34 min
Religion, Democracy, and Hindu Nationalism: Ashutosh Varshney Sensing the Sacred
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- Religion & Spirituality
In the past decade, India has seen the resurgence of Hindu nationalism, a political ideology of “Hindu-ness,” expressed by the neo-Sanskrit term Hindutva. Hindutva envisions India—a country where Hindus are the majority in terms of numbers—as a rightfully Hindu nation; Hindu nationalists feel threatened by minority groups, especially India’s Muslims. Riding this momentum is the current prime minister, Narendra Modi, who’s fanned the flames of identity politics throughout his career and now governs with a Hindutva worldview, with policies that critics call anti-Muslim. To learn more, I sat down with Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also directs the Center for Contemporary South Asia. With Indian elections underway—and in a moment when ethnic nationalisms are on the upswing around the world—I wanted to talk with Ashu about how religion has contributed to this Hindu nationalist turn.
Find out more about the this podcast and the Center for Contemporary South Asia at our show page. You can check out other podcasts from the Watson Institute here. We’re eager for your feedback and support: please subscribe and then rate the show on your favorite platforms so that others can find us. You can email us at southasia@brown.edu.
Show Notes
This episode refers to political acronyms, specialized terms, public figures, and recent events, including:
-Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, intellectual father of Hindu nationalism who coined the term Hindutva
-pitṛbhūmi and punyabhūmi, neo-Sanskrit terms for “fatherland” and “holy land”
-BJP Bharatiya Janata Party, India’s Hindu nationalist ruling party
-RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, leading Hindu nationalist volunteer organization
-OBC Other backward class, bureaucratic label for socially disadvantaged castes and groups
-SBM Swacch Bharat Mission, Modi’s sanitation and hygiene initiative
-ahiṃsā “non-violence” in Sanskrit
-BSP Bahujan Samaj Party, made up of lower caste groups
-SP Samajwadi Party, socialist party
-Dravidian movement, advocates of ethnic identity made up of Dravidian language-speakers groups in South India
-Yogi Adityanath, Hindu monk and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh
-CAA Citizenship Amendment Act, extending to citizenship to religious minorities (excluding Mulsims)
-pogrom, the massacre of ethnic or religious group
-Farmers’ Protests, ongoing protests to reform agricultural regulations
-Bangalore climate activist Disha Ravi was arrested in February 2021
-IAS Indian Administrative Service
-JNU Jawaharlal Nehru University
Some additional references of interest:
-On religious leaders in Indian politics, Prof. Varshney cites Rajesh Pradhan, When the Saints Go Marching In: The Curious Ambivalence of Religious Sadhus in Recent Politics in India (Black Swan, 2014).
-On “Sanskritization,” see M.N. Srinivas, “A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 15.4 (1956): 481-96.
-As of 2021, Freedom House has rated India as “partly free.”
-On “democratic backsliding,” see Prof. Varshney’s recent column for the Indian Express.
In the past decade, India has seen the resurgence of Hindu nationalism, a political ideology of “Hindu-ness,” expressed by the neo-Sanskrit term Hindutva. Hindutva envisions India—a country where Hindus are the majority in terms of numbers—as a rightfully Hindu nation; Hindu nationalists feel threatened by minority groups, especially India’s Muslims. Riding this momentum is the current prime minister, Narendra Modi, who’s fanned the flames of identity politics throughout his career and now governs with a Hindutva worldview, with policies that critics call anti-Muslim. To learn more, I sat down with Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also directs the Center for Contemporary South Asia. With Indian elections underway—and in a moment when ethnic nationalisms are on the upswing around the world—I wanted to talk with Ashu about how religion has contributed to this Hindu nationalist turn.
Find out more about the this podcast and the Center for Contemporary South Asia at our show page. You can check out other podcasts from the Watson Institute here. We’re eager for your feedback and support: please subscribe and then rate the show on your favorite platforms so that others can find us. You can email us at southasia@brown.edu.
Show Notes
This episode refers to political acronyms, specialized terms, public figures, and recent events, including:
-Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, intellectual father of Hindu nationalism who coined the term Hindutva
-pitṛbhūmi and punyabhūmi, neo-Sanskrit terms for “fatherland” and “holy land”
-BJP Bharatiya Janata Party, India’s Hindu nationalist ruling party
-RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, leading Hindu nationalist volunteer organization
-OBC Other backward class, bureaucratic label for socially disadvantaged castes and groups
-SBM Swacch Bharat Mission, Modi’s sanitation and hygiene initiative
-ahiṃsā “non-violence” in Sanskrit
-BSP Bahujan Samaj Party, made up of lower caste groups
-SP Samajwadi Party, socialist party
-Dravidian movement, advocates of ethnic identity made up of Dravidian language-speakers groups in South India
-Yogi Adityanath, Hindu monk and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh
-CAA Citizenship Amendment Act, extending to citizenship to religious minorities (excluding Mulsims)
-pogrom, the massacre of ethnic or religious group
-Farmers’ Protests, ongoing protests to reform agricultural regulations
-Bangalore climate activist Disha Ravi was arrested in February 2021
-IAS Indian Administrative Service
-JNU Jawaharlal Nehru University
Some additional references of interest:
-On religious leaders in Indian politics, Prof. Varshney cites Rajesh Pradhan, When the Saints Go Marching In: The Curious Ambivalence of Religious Sadhus in Recent Politics in India (Black Swan, 2014).
-On “Sanskritization,” see M.N. Srinivas, “A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 15.4 (1956): 481-96.
-As of 2021, Freedom House has rated India as “partly free.”
-On “democratic backsliding,” see Prof. Varshney’s recent column for the Indian Express.
34 min