The rise of communalism in recent years as the major claimant to power in Indian politics has posed a serious challenge to the survival of democracy and is even threatening the fabric of the Constitution. Coupled with the fact that political discourse in the international arena has been increasingly using the language of religion, this phenomenon has posed a serious challenge to human rights movements worldwide. The seventeen original essays in this volume traverse a large canvas and critically interrogate Hindutva from multiple vantage points in the light of recent national and international political events.

Mobilization for Hindutva

Mobilization for Hindutva
ManjariKatju

Over the last two decades Hindutva, characterized by an aggressive, communal, and authoritarian streak, has etched an influential place for itself in Indian politics. Venomous campaigns against minorities and an equally vituperative propaganda against secular and plural values have marked this forward march of Hindutva. It would be misleading to see this forward drive as a spontaneous mass outburst against a secular-democratic set-up and for religio-cultural nationalism. To identify it so ‘suppresses a whole history of meticulously organized efforts towards a Hindu Rashtra’ (Basu et al. 1993, p. 1). Rather than being a sudden upsurge, the spread of ideas represented by Hindutva is attributable to gradual and meticulous mobilizational work combining multiple strategies that are alert to contextual and social ...

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