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Abstract

The rise of the BJP is usually credited for the shift towards the Hindutva politics in India, but other political parties are also not immune to using confession for electoral purposes. This article discusses how, despite living together for years, a large number of Hindus differently imagine the citizens belonging to the minority religious communities and vice versa. The article then examines the political events of the 1980s and analyses how they are linked with the contemporary social and political developments in India.

Keywords

Hindutva imagination Muslims Sikhs territory

In May 2014, as anticipated by many psephologists, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was elected into power in India. The BJP won 282 out of 543 parliamentary seats and got 31% of the total polled votes. The NDA won 336 seats. In the next parliamentary elections in 2019, the BJP improved its seat tally to 303, getting about 38% of total votes. The NDA got 353 seats in 2019. Not only in the parliamentary elections, the BJP, since 2014, has also single-handedly or in an alliance formed governments in 14 Indian states. In some states, such as Karnataka (2019), Madhya Pradesh (2020), Goa (2017), Arunachal Pradesh (2016) and Maharashtra (2022), where it could not win a majority, the BJP deftly dislodged the sitting government and came into power by carrying out ‘Operation Lotus’ (Ranjan, 2022).

One of the major factors for the BJP’s electoral performance is an increasing religious consciousness among India’s majority community. A large section of the Hindu population suffers from minority syndrome, where they see themselves as a suppressed group while seeing minorities flourishing due to policy of appeasement carried out under the rule of, what they call, ‘non-Hindu and secular’ political parties. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also popularly called Hindu Hriday Samrat (King of Hindu’s Heart). The BJP has benefitted the most from Hindutva politics, but other political parties too have used religion to garner votes in the elections. This article argues that although Hindus and Muslims have lived together for centuries, a big section from the two communities have never imagined the ‘other’ as a part of their ‘own’ group. It was the different imagination of each other that partitioned British India in 1947. Religion-based Partition could not resolve many confessional issues between Hindus and Muslims, so differences and distance remained. The shift towards majoritarian politics since the 1980s has further widen the decades long communal divide.

Differently Imagined Communities

For Benedict Anderson, ‘nation is an imagined political community-and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign’ (Anderson, 2015, p. 6). Anderson further writes that a nation ‘is imagined as community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship’ (Anderson, 2015, p. 7). Questioning Anderson, Partha Chatterjee, a subaltern school scholar, asks ‘whose imagination’? In most decolonized countries, ‘imaginations’ remain colonized, as the way of imagination is in the line of colonial powers (Chatterjee, 1993, p. 5). Armies, flags, legislatures, national education schemes and dominant political parties gave the nationalist elites the place that was once occupied by the imperialists (Said, 1993, p. 319). Due to elite domination, in many postcolonial countries, marginalized class, minority religious and ethnic groups largely found themselves excluded (Gorringe, 2008). By the 1960s, anger brimmed over the continued inequality and exclusion combined with a frustration with the politics of ‘integration’, ‘progress’ and ‘polite protest’ that were characters of civil-rights campaigns (Moran, 2018). Subsequently, by the 1970s, the consensus between elites from different groups started breaking up over the issue of power sharing and, in most of the postcolonial countries, nationalism had become a matter of ethnic politics over which violence occurred (Chatterjee, 1993, p. 3). From the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, in most of the religiously, ethnically and sectarian plural societies, a different type of identity and nationalism has been created through collective imagination constructed through rememorating (Spivak, 2010, p. 40) and differently memorating the past. Notably, imagination is not limited to self or own group: the imagination about ‘self’, ‘others’ and how they are imagined by the other groups combined to decide the social status and political position of the non-dominant groups in plural societies and states (Bhabha, 2015; Fanon, 2001).

Imagination about ‘self’ and ‘others’ caused the Partition of India in 1947. The Partition, however, could not solve the many religious matters as around 42 million Muslims, reduced to 35 million in following years, decided to remain Indian citizen (Bandyopadhyay, 2022, p. 42). Not only Hindus and Muslims, the Partition also distraught Parsis, Buddhists, Chakmas, Khasis and other religious and tribal groups (Nag, 2022, pp. 143–178). To protect the religious minorities, despite reservations from certain individuals holding important positions in the government and the Indian National Congress (see Azad, 2014), the top leadership of the country had a vision of a plural state (see Nehru, 2010, pp. 420–421). Provisions to safeguard the core interests and protect the rights of minorities were debated in the Constituent Assembly and then inserted into the Indian Constitution. Despite such constitutional provisions and secular commitment of a few Indian leaders like the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru et al., Nehruvian India, as recent work by Sherman (2022) and Anil (2023) shows, was not as ideal non-communal secular space as it is projected. Upper class ‘nationalist’ Muslims represented the confessional interests and got all benefits while the weaker section and lower caste of the community remained on the margin. Post-partition, a parallel imagination linking the idea of ‘Indian nationalism’ with ‘Hindu nationalism’ had been running (Chatterjee, 2010, p. 88). The Hindu nationalists were engaged in vilifying the Muslims calling them foreign invaders (Mukherjee, 1959, p. 354) and ‘internal threats’ (Golwalkar, 1966, pp. 148–164), and questioning the community members’ loyalty towards the country (Cariappa, 1964).

A Majoritarian Churn in the 1980s

By the 1980s, in many postcolonial plural countries, consensus between the elites belonging to different groups started cracking and inter-group confrontations were on the rise. Identity became too important for a group and individuals to define and decide their politics. In India, there was a rise of backward-caste politics. In 1989, the V. P. Singh-led Janta Dal government decided to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission. The Mandal Commission under B. P. Mandal was set up by the Janta Party (1977–1979) government in 1979 and submitted its report in 1980. It recommended a 27% reservation for the Other Backward Class (OBCs) in the Central and state government services. On 7 August 1990, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, then Prime Minister of India, announced in the Parliament that his government would provide 27 percent reservation to the OBCs in central government jobs. The announcement led to protests in parts of India. The upper-caste students and associations led the protests against the government’s decision. The protests could not change the government's decision and the reservation policy was finally implemented in 1992. For the advocates of Hindutva, Mandal politics was a ploy to divide the Hindus on the basis of caste. Since the early 1990s, the advocates of Mandal and Kamandal (religion) politics have used caste and religion to cut down the political effect of each other.

Hindutva Politics and the Rise of the BJP

Savarkar writes that Hindutva is

Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people [Hindus] as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva… Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole Being of our Hindu race. (Savarkar, 2009, pp. 3–4)

The BJP calls Savarkar an ideal to its politics; however, at the time of its formation on 6 April 1980, the BJP showed faith in Panch Nishtha (five commitments): nationalism and national integration, commitment to democracy and fundamental rights, Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava, the idea of positive secularism, Gandhian socialism and value-based politics.

An early political opportunity that the BJP milked was a conversion of around 150 Dalit families into Islam, hoping to eliminate caste-related discrimination, in Meenakshipuram in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in 1981. Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited the state and addressed public meetings calling for a national debate on conversion. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), founded in 1964, made religious conversion as an important part of its political campaign (Katju, 2003, p. 17). In 1984, Bajrang Dal, an aggressive wing of the VHP, was formed. The Bajrang Dal talks about the threats from rising Muslim population, cow slaughtering, religious conversion and the increasing Western influence on Hindu culture.

One of the biggest political event and movement that has had a long-lasting impact on Indian politics and society is the movement for the Ramjanambhoomi (birth place of Hindu God Rama) strongly campaigned by the VHP in the early 1980s. In the early postcolonial years, the dispute over the site was resurrected after a group of young Hindus placed an image of the Hindu God Rama inside the mosque on the night of 22 December 1949. On the morning of December 23, the First Information Report (FIR) registered by Ayodhya Police named Abhiram Das, a naga vairagi and an enthusiastic member of the Hindu Mahasabha, as the prime accused (see Jha & Jha, 2012, 148). The following day, a rumour spread that Lord Rama appeared as an image to claim the mosque as his temple. The rumour triggered communal riots. Leaders of Hindu and Muslim communities subsequently filed a plea in the Court claiming the place as theirs. The place was locked. Years later, in 1984, the VHP demanded that the lock on Rama’s birthplace be opened. On 14 February 1984, the district and session judge of Faizabad ordered to the opening of the locks for public praying. In 1986, Rajiv Gandhi’s government (1984–1989) opened the gates of the temple. This decision opened the floodgates of communal tensions, and it strengthened the communal Hindu and Muslim groups (van der Veer, 1994, p. 3).

At the same time, Rajiv Gandhi’s government also tried to please the Muslim clerics by passing ‘The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986’, which nullified the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Shah Bano case. In its judgement in 1985, the Supreme Court (SC) of India decided that Shah Bano, a 73-year-old Muslim divorcee, would receive a maintenance allowance from her husband under the Criminal Procedure Code.

The Shah Bano episode and Congress party’s changing stance on Ramjanambhoomi, as L. K. Advani says, ‘triggered’ BJP’s decision to lend support to the VHP’s temple agitation. Advani maintains, ‘had the Congress party remained consistent in its support of the Ramjanambhoomi cause, BJP would not have joined the Ayodhya movement in the manner in which it later did’ (Advani, 2008, p. 365). In 1989, at its National Executive meeting from 9 to 11 June held in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, the BJP accepted a resolution majorly drafted by Advani (2008, pp. 367–368) that reads (Palampur Resolution, 1989, pp. 305–309):

The National Executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party regards the current debate on the Ramjanam Bhoomi issue as one which has dramatically highlighted the callous unconcern which the Congress Party in particular, and the other political parties in general, betray towards the sentiments of the overwhelming majority in this country—the Hindus…The Muslim League lobby in the country had acquired a new militancy and aggressiveness. The campaign launched by this lobby against the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Shah Bano Case in 1985 had brought it rich dividends. A panic-stricken Government had amended the criminal law; the Supreme Court judgement was legislatively annulled… It is significant that most of the members of the Babri Masjid Action Committee belonged to the Congress (I)… The National Executive records its appreciation of the attempts made by some Shia leaders to persuade the community that it was contrary to the tenets of Islam to have a mosque built upon a place of worship of another religion, and that, therefore, the site in dispute should be handed over to the Hindus and a mosque built at some other suitable place.

By supporting the Ramjanambhoomi issue, the BJP aimed to counter the political effect of politics around Mandal Commission report. However, understanding the significance of the Hindu OBCs in Indian politics, the BJP soon extended its support to the reservation policy to broaden its electoral constituency. The party’s 1991 election manifesto mentioned that (a) reservation should be continued for the Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes; (b) reservation should also be made for the OBCs broadly on the basis of the Mandal commission report, with preference to be given to the poor among these very classes; and (c) as poverty is an important contributory factor for backwardness, reservation should also be provided for members of other castes based on their economic condition (Bhartiya Janata Party, 2005, p. 381).

Another reason why the BJP mainly focused on majoritarian politics was to get back the electoral support of the Bhartiya Jana Sangh (BJS) voters and sympathizers. The BJP’s objectives adopted in 1980 were not welcomed by many in the Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh (RSS), and there was considerable debate in the Sangh over the issue. At that time, the Congress was more favourable to the supporters of Hindutva politics and Hinduism. An example is when in the 1984 parliamentary elections, held after the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh pogrom, discussed below, leading RSS figures openly called upon the cadres to support the Congress rather than the BJP (Hansen, 2007, p. 312). Under the communal tempest in 1984, favouring the Congress, the BJP managed to win only two seats. Two years later, in 1986, the BJP shifted to Hindutva. A Hindutva hardliner, L. K. Advani, was elected the Party President (Hansen, 2007). The shift in political agenda and leadership helped the BJP in subsequent parliamentary and state assemblies’ elections. In 1989, the BJP won 85 seats in the parliamentary elections and increased its number to 120 in the 1991 general elections. BJP’s 1991 manifesto also called for the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya (Bhartiya Janata Party, 2005).

Sikh Militancy in Punjab and Aftermath

Indira Gandhi’s efforts in Punjab to weaken Akali Dal by co-opting aggressive Sikh preacher Jarnail Singh Bhinderwale backfired and led to the beginning of militancy in Punjab. The militants had logistical support from General Ziaul Haq’s military-led government in Pakistan. At that time, many Hindu groups from Punjab stood with Indira Gandhi to counter the Akalis. For instance, to counter the effect of Alkalis’ organized shutdown in Punjab on 8 February 1984, the Hindu Suraksha Samiti (Hindu Defence Organization) called for another shutdown on 14 February 1984. During the latter shutdown, mobs gathered at 56 places in Amritsar and systematically attacked Sikh business establishments, houses and religious institutions. At Putlighar, near the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Hindu mob broke a replica of the Golden Temple installed there and committed sacrilege on the photograph of Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru of Sikhs and founder of the city of Amritsar. The two Hindus involved in sacrilege were shot dead the next day (Kaur, 2010, p. 101). Also, on 14 February 1984, BJP leader Harbans Lal Khanna ransacked Darbar Sahib’s model at Amritsar railway station (Dhaliwal, 2004). He was assassinated on 2 April 1984.

A few months later, in June 1984, the Indian Army carried out Operation Bluestar to flush out militants hiding in the Golden Temple. The military operation in the sacred gurudwara angered many Sikhs and became a reason for the killing of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in October 1984. The assassination of Indira Gandhi was followed by anti-Sikh pogrom in various parts of India.

The pogrom created minority consciousness among the Sikhs, and the community realized that, notwithstanding their contributions and visible public presence, they constitute only 2% of India’s population (Chakravarti & Haskar, 1987, p. 23). During the pogrom, almost a hundred Sikh gurudwaras were burnt, and homes and factories in Delhi were looted and gutted. Young Sikh women were gang raped and many Sikhs, particularly those aged between 15 and 50 years, were murdered (Singh, 1991, p. 384).

According to the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights and Peoples Union for Civil Liberties report ‘Who Are the Guilty?’ during the riots, the opposition parties, by and large, failed to rise to the occasion. Also, a large section of the Hindu public in Delhi seemed to sanction the assault and killing of Sikhs (PUDR and PUCL, 1984, pp. 16–17). In many parts of India, the anti-Sikh pogrom was mainly led by Congress workers complicit with the local police (see Suri, 2015). On the role of RSS during the 1984 pogrom, in 2021, in his article in The Print, Arun Anand, the Chief Executive Officer of Indraprastha Vishwa Samvad Kendra, a company that is affiliated with the RSS and a member of ‘Clean the Nation’ (Singh, 2021), wrote that at that time, the Sangh came out to protect the Sikhs (Anand, 2021). On the contrary, there are evidences proving that the RSS workers did participate in the violence in some places (Ashraf, 2015). About 14 FIRs lodged in various police stations in Delhi include the names of 49 BJP and RSS members. According to those FIRs, they were booked on charges of murder, arson and rioting in various areas populated by Sikhs. One of them was Ram Kumar Jain, President of the Jain Mahasabha Ashram and a poll agent for Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the 1980 Lok Sabha elections (Singh, 2021).

Assam Movement

Migration in Assam is an age-old phenomenon. In the post-independent years, after the Pakistan Army and its collaborators began atrocities on the Bengali-speaking population in East Pakistan on 25 March 1971, between 7.5 and 8.5 million people crossed into the Indian side of the border (UNHCR Report, 1972). Contrary to Bangladesh government’s claims, many organizations in Assam had raised the issue of ‘illegal’ immigrants living the state. The Assam agitation (1979–1985) was launched against the ‘illegal’ immigrants. All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP), spearheaded the movement, and it also had sympathizers from the Gauhati University Teachers Association (GUTA) (Kimura, 2013). During the Assam Movement, in 1983, at Neile, more than 2,000 Muslim migrants were killed by the local tribes like the Tiwas, the Karbis, the Mishings, the Rabhas and the Kochas. The movement leaders convinced the tribals that they had been alienated from their land due to Muslim land grabbers. An immediate reason for the massacre was the participation of many Muslim voters in the 1983 election, which was called on by the AASU and others to be boycotted (Kimura, 2013). After the massacre, a few of the Muslim members of the AASU left the organization because of its anti-Muslim tone (Kimura, 2013). Nelie massacre and other election-related, mainly communal, violence developed a fissure in Assamese nationalism. It more or less divided people based on religion (Baruah, 2005, p. 132).

As tensions soared over the migrants over their immigration status, the Government of India set up a tribunal to determine the migrants under the act called as Illegal Migrant (Determination of Tribunal) Act 1983. The SC struck down this act in 2005 and transfered all pending cases to the Foreigners Tribunal set up under an act of 1964. The Assam Movement ended in 1985 after AASU and AGSP signed an accord with the Union government. Clause 5.8 of the Accord states that ‘Foreigners who came to Assam on or after March 25, 1971 shall continue to be detected, deleted and practical steps shall be taken to expel such foreigners’ (Assam Accord, 1985). Clause 6 of the Accord states that Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the culture, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people (Assam Accord, 1985). The accord does not speak, particularly, about the updating National Register of Citizens (NRC), but clauses 8.1 and 8.2 mention the issuing of a citizenship certificate by the Central Government (Assam Accord 1985). Post-accord tensions were silenced, only to resurrect again in a different way after a few years.

Militancy in J&K

India administers around 70% of the territory of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Pakistan controls a part, and China has a smaller part under its administration. The J&K constructs a sense of belonging that produces and sustains nationalism in India (Radcliffe, 1996).

The beginning of militancy in the Kashmir valley has its genesis in the result of the 1987 assembly elections. In the elections, polls were rigged to defeat Muhammad Yusuf Shah, a Muslim United Front (MUF) leader, a coalition of Islamic parties (Bose 2005, 48–50). Mohammad Yasin Malik, then 21 years old, was his election manager. The rigging convinced many MUF supporters that armed revolt is the only way to achieve one’s rights (Donthi, 2016). Yusuf Shah, now known by his nom de guerre Syed Salahuddin, is the commander-in-chief of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the largest guerrilla force fighting in the Kashmir valley (Bose, 2005, pp. 48–50). Yasin Malik is the leader of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front. Many of the disgruntled and alienated youth chose to fight against the Indian state and crossed the Pakistani side of the border, where they were provided with all kinds of support by Pakistan’s security establishment. Since then, with the support from many Kashmiri youths and other radical groups, Pakistani security establishment has been fighting a costly proxy war with India.

The disturbed situation and militancy were politically underlined by many Indian parties in the late 1980s. For instance, cartographic themes were prominent during the 1989’s parliamentary elections. The Congress portrayed itself as the sole party capable of averting balkanization of India due to the rise of militancy in the Kashmir valley and Punjab in the 1980s. The Congress Party’s series of political commercials, widely published in leading newspapers and magazines, centred around the physical map of India (Krishna, 1994, p. 510). On the contrary, the BJP’s maps focused on India’s territorial ‘losses’ under the Congress government (Krishna, 1994).

A Long Shadow of the 1980s

Riding on the wave of Hindutva, the BJP, from two seats in 1984, became an important opposition party by the early 1990s. The BJP led a coalition government in the Centre in 1996 (13 days), 1998–1999, and from 1999 to 2004. In 2014 and 2019, the BJP had won the majority. The transformation of Indian society and the shift of Indian politics towards Hindutva have made the other political parties too to exploit religion for electoral benefits. For instance, in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections, the Congress said in its manifesto that if it returned to power, it would ban radical Islamic group Popular Front of India and Bajrang Dal. The BJP took this opportunity to religiously polarize the voters by equating Bajrang Dal with the Hindu God Bajrang Bali. In his election rallies, Modi called on Karnataka’s voters to chant Jai Bajrang Bali before pushing the button of the electronic voting machine. Sensing the electoral trouble, the Congress leader and now Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka H. K. Shivkumar said that Hanuman temples will be constructed across the state if the party wins, and the existing ones will be developed. Second, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal established its own regional version of ‘an aggressive Hindu identity’ (Pani, 2022). Third, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi performs Lakshmi Puja on the eve of Diwali. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal has projected himself as Ram Bakht (Banerjee, 2021).

Hindutva Agenda

During the 2014 election campaign, the BJP leaders emphasized on ‘development’ and kept the Hindutva agenda at a minimum. The situation changed soon after the BJP won the parliamentary and some state assembly elections. The party took initiatives towards fulfilling some of its main ‘Hindutva agenda’. For instance, some of the BJP-ruled states passed a law to ban cow slaughter, cow vigilantes were reported killing cow traders and those suspected of consuming or storing beef, and ‘ghar wapsi’—reconversion—made the headlines (Palshikar, 2015, p. 727).

The Ramjanbhoomi movement was concluded after the SC delivered its final verdict in November 2019. In its 1045-page judgement, relying more on the faith of the majority community, the Court ordered the Government of India to build a Hindu temple where a mosque once stood. To ‘compensate’ the Muslim litigants, the Supreme Court has ordered the Government of India to provide 5 acres of land in another area of Ayodhya to build a mosque (Supreme Court of India, 2010). The Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, who headed the bench to deliver a verdict, was nominated to the Upper House after his retirement. He is not the first one. (Retired) Justice Ranganath Misra served as a member of the upper House between 1998 and 2004 from the Congress. Misra helped the Rajiv Gandhi Government to absolve Congress in the 1984’s anti-Sikh pogrom (Dhawan, 2020).

After the judgement on Ram temple, a Temple Construction Committee was set up under Nripendra Mishra. On 22 January 2022, the consecration of Rama Mandir ceremony was held at Ayodhya. The rituals were performed by Indian State, and the BJP-ruled states had declared half- or full-day holidays for the employees. More than the Indian state, the Indian society showed enthusiasm for the temple. During his visit to Mumbai, the author saw Rama flags were being sold in large numbers in every corner of the city and many people displayed flag on their vehicles and on their houses’ windows (see pictures in Appendix). Many gated societies organized rituals on 22 January to mark, what they considered, the ‘most important day in India’. The enthusiasm for Rama Temple was also visible in congested slums, where a large number of Mumbikars live in poor conditions. In many parts of Mumbai, rallies were organized by the BJP supporters. In Mumbai’s Mira Road, a few participants in the rally in support of the temple raised anti-Muslim slogans that led to communal clashes. The next day the city administration ran bulldozer to destroy some shops, mainly belonging to Muslims, in the area.

Post-2014, the Sikhs religious body Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) condemned the RSS for suppressing the religious freedom of minority religious groups and attempting to turn India into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (The Tribune, 2021). Many Sikhs had also protested against BJP and the RSS’s attempt to weaponize Sikh traditions and history to serve the Hindutva project (Apoorvanand, 2022).

In August 2019, the BJP led Government passed ‘The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act’. Under the Act, J&K was demoted to Union Territory (UT), and Ladakh (comprising Leh and Kargil districts) was separated from the erstwhile state as another UT. The Governor of the J&K is now known as the Lieutenant Governor (Jammu & Kashmir Government, 2019). Article 35A was also removed, which allowed the legislative assembly of the J&K to define the term ‘permanent residents’. Notably, the BJP had always been against the Special Status of J&K under 370. The revocation of Article 370 had been in the party’s manifesto since the 1980s. Soon after the revocation of Article 370, the Modi government introduced amendments and laws that opened the door for outsiders to buy land and property, get government jobs and attend institutes of higher education (The Week, 2020). The revocation of the special status was challenged in the Supreme Court of India which, in its December 2023, judgement upheld the government’s decision. The SC’s judgment is largely a blow to India’s asymmetric federal order.

Despite being an advocate of Hindu nationalism, the BJP has taken some steps to attract minorities, especially non-elite Muslims. In 2002, a few months after the Godhra riots in Gujarat in which more than 2,000 people (mostly Muslims) were killed and many were injured, the BJP-led coalition government supported APJ Abul Kalam, who played an important role in India’s second nuclear test at Pokhran in Rajasthan, for the position of President of India. Kalam was projected as a ‘nationalist’ Muslim. Second, Vajpayee (1996, 1998–1999 and 1999–2004) took initiatives to address the J&K problem by engaging with separatist groups and Pakistani leadership (see Dulat & Sinha, 2015; Lambah, 2023). Third, in J&K, the BJP also entered into what is called an ‘unnatural alliance’ with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015. The BJP had always accused the PDP as ‘sympathizers’ of militants in the valley. The BJP-PDP alliance crumbled in 2018 after differences became unmanageable. Fourth, the BJP has made efforts to reach to Pasmanda (backward) Muslims to renegotiate the group’s engagement vis-à-vis the Muslim upper castes. Fifth, in 2019, the Modi-led government ended ‘triple talaq’. The end of ‘triple talaq’ found support from many Muslim women. Finally, in March 2023, the BJP’s Minority Front launched ‘Sufi Samvad’ to connect with the Muslim community and inform them that the Modi government has worked for everyone in the country.

Hindusing the Territory

Following the direction from the SC, in 2015, a process to update NRC began in Assam. In August 2019, the third and final list was published in which 1.9 million people living in Assam were not found eligible for Indian citizenship.

Soon after the third list of the NRC, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was finally adopted by the Indian parliament in December 2019, and it came into effect on 10 January 2020. There was a country-wide protests against the CAA bill and the amended Act. The critics say that the CAA violates the secular principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution since the amendment implies that religious faith becomes a criteria for Indian citizenship (BBC, 2019). For many, the CAA is a step towards transforming India into a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation). Rallies were also held in support of the CAA. A few weeks before the general elections in 2024, the CAA rules were notified by the Union government of India.

Hindutva has penetrated in interior parts of northeast India. In those parts of India, the majoritarian narrative celebrates Hindutva as an indigenous sub-terrain of the pre-Christian past of the northeast. Icons of indigenous nationalists, such as Rani Gaidinliu, are appropriated and celebrated as primary signifiers of Hindutva (Mahajan, 2021). After 2014, even some of the government institutions and offices have been used to promote Hinduism. For example, the programme pamphlets published for the 2015 Republic Day celebrations in the Christian-majority Nagaland carried a picture of Bharat Mata (Longkumer, 2019).

Conclusion

The Hindu nationalists, notwithstanding their beliefs, require Muslims to flourish their brand of politics. Ahmed observes that Muslims could be shown as the children of those who humiliated and defeated the Hindus. The evocation of Muslim identity also helps Hindutva to hide its ambiguities and internal contradictions (Ahmed, 2019, p. 79). Unlike Muslims, the Sikhs are largely considered part of Hinduism. On Sikhs, Savarkar writes ‘they [Sikhs] may be ceased to be sanatanis but cannot be cease to be Hindus…’ (Savarkar, 2009, p. 125). However, a large number of Sikhs do not consider themselves a part of Hindu religion.

Hinduism is not a unified religious institution; different gods are prominently worshiped by the Hindus living in various parts of India. For decades, Hinduism has embraced and celebrated all such differences. However, with the rise of the Hindutva, whose main focus is on Rama, who is mainly worshiped in the Hindi-speaking region of India, the bigger objective is to blur all such differences. The Ramajanambhoomi movement, which concluded with the consecration of the Rama temple, have strongly paved the way for what the author sees one nation, one god. Even the story of the Ramayana is differentially narrated in different parts of India. The Hindutva groups have rejected all such differences, forcing their narration on everyone. The Ramanization of state and society have demeaned or placed all other Hindu gods revered by people living in different parts of India to a secondary level. Ramanization is masculine, as it does not include the name of Rama’s wife, Sita, in today’s popular slogans in praise of Rama. Inclusive slogans such as Jai Siya Ram, Sita Rama and Siya Ram have been largely given up to Jai Shri Ram. The Hindutva groups’ portray of Rama is violent instead of magnanimous, as idolized and prayed by many North Indians for centuries. The violent and masculine image of Rama has been repeatedly used to carry out attacks or incite violence against minority communities.

As mentioned earlier, since the 1980s, caste and religion have been used to counter each other’s impact in the electoral politics. In the long run, as the voting statistics show, religion has outweighed the impact of caste. A big number of Hindu OBCs, as data shows, have shifted towards religious politics rather than supporting the regional parties known for raising the issues the backward castes face (Table 1).

Table 1.

How OBC Have Voted, 1996–2003?

All India	1996	1999	2004	2009	2014	2019	2023
BJP	19	23	23	22	34	44	45
Congress	25	24	24	24	15	15	27
Regional political parties	49	41	43	42	43	27	23

Source: Kumar (2023).

For the proponents of Hindutva politics, ‘national security’ and ‘national/territorial integration’ are significant terms. In the name of national integration, the Hindu nationalist groups and BJS opposed the demand for carving of a Sikh majority state in the 1960s. In the 1980s, as militancy rose in Punjab, the Hindu groups sided with the Congress to cut down the effect of the Akalis and Sikh militants. In J&K, the Hindu groups had always opposed provisions under Article 370. However, contrary to the BJP’s argument that J&K enjoys a lot of autonomy under Article 370, 94 out of the 97 entries in the Union List were also applicable in J&K; 260 out of the 395 articles of the Constitution had been extended to the state, as had been seven out of the 12 schedules (Ranjan, 2019). Second, the BJP argued that after revoking special status, there would be a decline in the militant attacks in the J&K. On the contrary, as many media reports show, the number of locals joining the militancy and militant attacks have not dwindled; though incidents of stone pelting are down and infrastructures have developed in parts of the J&K. In northeast India and West Bengal, the Hindu nationalist groups have always raised the issue of ‘illegal’ migration from Bangladesh. The ‘illegal migrants’ is mainly used for the Muslims while the Hindus from Bangladesh are looked at as ‘persecuted’ individuals. The NRC-CAA is seen as an attempt to change the ethnic and religious configuration of the region.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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