Hindu Nationalism and Rising Anti-Islamism in India

Abstract

The weakening of the secular tradition, which has been influential in Indian political life since its inception, and the political rise of the Hindu right culminated in the overwhelming mandate of the Hindu nationalist BJP led by Narendra Modi in the 2014 elections. In 2014, the Hindutva ideology that the BJP was fuelled by had the opportunity to spread to all segments of society. As the BJP consolidated its political support from the community in 2019, it became even more prominent as a widespread worldview in India. Backed by the power of Hindutva supporters, the BJP systematically and deliberately targets the non-Hindu population, especially Muslims. Hindutva ideology, the Hindu right wing's ideology of ethnoreligious exclusion, has begun to affect Muslims through political decisions taken by the government and socially triggered acts of oppression and violence, often with the government's deliberate silence. This study discusses the historical and intellectual origins of the Hindutva ideology to reveal the current trends of the BJP's Islamophobic policies through a literature review. In this study, in which the current tendencies of the BJP's Islamophobic policies are tried to be revealed by reviewing the literature, the historical and intellectual origins of the Hindutva ideology are mentioned. The article also analyses the role of the media, which the Modi government uses for its main interests, in fuelling Islamophobia through misinformation and the discourse of 'corona jihad’, particularly in the aftermath of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Ultimately, it is argued that the anti-Islamic policies in contemporary India - even though they have come to light with the BJP's rule - should be seen as the social and political projections of the Hindutva ideology, which sees India's ethnic and religious diversity as a threat rather than an opportunity and which was 'constructed' long before the BJP.

Keywords

• Hindutva
• Bharatiya Janata Party
• Narendra Modi
• Hindu nationalism
• Islamophobia

Hindu Milliyetçiliği ve Hindistan’da Yükselen İslam Kaşıtlığı

Öz

Kuruluşundan bu yana Hindistan siyasal hayatında etkin olan laik geleneğinin zayıflaması ve Hindu sağının siyasi yükselişi, Narendra Modi liderliğindeki Hindu milliyetçisi BJP’nin 2014 seçimlerinde ezici bir yetkiyle iktidara gelmesiyle doruğa ulaşmıştır. 2014’te BJP’nin beslendiği Hindutva ideolojisi toplumun tüm kesimlerine yayılma fırsatı bulmuş ve BJP’nin 2019’da toplumdan aldığı siyasi desteği pekiştirmesiyle Hindistan’da daha da yaygın bir dünya görüşü olarak öne çıkmıştır. Hindutva destekçilerinin gücünü arkasına alan BJP, başta Müslümanlar olmak üzere Hindu olmayan nüfusu sistematik ve kasıtlı olarak hedef almaktadır. Hindu sağ kanadının etno-dini dışlama ideolojisi olarak Hindutva ideolojisi, sadece hükümetçe alınan siyasi kararlarla değil, toplumsal olarak tetiklenen ve çoğu zaman hükümetin kasıtlı bir biçimde sessiz kaldığı baskı ve şiddet eylemleriyle de Müslümanları etkilemeye başlamıştır. Literatür taraması yapılarak BJP’nin İslamofobik politikalarının güncel yönelimlerin ortaya konulmaya çalışıldığı bu çalışmada, Hindutva ideolojisinin tarihsel ve düşünsel kökenlerine değinilerek yer verilmektedir. Makalede ayrıca, Modi hükümetinin kendi temel çıkarları için kullandığı medyanın, özellikle küresel Covid-19 salgını sonrasında, yanlış bilgilendirme ve 'korona cihadı' söylemi yoluyla İslamofobiyi körüklemedeki rolüne değinilmektedir. Nihai olarak çalışmada -her ne kadar BJP iktidarıyla gün yüzüne çıksa da- günümüz Hindistan’ındaki İslam karşıtı politikaların, Hindistan’ın etnik ve dini çeşitliğini bir fırsattan ziyade bir tehdit olarak gören ve BJP’den çok önce ‘inşa edilen’ Hindutva ideolojisinin toplumsal ve siyasal izdüşümleri olarak görülmesi gerektiği ileri sürülmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Hindutva
• Bharatiya Janata Partisi
• Hindu milliyetçiliği
• İslamofobi

References

1. Adeney, K. (2021). How can we model ethnic democracy? An application to contemporary India. Nations and Nationalism, 27, 393–411.
2. Ahmad, I. and Kang, J. (2022). The nation form in the global age: Ethnographic perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Akbar, S., Kukreti, D., Sagarika, S., Pal, J. (2020). “Temporal patterns in COVID-19 related digital misinformation in India”, http://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/an-archive-of-covid-19-related-fake-news-in-india/ (Accessed 11 April 2022).
4. Amarasingam, A; Umar, S. and Desai, S. (2022). “Fight, die, and if required kill”: Hindu nationalism, misinformation, and Islamophobia in India. Religions, 13 (5), 380-413.
5. Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Theory, Culture and Society, 7, 295-310.
6. Appadurai, A. (2017). Demokrasi yorgunluğu, (Prep.) Heinrich Geiselberger, Büyük Gerileme: Zamanımızın Ruh Hali Üstüne Uluslararası Bir Tartışma, Metis Yayınları, 17-29.
7. Ayodhya Judgment Supreme Court of India. 2019. M Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors, https://www.sci.gov.in/pdf/JUD_2.pdf (Accessed 17 March 2022).
8. Baharuddin A. F; Baharuddin, Z. (2022). Islamophobia, Indian media, and Covid-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis. Islam Realitas: Journal of Islamic and Social Studies, 8 (1), 53-67.

9. Bajoria, J. (2020, May 1). CoronaJihad is only the latest manifestation: Islamophobia in India has been years in the making. Human Rights Watch.
10. Banaji, S. (2018). Vigilante publics: Orientalism, modernity and Hindutva fascism in India. Javnost: The Public, 25 (4), 333–350.
11. Bannerji, H. (2006). Making India Hindu and male: Cultural nationalism and the emergence of the ethnic citizen in contemporary India. Ethnicities, 6 (3), 362-390.
12. Bannerji, H. (2011). Demography and democracy: Essays on nationalism, gender and ideology. Canadian Scholars Press.
13. Bannerji, H. (2016). Politics and ideology. Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 11 (1), 3-22.
14. Basu, A. (2006). Mass movement or elite conspiracy? The puzzle of Hindu nationalism. Making India Hindu: Religion, community, and the politics of democracy in India. (ed.) David Ludden. Oxford India Paperbacks.
15. Basu, A. (2020). Hindutva as political monotheism. Duke University Press.
16. Battaglia, G. (2017). Neo-Hindu fundamentalism challenging the secular and pluralistic Indian state. Religions, 8 (10).
17. Beydoun, K. A. (2023). The new crusades: Islamophobia and the global war on muslims, California University Press.
18. Bhagavan, M. (2008). Princely states and the Hindu imaginary: Exploring the cartography of Hindu nationalism in colonial India”. The Journal of Asian Studies, 67 (3), 881- 915.
19. Bhatia, K. V. (2022). Hindu nationalism online: Twitter as discourse and interface, Religions. 13 (8), 739-756.
20. Bhatt, C. (2001). Hindu nationalism origins, ideologies and modern myths. Oxford University Press.
21. Burlet, S. and Reid, H. (1995). Cooperation and conflict: The South Asian diaspora after Ayodhya, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 21 (4), 587-597.
22. Chacko, P. (2018). The right turn in India: Authoritarianism, populism and neoliberalisation. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48, 541-565.
23. Chacko, P. (2019). Marketising Hindutva: The state, society, and markets in Hindu nationalism. Modern Asian Studies, 53 (2), 377-410.
24. Chakravorty, S. (2019). The truth about Us: Information and society from Manu to Modi, Hachette India.
25. Citizens for Justice and Peace, September 23, 2020, “CJP moves NBSA against India Today’s sting operation on Madrasas”, accessed June 20, 2021, https://cjp.org.in/cjp-moves-nbsa-against-india-todays-sting-operation-on-madrasas/
26. Copley, A. (2003). Hinduism in public and private: Reform, Hindutva, gender, and Sampraday. Oxford University Press.
27. Das, V. (2017). Critical Events: An anthropological perspective on contemporary India. Oxford University Press.
28. Egorova, Y. (2008). Jews and India: Perceptions and image, Routledge.
29. Ghosh, R. (2022). As Islamophobia infects Indian newsrooms, Muslim journalists persevere amid the bigotry. Article 14, August 17, 2022, accessed February 13, 2023, https://article-14.com/post/as-islamophobia-infects-indian-newsrooms-muslim-journalists-persevere-amid-the-bigotry--62fc4b4738535
30. Gupta, M. (2021, May 7). Historical roots of the rise of Hindutva in West Bengal. The India Forum.
31. Guptaa, B. and Copemanb, J. (2019). Awakening Hindu nationalism through yoga: Swami Ramdev and the Bharat Swabhiman movement. Contemporary South Asia, 27 (3), 313-329.
32. Hansen, T. B. (1999). The saffron wave: Democracy and Hindu nationalism in India. Princeton University Press.
33. Hawaleshka, D. (2023). The rise and rise of Islamophobia in India, Al Jazeera, April 18, 2023.
34. Irshad, M. (2022, July 18). Karnataka: How two friends became the target of Hindutva polarisation On Eid. The Wire.
35. Izzetbegovic, A. (2011). Özgürlüğe kaçişim: Zindandan notlar, (trans.) Hasan Tuncay Başoğlu, Klasik Yayınları,
36. Jaffrelot, C. (1996). The Hindu nationalist movement in India. Columbia University Press.
37. Jaffrelot, C. (1999). The Hindu nationalist movement and Indian politics: 1925 to the 1990s: Penguin Books.
38. Jaffrelot, C. (2007). Hindu nationalism: A reader. Princeton University Press.
39. Javed, M. T. (2020). Indian citizenship act: Reality and usage. Turkish Research Journal of Academic Social Science, 3 (2), 13-18.
40. Katju, M. (2005). Mobilization for Hindutva, religion, power, and violence: Expression of politics in contemporary Times. (ed.) Ram Punjyani, Sage Publications.
41. Kaviraj, S. (2010). The Imaginary Institution of India: Politics and Ideas. Columbia University Press.
42. Khan, M. A. M. and Lutful R.B. (2021). Emerging Hindu Rashtra and its impact on Indian Muslims. Religions, 12 (9).
43. Kinnvall, C. (2019). Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32 (3), 283–302.
44. Krishna, S. (1994). Cartographic anxiety: Mapping the body politic in India. Alternatives, 19 (4), 507-521.
45. Krishnan, M. (2020). Indian Muslims face renewed stigma amid COVID-19 crisis. Deutsche Welle, May 19, 2020.
46. Kumar, D. (2021). Islamophobia and the politics of empire twenty years after 9/11. Verso Books.
47. Kumar, S. (2013). Constructing the Nation’s enemy: Hindutva, popular culture and the Muslim ‘other’ in Bollywood cinema. Third World Quarterly, 34 (3), 458–469.
48. Lahiry, S. (2005, Oct.-Dec.). Jana Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party: A comparative assessment of their philosophy and strategy and their proximity with the other members of the Sangh Parivar. The Indian Journal of Political Science, 66 (4), 831-850.
49. Lal, V. (2009). Political Hinduism: The religious imagination in public spheres. Oxford University Press.
50. Leidig, E. (2020). Hindutva as a variant of right-wing extremism. Patterns of Prejudice, 54 (3), 215-237.
51. Ludden, D. (1996). Contesting the nation: Religion, community, and the politics of democracy in India. University of Pennsylvania Press.
52. Mawdsley, E. (2023). Introduction India as a ‘civilizational state’. International Affairs. 99 (2), 427–432.
53. McCormick, J., Hague R., Harrop, M. (2022). Comparative government and politics, London: Bloomsbury.
54. Medha. (2019). “The revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy: High-risk Hindutva politics at play”. German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA).
55. Pandey, G. (2006). The construction of communalism in colonial North India, Oxford University Press.
56. Panikkar, K.N. (2004, March 26). In the name of nationalism. Frontline.
57. Paranjape, M. R. (2017, April 8). Rethinking Hindutva: post-secular state ideology essentials, DNA India.
58. Parciack R. (2021). No offence: Communal vulnerability, Law and Versatility in a Vernacular Indo-Islamic Context. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 44, (3), 538-553.
59. Pillai, K. R. (1966). Jan Sangh: A rightist opposition to the Congress Party. The Indian Journal of Political Science, 27 (2), 67-81.
60. Raj, Suhasini-Rod Nordland. (2019). “Forced to chant Hindu slogans, Muslim man is beaten to death in India”. New York Times, June 25, 2019, accessed June 25, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/world/asia/india-hindu-muslim-beating.html
61. Rajeshwar, Y. and Amore R. C. (2019). Coming home (Ghar Wapsi) and going away: Politics and the mass conversion Controversy in India. Religions, 10 (5), 313-329.
62. Rao, P. V. (2010). Foundations of Tilak’s nationalism: Discrimination, education and Hindutva. Orient BlackSwan.
63. Rashid, S. (2020, March 4). 5 Questions: 2019 escalation of the Kashmir conflict. SETA (Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research).
64. Rehbar, Q (2022). “‘Hindutva pop’: The singers producing anti-Muslim music in India”, Al Jazeera, June 2, 2022, accessed July 12, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/hindutva-pop-the-singers-producing-anti-muslim-music-in-india
65. Saleem, R. M. A. (2021). Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindu populism in India: An analysis of party manifestos of Indian rightwing parties. Religions, 12 (10), 803-828.
66. Sarkar, S. (2002). Beyond nationalist frames: Postmodernism, Hindu fundamentalism, history. Indiana University Press.
67. Sarkar, S. (2022). “MP: Elderly man, assaulted on suspicion of being Muslim, dies”. The Week, May 21, 2022, accessed July 13, 2022, https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2022/05/21/mp-elderly-man-assaulted-suspicion-being-muslim-dies.html
68. Sarkar, T. (1994). Educating the children of the Hindu Rashtra: Notes on RSS schools. South Asia Bulletin, 14 (2), 10–15.
69. Schultz, K. (2019). “Indian court convicts 6 Hindus in rape and murder of Muslim girl, 8”. New York Times, June 10, 2019, accessed January 5, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/asia/india-muslim-girl.html
70. Sen, A. (2005). The argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian history, culture and identity. Penguin Books Limited.
71. Shani, G. (2021). Towards a Hindu Rashtra: “Hindutva, religion, and nationalism in India”. Religion, State & Society, 49 (3), 264-280.
72. Sharma, R. (2004). Final solution. (Documentary about Gujarat pogrom), https://vimeo.com/329340055 (Accessed 9 May 2022).
73. Shida, W. (2020). The powerful rise of Hindu nationalism and its impact. China International Relations, 30 (3) 57-75.
74. Sikander, Z. (2021). Islamophobia in Indian media. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 6 (2), 120–129.
75. Singh, P. (2005). Hindu bias in India’s ‘secular’ constitution: Probing flaws in the instruments of governance. Third World Quarterly, 26, 909–926.
76. Siyech, M. S. and Narain, A. (2018). Beef-related violence in India: An expression of Islamophobia. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 4 (2), 181-194.
77. Snehi, Y. (2003). Hindutva as an ideology of cultural nationalism. Social Change, 33 [4(4)], 10-24.
78. Stein, B. (2010). A history of India, (ed.) David Arnold, Wiley-Blackwell.
79. Stroh, D. J. (2019). Love jihad in India’s moral imaginaries: religion, kinship, and citizenship in late liberalism. Contemporary South Asia, 27 (1), 27–39.
80. Sumra, A. H. (2020). Muslims and Islam in Indian English press: Exploring the Islamophobic Discourse. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 5 (2), 226–237.
81. Talbot, I. and Singh, G. (2009). The partition of India. Cambridge University Press.
82. Teltumbde, A. (2020). Dalits: Past, present and future, Routledge.
83. The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). (2022). https://www.rss.org/Encyc/2012/10/22/rss-vision-and-mission.html (Accessed 8 June 2022)
84. Tripathi, S. (2015, March 24). Why Hindu nationalists would rather honour Gandhi's assassin. The Independent.
85. Truschke, A. (2020). Hindutva’s dangerous rewriting of history. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ), 24/25, 1-15.
86. Tyagi, A. and Sen, A. (2020). Love-jihad (Muslim sexual seduction) and ched-chad (sexual harassment): Hindu nationalist discourses and the ideal/deviant urban citizen in India. Gender, Place & Culture, 27 (1), 104-125.
87. Vaishnav, M. (2019). Religious nationalism and India’s future. (ed.) Milan Vaishnav, The BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
88. Van der Veer, P. (1994). Religious nationalism Hindus and Muslims in India. University of California Press.
89. Van der Veer, P. (2007). Global breathing: Religious utopias in India and China. Anthropological Theory, 7 (3), 315–328.
90. Van der Veer, P. (2021). Minority rights and Hindu nationalism in India. Asian Journal of Law and Society, 8 (1), 1–12.
91. Waha, La T. (2020). Religious nationalism in South Asia building nations, breaking communities? International Reports (Nationalism), Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 37-47.
92. Waikar, P. (2018). Reading Islamophobia in Hindutva: An analysis of Narendra Modi’s political discourse. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 4 (2), 161–180.
93. Wariavwalla, B. (2000). Religion and nationalism in India Ram the God of the Hindu nation. The Round Table, 89 (357), 593-605.
94. Wazir, B. (2020). “Exclusive: Islamophobic disinformation and hate speech has swamped social media during the coronavirus pandemic,” Coda, May 21, 2020, accessed April 12, 2022, https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/exclusive-islamophobic-disinformation-and-hate-speech-has-swamped-social-media-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
95. Withnall, A. (2019). 28 November. Indian MP from Modi’s ruling party praises Gandhi’s assassin as a ‘patriot’, sparking outcry. The Independent.
96. Yasir, S. (2020, February 4). Gandhi’s killer evokes admiration as never before. The New York Times.
97. Zain, A. (2021). (Re)production of Hindutva-driven populism in India: An analysis of Bharatiya Janata Party’s political messaging in twittersphere. Asya Araştırmaları Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 5 (2), 179-194.
98. “26 March Kashi prant has highest number of shakhas in eastern UP”. The Times of India, March 27, 2021, accessed January 7, 2022, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/26-march-kashi-prant-has-highest-number-of-shakhas-in-eastern-up/articleshow/81712033.cms
99. “Former corporator’s husband beats elderly man to death in MP’s Neemuch, body recovered”. India Today, May 21, 2022, accessed June 17, 2022, https://www.indiatoday.in/india/video/former-corporator-husband-beats-elderly-man-to-death-in-mp-s-neemuch-body-recovered-1952301-2022-05-21
100. “Is Narendra Modi turning Bollywood against Muslims?”, The Economist, May 21, 2023, accessed June 12, 2023, https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/05/21/is-narendra-modi-turning-bollywood-against-muslims
101. “Top five fake news targeting Muslim community amid nationwide lockdown,” The Logical Indian, April 10, 2020, accessed May 14, 2022, https://thelogicalindian.com/news/islamophobia-covid-19-coronavirus-fake-news-muslim-tablighi-jamaat-20543