given below).

Source: Ireland: A Chronology of De-Christianization

In the wake of the Irish referendum on liberalizing abortion, Church Militant, a Catholic magazine published an article Ireland: A Chronology of De-Christianization to demonstrate the gradual delinking of the Catholic Chruch and the state in the Republic of Ireland. The chronology only mentions the defeats and ignores the victories of those who believed in religious nationalism such as the 1983 referendum related to abortion and the 1986 referendum on divorce. In 1983, 66.9% voted to approve a constitutional amendment recognising the right to life of the unborn child (In 2018, almost the same proportion (66.4%) voted to repeal this amendment). In 1986, 63.5% rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to remove the prohibition on divorce that was part of the original constitution enacted in 1937:

1972: Irish voters approve, by a referendum margin of 84 percent, a constitutional amendment repealing Article 44 of the Irish Constitution, which recognized "the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of citizens."

1973: The Irish Supreme Court declares a right to marital privacy which includes contraceptive use, but declines to overturn laws prohibiting the sale of contraceptives.

1979: The Health (Family Planning) Act becomes law, allowing pharmacists to dispense contraceptives to those holding a prescription from a doctor.

1985: The Health (Family Planning) Amendment Act becomes law, allowing the over-the-counter sale of condoms and spermicides to anyone over the age of 18.

1987: Ireland's first openly homosexual public official, David Norris, is elected to the Senate. A pedophilia defender and anti-Catholic bigot, Norris would call Pope St. John Paul II an "instrument of evil" and Pope Benedict XVI "a Nazi." His 2011 presidential campaign would implode after it was revealed that he sought clemency for a convicted homosexual child rapist who had been his partner in sodomy.

1988: In Norris v. Ireland, the European Court of Human Rights rules that Irish law prohibiting sodomy violates Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

1989: The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act becomes law, which outlaws so-called hate speech directed against so-called sexual orientation.

1990: Mary Robinson, a former senator who advocated for the legalization of contraception, divorce and homosexuality, is elected the seventh president of Ireland. Robinson was the nominee of the Labour Party, but was also endorsed by the Marxist-Leninist Workers Party.

1992:The Health (Family Planning) Amendment Act becomes law, allowing the unrestricted sale of contraceptives to anyone over the age of 17.

1992: In Attorney-General v. X, the Irish Supreme Court declares a right to abortion arising from a threat to the life of the mother, including suicidal ideation.

1992: Voters in Ireland reject, by a referendum margin of 65 percent, a proposed amendment to the Irish Constitution which would overturn the X ruling.

1992: The Thirteenth Amendment to the Irish Constitution is passed, by a referendum margin of 62 percent, establishing a "right to travel" outside the country for the purpose of procuring an abortion. Between 6,000 and 8,000 Irish women go to England each year to kill their unborn children.

1992: The Fourteenth Amendment to the Irish Constitution is passed, by a referendum margin of 59 percent, establishing a right to obtain information about abortion.

1993: The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act becomes law, decriminalizing sodomy in Ireland.

1995: The Fifteenth Amendment to the Irish Constitution repealed, by a referendum margin of 50.2 percent, the constitutional prohibition against divorce, and allowed the civil dissolution of marriage.

1998: The Employment Equality Act becomes law, prohibiting discrimination in employment based upon so-called sexual orientation.

2000: The Equal Status Act becomes law, prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations based upon so-called sexual orientation.

2003: The European Convention on Human Rights Act becomes law, by which Ireland accepts the radically anti-Christian legal code of the European Union.

2007: In Foy v. Ireland, the Irish High Court rules that Irish law contravenes Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by refusing to recognize as a woman a man who underwent so-called sex re-assignment surgery.

2010: The Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act becomes law, without a recorded roll call, establishing civil unions for same-sex couples.

2011: The Republic of Ireland closes its Embassy to the Holy See. Diplomatic relations with the Vatican are maintained through the Irish Embassy to the Italian Republic and the Apostolic Nunciature in Ireland.

2011: The first openly homosexual TD's (members of parliament) — Jerry Buttimer, John Lyons and Dominic Hannigan — are elected to the Dail.

2013: The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act becomes law, legalizing abortion in cases of suicidal ideation by the mother.

2015: The Children and Family Relationships Act becomes law, allowing homosexual partners to adopt children.

2015: The Thirty-Fourth Amendment to the Irish Constitution is passed, by a referendum margin of 62 percentage, allowing two persons to contract marriage "without distinction as to their sex."

2015: The first openly homosexual cabinet minister, Leo Varadkar, the son of an Indian immigrant, becomes Minister of Health.

2015: The Gender Recognition Act becomes law, allowing individuals to define their own gender.

2015: The Employment Equality Amendment Act becomes law, which extends anti-discrimination law pertaining to homosexuals and the so-called transgendered to Catholic schools and hospitals, and other religious institutions.

2016: American-born Katherine A. Zappone becomes Ireland's first openly lesbian cabinet minister, when she is appointed Minister for Children and Youth. Zappone is civilly "married" to Ann Gilligan, a former Catholic nun with whom she became romantically involved while both were studying at Jesuit administered Boston College.

2017: Leo Varadkar becomes Ireland's first homosexual prime minister.

2017: The United Nations recommends that Irish schools introduce compulsory sex education, which should include "comprehensive sex education for adolescent girls and boys covering responsible sexual behaviors and focused on preventing early pregnancies, and ensure that it is scientifically objective and its delivery by schools is closely monitored and evaluated."

2018: Dail Eireann passes, in its second reading, the Provision of Objective Sex Education Bill, which, if enacted, would force Catholic schools to indoctrinate Catholic children with propaganda affirming abortion, contraception, gender dysphoria and sodomy.

2018: The Irish Department of Education orders Catholic schools to change religion classes from an opt-out to an opt-in requirement.

2018: The Irish government proposes an amendment to the Status Act, which would forbid Catholic schools from giving enrollment preference to Catholic students. 

2018: The Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which guaranteed the right to life of unborn children, is repealed in a national referendum by a margin of 66.4 percent.

There are still some remnants of religious nationalism, such as the Preamble and Article 6 (1):

All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good.

Article 44(1):

The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion.

Finally, the oaths of the President, Council of State, and judges etc. start with the words, "In the presence of Almighty God, ..."

Billy Graham's lying in honor and America's civil religion

What is America's civil religion and is the decision to allow Reverend Billy Graham's body to “lie in honor” in the nation’s Capitol in line with constitutional separation of church and state? The Rev. Graham died on Feb. 21 at age 99. He is the first religious figure that had the distinction to “lie in honor” at the Rotunda of the Capitol. The tradition of lying in state (for those who have served the American government in some capacity) and lying in honor is old. It started in 1852 when Henry Clay (Secretary of State, Senator and Speaker of the House) was laid in state in 1852. 

An article in Washington Post debates the issue of honoring a Christian pastor in the Capitol of a secular state:

Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the Miller Center for presidential and political history at the University of Virginia, said she thinks honoring someone whose primary service was the conversion of people to a certain faith with a Rotunda ceremony violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Although Graham was an adviser to presidents, Perry noted, tapes came out later revealing Graham and President Richard M. Nixon sharing anti-Semitic views, and civil rights historians have noted that Graham urged the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others not to press hard on the cause of racial equality. 

“Not that he shouldn’t be lauded, but does he deserve to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol? And once you open that door, where do you stop?” Perry said. “Lying in honor should be someone who served their country. Well, how did he do that?”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit organization that pushes for the separation of church and state, wrote a formal complaint letter to Ryan and McConnell. “The fact is that Graham lived his life in service to his evangelical Christian religion, and the Bible that he believed was an infallible reference manual. He placed the Bible far above the Constitution,” the advocacy group wrote. 

The advocacy group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State on Wednesday released a statement saying Graham should not have been a Rotunda honoree.

“We don’t say this to criticize a man who has died, but because the question of who should receive this rare honor warrants public discussion. … Such a high government honor for someone solely for their work spreading an interpretation of one faith offends the spirit of our First Amendment’s guarantee that government will not take actions that endorse or promote religion,” the statement read. 

The office of the historian of the House of Representatives declined to give more information about the criteria used to select Graham, or other past honorees. The Office of the Architect of the Capitol, which hosted the service, said only that such services are prompted by congressional resolution or by congressional leaders. 

At the private service Wednesday, Ryan, McConnell and Trump gave deeply religious tributes. 

“Today we give thanks for this extraordinary life. And it is very fitting that we do so in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, where the memory of the American people is enshrined. Here in this room we are reminded that America is a nation sustained by prayer,” Trump told the crowd. “Today we honor him as only three other previous private citizens have been. Like the faithful of Charlotte once did, we say a prayer that all across the land, the Lord will raise up men and women like Billy Graham to spread a message of love and hope to every precious child of God.”

According to Pew Research data, about a half of Americans say they pray daily, while a quarter say they seldom or never pray. Trump’s own belief about God and his prayer life are not clear, though he does not attend church regularly and has said he does not ask God for forgiveness — two basic tenets of traditional Christian practice. About one-fifth of Americans say they have no religious affiliation. 

Source:  Richard Nixon appeared at one of Graham’s revivals in Tennessee in 1970, the first president to give a speech from an evangelist’s platform

Historians and Graham experts said his life spanned a period when there was more of a shared concept of American “civil religion” — in other words, that being a pious person in and of itself had merit. 

Graham’s other high honors, said William Martin, senior fellow in religion at Rice University and author of the upcoming “A Prophet With Honor: The Billy Graham Story,” came in part because “of just the fact that he was calling people to be Christian. To live lives as good citizens and of service.” These were decades when the connection between those things seemed obvious to Americans — even if they unofficially agreed not to speak of things like racial segregation and gender inequality. 

However, Martin said Graham was responsible for more than winning souls. He served as a kind of unofficial diplomat between the United States and foreign leaders, comforted soldiers in Korea and Vietnam, and “did more to enlarge the scope of religious freedom in Eastern Europe than perhaps any else.” 

The Wednesday service, Martin said, “to a significant extent shows the difference between then and now.” 

Historians also said while Graham typically delivered public prayers explicitly in the name of Jesus Christ, he became increasingly in his life more sensitive to the diversifying America. In contrast to his son, evangelist Franklin Graham, Billy Graham said decades ago that Muslims and Christians worshipped the same God, Martin said. Franklin Graham has called Islam “a very wicked and evil religion.” 

Wednesday shows how America includes radically different religious bubbles. While some considered the service shocking for such a diverse nation, the country’s three most prominent political leaders chose to focus not on Graham’s secular accomplishments but on his faith, known as a sincere and humble one. 

“But remember the current leadership hasn’t been remarkably hospitable to the changes” in America, Martin said.

Grant Wacker, author of “America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation,” said that although the lawmakers in the Rotunda on Wednesday focused on Graham’s religious faith, the late evangelist would have expanded on how that faith must lead people to confront societal problems. 

Ryan praised Graham as “challenging us to look at the right questions.” 

“Although Ryan does not say so, part of Graham’s lifelong mission was pressing people to look around at the crises on the international and national scenes and look within at the crises in their own lives, and ask what is wrong? In all cases what is ultimately wrong is sin, resulting in greed, cruelty, etc.,” Wacker wrote to the Post. 

Historians, clergy of all kinds and everyday Americans have been memorializing Graham in the days since he died, sharing stories about how his multimedia, racially integrated and nonpartisan crusades changed the face of American religion. Many have shared simple stories of how his humility and clear faith converted them. Others have debated what impact he could have had on issues such as racism and economic equality if he had made them his causes. Some say he would have bemoaned how partisan U.S. evangelicalism has become, while others argue that he planted the seeds. (see Billy Graham is the first religious leader to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol. Some say he should be the last)

 Kimberly Winston discusses the issue with respect to American civil religion. She explains what is American civil religion and how honoring Graham is linked to American civil religion?

American civil religion is the idea that, even though the United States has no official religion and is made of up of adherents of every religion and no religion at all, there is a set of common symbols, rites, rituals and traditions that serve Americans the same way religions do for adherents. Think of the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of the national anthem or “God Bless America,” a military gun salute, the honoring of veterans on Memorial Day, etc. These rituals are valued, expected on certain occasions or holidays, and they unite Americans of different backgrounds in their observance...

We have separation of church and state, so why should a preacher lie in honor in the nation’s Capitol? 

That’s a thornier question. There are certainly arguments to be made for and against. Putting those aside, the tradition of publicly mourning notable Americans can buttress aspects of civil religion that bond Americans of all faiths and no faith. 

“Funerals are powerful rites of reconciliation that may dispel controversy and promote a sense of public accord,” Emma Brodzinski writes of state funerals and lying in state in the Encyclopedia of Death and Human Experience. Referring to Lincoln’s lying in state — the first by an American president in the Capitol — she continues that the “grandeur” of such a setting and such a ritual can become “a restatement of American values.” 

In other words, whether you think honoring Graham in the Capitol Rotunda is pandering to President Trump’s evangelical base or you think it is recognition due a man many beyond evangelicals considered great, his lying in honor is part of the American civil religion that can unite us all. (see Billy Graham, lying in honor and American Civil Religion)

BJP government's committee to write a revisionist history of India

A Reuter's report last month, for the first time, revealed the existence of a committee of scholars appointed by the BJP government "to rewrite the history of the nation." The investigations for the report reveal that the revisionist history would be based on Hindutva ideology. Some excerpts from the report are reproduced below:

Minutes of the meeting, reviewed by Reuters, and interviews with committee members set out its aims: to use evidence such as archaeological finds and DNA to prove that today’s Hindus are directly descended from the land’s first inhabitants many thousands of years ago, and make the case that ancient Hindu scriptures are fact not myth. 

Interviews with members of the 14-person committee and ministers in Modi’s government suggest the ambitions of Hindu nationalists extend beyond holding political power in this nation of 1.3 billion people - a kaleidoscope of religions. They want ultimately to shape the national identity to match their religious views, that India is a nation of and for Hindus. 

In doing so, they are challenging a more multicultural narrative that has dominated since the time of British rule, that modern-day India is a tapestry born of migrations, invasions and conversions. That view is rooted in demographic fact. While the majority of Indians are Hindus, Muslims and people of other faiths account for some 240 million, or a fifth, of the populace. 

The committee’s chairman, K.N. Dikshit, told Reuters, “I have been asked to present a report that will help the government rewrite certain aspects of ancient history.” The committee’s creator, Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma, confirmed in an interview that the group’s work was part of larger plans to revise India’s history...

 Source: Reuters Investigates: By Rewriting History, Hindu Nationalists Aim to Assert Their       Dominance Over India

Referring to the emblematic colour of the Hindu nationalist movement, RSS spokesman Manmohan Vaidya told Reuters that “the true colour of Indian history is saffron and to bring about cultural changes we have to rewrite history.”

Balmukund Pandey, the head of the historical research wing of the RSS, said he meets regularly with Culture Minister Sharma. “The time is now,” Pandey said, to restore India’s past glory by establishing that ancient Hindu texts are fact not myth. 

Sharma told Reuters he expects the conclusions of the committee to find their way into school textbooks and academic research. The panel is referred to in government documents as the committee for “holistic study of origin and evolution of Indian culture since 12,000 years before present and its interface with other cultures of the world.” 

Sharma said this “Hindu first” version of Indian history will be added to a school curriculum which has long taught that people from central Asia arrived in India much more recently, some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, and transformed the population. 

Hindu nationalists and senior figures in Modi’s party reject the idea that India was forged from a mass migration. They believe that today’s Hindu population is directly descended from the land’s first inhabitants. Historian Romila Thapar said the question of who first stood on the soil was important to nationalists because “if the Hindus are to have primacy as citizens in a Hindu Rashtra (kingdom), their foundational religion cannot be an imported one.” To assert that primacy, nationalists need to claim descent from ancestors and a religion that were indigenous, said Thapar, 86, who taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi for decades and has authored books on ancient Indian history. 

The theory of an influx of people from central Asia 3,000 to 4,000 years ago was embraced during British rule...

 According to the minutes of the history committee’s first meeting, Dikshit, the chairman, said it was “essential to establish a correlation” between ancient Hindu scriptures and evidence that Indian civilization stretches back many thousands of years. Doing so would help bolster both conclusions the committee wants to reach: that events described in Hindu texts are real, and today’s Hindus are descendants of those times... 

Culture Minister Sharma told Reuters he wants to establish that Hindu scriptures are factual accounts. Speaking of the Ramayana, the epic that follows the journey of a Hindu deity in human form, Sharma said: “I worship Ramayana and I think it is a historical document. People who think it is fiction are absolutely wrong.”  The epic tells how the god Rama rescues his wife from a demon king. It still informs many Indians’ sense of gender roles and duty. 

Sharma said it was a priority to prove through archaeological research the existence of a mystical river, the Saraswati, that is mentioned in another ancient scripture, the Vedas. Other projects include examining artifacts from locations in scriptures, mapping the dates of astrological events mentioned in these texts and excavating the sites of battles in another epic, the Mahabharata, according to Sharma and minutes of the committee’s meeting... 

Modi did not order the committee’s creation - it was instigated by Sharma, government documents show - but its mission is in keeping with his outlook. During the 2014 inauguration of a hospital in Mumbai, Modi pointed to the scientific achievements documented by ancient religious texts and spoke of Ganesha, a Hindu deity with an elephant’s head: “We worship Lord Ganesha, and maybe there was a plastic surgeon at that time who kept the head of an elephant on the torso of a human. There are many areas where our ancestors made large contributions.” Modi did not respond to a request from Reuters that he expand on this remark. 

Nine of 12 history committee members interviewed by Reuters said they have been tasked with matching archaeological and other evidence with ancient Indian scriptures, or establishing that Indian civilization is much older than is widely known. The others confirmed their membership but declined to discuss the group’s activities. The committee includes a geologist, archaeologists, scholars of the ancient Sanskrit language and two bureaucrats... 

After he was named culture minister in 2014 following Modi’s victory, Sharma, a doctor and chairman of a chain of hospitals, said he received guidance from the RSS. Sharma, a genial man with a wide smile, has a portrait of Bharat Mata, or Mother India, hanging above the doorway of a meeting room in his bungalow in central Delhi. Below it are portraits of past RSS leaders.

During the last three years, Sharma said, his ministry has organized hundreds of workshops and seminars across the country “to prove the supremacy of our glorious past.” The aim, he said, is to build a fresh narrative to balance the liberal and secular philosophy espoused by India’s first prime minister, Nehru, and furthered by successive governments for most of the nation’s post-independence history. 

The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, now controlled by Sharma’s ministry, these days mixes in sessions about right wing Hindu leaders and causes. At one such event in 2016, the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Amit Shah, took the opportunity to lambast Nehru as a man influenced by the western world. “We have always believed that our policies should have the smell of Indian soil,” Shah said. It was time for a history of India that concentrates on “facts about our great past.”

Christian nationalism is a robust predictor of voting for Trump

More statistical evidence for what has been said since mid-2016. A new report presents new evidence that links the rise of trump with Christian nationalism. Those who believed in Christian nationalism were more likely to vote for Trump even if one controls for economic dissatisfaction, racism, anti-immigrant sentiment and sexism, as the abstract of the report reveals:

Why did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology—although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views—is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future.

Source: Donald Trump is a ‘Christian Nationalist’

An article (see 'Make America Christian Again': How religious nationalism explains the rise of Donald Trump) by James Macintyre in ChristianToday on the report explains:

The report explains that Christian nationalism is not synonymous with 'civil religion'. It says: 'Civil religion, on the one hand, often refers to America's covenantal relationship with a divine Creator who promises blessings for the nation for fulfilling its responsibility to defend liberty and justice. While vaguely connected to Christianity, appeals to civil religion rarely refer to Jesus Christ or other explicitly Christian symbols. Christian nationalism, however, draws its roots from "Old Testament" parallels between America and Israel, who was commanded to maintain cultural and blood purity, often through war, conquest, and separatism. Unlike civil religion, historical and contemporary appeals to Christian nationalism are often quite explicitly evangelical, and consequently, imply the exclusion of other religious faiths or cultures.' 

As the website truth-out.org has pointed out, the report examines 'the extent to which Christian nationalist ideology represented a unique and independent influence leading to the Trump Presidency,' and argues that, 'Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America's distinctively Christian heritage and future'. 

One of the authors, Whitehead, told the website that Trump is likely to continue drawing on Christian nationalism in the mid-term elections this November. 

'It proved helpful to them in the 2016 elections and so there is no reason they should move away from it now,' he said. 'I think that Trump has delivered on some of the promises made to Christian nationalists, especially concerning his pick for the Supreme Court. I don't think we'll see any reduction in the importance of Christian nationalism in upcoming elections.' 

Trump continues to enjoy the almost unqualified support of evangelical leaders despite policies and personal behaviour that appears consistently to contradict the Christian approach to politics and to life... 

Make America Christian Again explains that, 'The 2016 election was repeatedly labeled as conservative Christians' "last chance" for citizens to protect America's religious heritage and win back a chance at securing a Christian future. As Trump told conservative Christian television host Pat Robertson, "If we don't win this election, you'll never see another Republican and you'll have a whole different church structure...a whole different Supreme Court structure"'. 

The authors argue: 'Christian nationalism operates as a set of beliefs and ideals that seek the national preservation of a supposedly unique Christian identity. Voting for Donald Trump was for many Americans a Christian nationalist response to perceived threats to that identity.'

The report concludes: 'Although sexism, anti-black animus, xenophobia, and economic anxieties or dissatisfaction have been proposed as possible reasons for supporting Trump, we find that net of the influence of Christian nationalism, these receive limited support, at least as measured here. Specifically, none of the alternative explanations outside of Islamophobia exhibited significant associations with voting for Trump when Christian nationalism was accounted for... Beyond the 2016 Presidential election, future research should examine Christian nationalism and its relation to various contentious topics animating politics and civil society in the United States, as well as future voting patterns at multiple levels of governance. 

'As a flexible and pervasive set of beliefs and ideals, the influence of Christian nationalism will likely prove important across a wide range of contexts. It is especially critical to examine Christian nationalism and its significance in subcultures and social arenas both inside and outside of institutional religions.'

Hindu nationalism takes on Tamil nationalism

An interesting analysis by Ana Pararajasingham (see here) of how the BJP is trying to bring Tamil Nadu, a major state in South India, in its orbit. Hindutva has been strong in the Hindi belt in the North but weak in the Dravidian South where ethnic and linguistic connections are much stronger. Southern India successfully resisted the imposition of Hindi as the national language after independence and has tried to chart an independent political course from the north since then.  

Tamil Nadu has been dominated by two parties since the late 1960s, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) formed in 1949 and its rival, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which split from the DMK in 1972. These two parties have governed Tamil Nadu since 1969. Both of them had a series of charismatic leaders which have supported Tamil nationalism and socialist ideology. The DMK had its founder C. N. Annadurai, M. G. Ramachandran and M Karunanidhi while AIADMK had its founder  M. G. Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa. 

The DMK ruled Tamil Nadu from 1969 to 1976, from 1989 to 1991, from 1996 to 2001, and from 2006 to 2011 while AIADMK ruled it from 1977 to 1987, from 1991 to 1996, a few months in 2001, from 2002 to 2006 and is the current ruling party (from 2011). Ana argues that the success of both parties is due to the strength of Tamil nationalism:

The success of the DMK and the AIADMK is a testimony to the potency of Tamil nationalism, which both parties have successfully exploited. In the hands of the DMK, Tamil nationalism became an ideology of mass mobilization. This has enabled the DMK and the AIADMK to secure and hold political power for more than 50 years.

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay in his article 'Past Continuous: BJP’s Failure in Tamil Nadu Can Be Traced Back to Congress’s 1967 Defeat There' seems to agree:

The secondary presence of national parties in Tamil Nadu stems from two dominant features of state politics: the Dravidian movement and its ideology of Draviadianism that dominated political culture and social discourse. The second feature that had a pioneering effect on other states and parties was the distinctive use of populism as electoral craft by the two Dravidian parties. 

Though referred to as the Dravidian movement, the complex weave of caste, religious and linguistic concerns that articulated itself as a collective response from the early decades of the 20th century, remained confined to Tamil Nadu. This has been the principal reason behind the continued significance of national parties in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. The idea and ideology of the Dravidian movement has not spread beyond Tamil Nadu because of its rootedness in Tamil nationalism which in turn had more than just traces of non-Brahminism. 

The absence of non-Brahmin upper castes in significant numbers in Tamil Nadu enabled class and social polarisation between Tamilian Brahmins and others and they were depicted as outsiders who brought Brahminical – and discriminatory – Hinduism to Tamil Nadu. Consequently, when Dravidianism as an ideology developed, atheism and linguistic nationalism became its cornerstones. No such unifying cultural identity emerged in other southern states and this is the reason why Telangana was eventually hived off and the demand for Coorg or Kodagu, though muted currently, keeps rearing its head ever so often. 

The 1967 rout of the Congress – significantly this was not in terms of vote share – was preceded by a several decades old emotional agitation against the Centre’s attempt to declare Hindi as the official language. With its origins in the Congress government’s 1937 decision to introduce Hindi in secondary schools, the agitation gathered momentum as the January 1965 deadline neared for Hindi to become the sole official language of India.

Former Tamil Nadu AIADMK Chief Minister Jayalalithaa paying tributes to her mentor and another former Tamil Nadu AIADMK Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran

Source: 'Past Continuous: BJP’s Failure in Tamil Nadu Can Be Traced Back to Congress’s 1967 Defeat There

The BJP's strategy is, of course, dividing the Tamils on religious lines and undermining Tamil nationalism. It picks up issues that resonate with its Hindutva ideology and tries to break the Tamil consensus as Ana explains:

In late January, at an event marking the release of a book by H Raja’s father, a participant at the event, a Hindu priest, triggered a controversy by not standing up when the Tamil anthem was played. Vijayendra Saraswathi remained seated even as other dignitaries such as the chief guest, Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, stood up for the Tamizh Thai Vazhthu. 

The Tamil anthem is sung or played at the beginning of functions in Tamil Nadu. By not standing up, Vijayendra Saraswathi angered the public. Several public figures condemned the Hindu priest for disrespecting Tamil sentiments, and these notably included leading politicians across Tamil Nadu with strong nationalistic leanings. 

Earlier in January, Vairamuthu, a Tamil scholar, speaking on Andal, one of the best-loved Hindu poet-saints of the Tamils, quoted from the 1978 book Indian Movements: Some Aspects of Dissent, Protest and Reform, which identified Andal as a devadasi. The term devadasi is open to interpretation; it could mean a female servant of a deva (god) or in a more pedestrian sense a temple prostitute. 

The BJP’s Raja mounted a vituperative attack by claiming that Vairamuthu had reduced the Hindu saint to a common prostitute. The attack gained momentum as several Andal devotees joined in, believing Vairamuthu had tarnished the image of Andal. This was met by a massive uproar against H Raja by Tamil nationalists who accused him of exploiting religious sentiments for political gain.... 

H Raja’s tactics are predicated on the assumption that by labeling anyone expressing anti-BJP sentiments, or by referring to his or her Islamic or Christian background, a religious divide could be perpetrated. Last October, Raja’s attempt to discredit Tamil actor Vijay, who had been critical of the BJP’s politics, by “outing” him as a Christian failed.

At present, the BJP aided by a lack of strong popular leadership in both the DMK and the AIADMK.

The DMK’s M Karunanidhi has led the party since 1969, when he became leader after the death of its founder C N Annadurai. At the age of 92, Karunanidhi created history by winning his seat in the legislative assembly for the 13th time in a row in 2016. However, old age and ill health made him retire from politics. 

The AIADMK owed its success to its own charismatic leaders, M G Ramachandran, who was its leader since his split from the DMK to form the new party in 1972 until his death in 1989. And thereafter Jayalalithaa led the party from 1989 until her untimely demise in December 2016 while in office. 

Since then the AIADMK has been torn apart by a leadership struggle, while the DMK is yet to find a leader who can match Karunanidhi. M K Stalin, the son of Karunanidhi and heir apparent, is yet to prove himself.