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Economic and Social Thought Volume 4 June 2017 Issue 2 Journal of Economic and Social Thought www.kspjournals.org Volume 4 June 2017 Issue 2 Hindutva, Neoliberalism and the Reinventing of India By Kalim SIDDIQUI1† Abstract. The 2014 parliamentary election in India reduced Congress party to merely 44 seats in the lower house, big blow for a party whose history is integral the country’s founding narrative. In the last parliamentary election the Congress party polled only 19.3% of the votes declining from 28.6% in 2009, while on the other hand the main right wing party i.e. BJP won 282 parliamentary seats and 31% of the national votes. The extreme right-wing organisations have undoubtedly become the central pole of Indian politics. Moreover, its recent success in Uttar Pradesh provincial election, which is one of the most populated province with 215 million inhabitants, is the strongest evidence yet of the broader shift to the right and the BJP’s victory in UP state strengthens this shift. This paper intends to study the recent rise of extreme right-wing Hindu organisations in India. Most prominent among these organisations are RSS, BJP, VHP, Bajang Dal and Shiv Sena. However, all of them work together under the philosophy of Hindutva (i.e. Hindu-ness) and are rabidly anti-minority in their stance. The aim of this study is to highlight the recent rise in extreme right-wing Hindu organisations and to examine their ideas and philosophy regarding Indian history and culture. It is also useful to set this against a global context in which divisive and ultra-nationalist forces are on the rise within Europe and Donald Trump has assumed the US presidency. The study argues that the adoption of neoliberal economic policy in 1991 has increased GDP, but hardly any expansion in employment, which is known as ‘jobless growth’. The study also finds the far right encroachment into India’s liberal institutions and it seems that Indian polity is undergoing a historically unprecedented change with extreme-right to dominance into vast areas of ideology, economy and culture. Keywords: India, Hindutva, Neo-liberalism, Secularism and minorities. JEL. N30, N35, N40. 1. Introduction his paper examines the socio-economic basis of right-wing political activism by Hindu organisations in India. Most prominent among these organisations T are RSS, BJP, VHP, Bajang Dal and Shiv Sena. However, all of them work together under the philosophy of Hindutva (i.e. Hindu-ness) and are rabidly anti- minority in their stance. Since the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) came to power in India in 2014, its ministers and senior party leaders have been coming out in support of the Hindu rastra (Hindu nation). They have stepped up their campaign against mixed-marriage with Muslims and have sought to rewrite textbooks to reflect the ideas of the RSS (RastriyaSevak Sangh, literally the Association of National Volunteers) (Sen, 2015). This study intends to analyse the ideas and philosophy of the RSS on the basis of the organisation’s publications and public statements made by its leader. The aim of this study is to highlight the recent rise in extreme right-wing Hindu organisations and to examine their ideas and philosophy regarding Indian history and culture. It is also useful to set this against a global context in which divisive and ultra-nationalist forces are on the rise within Europe and Donald Trump has 1† University of Huddersfield, Department of Strategy and Economics, West Yorkshire, UK. +44-1484-422-288 . [email protected] Journal of Economic and Social Thought assumed the US presidency. Therefore, it is important to study Hindu nationalists whose divisive views are well known. In the past Hindutva organisations have campaigned against minorities and have also often been found to have been involved in violent attacks against them and in propagating false information to create further misconceptions about these groups. For this reason, minorities in India feel insecure. (Sen, 2015) The 2014 parliamentary election reduced Congress party to merely 44 seats in the lower house, big blow for a party whose history is integral the country’s founding narrative. In the last parliamentary election the Congress party polled only 19.3% of the votes declining from 28.6% in 2009, while on the other hand the main right wing party i.e. BJP won 282 parliamentary seats and 31% of the national votes. The extreme right-wing organisations have undoubtedly become the central pole of the Indian politics. Moreover, its recent success in Uttar Pradesh provincial election, which is one of the most populated province with 215 million inhabitants, is the strongest evidence yet of the broader shift to the right and the BJP’s victory in UP state strengthens this shift. The BJP is the political front of the RSS and most of the BJP leaders, including the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have been members of the RSS. Even before becoming Prime Minister, Modi had reaffirmed his commitment to Hindutva: ‚The nation and Hindus are one. Only if Hindus develop will the nation develop. Unity of Hindus will strengthen the nation‛ (Organiser February 11, 2007 cited in Noorani, 2015). BJP and RSS are fully committed to the ideology of Hindutva, which is deeply rooted in hatred of India’s religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians. At present, the RSS has millions of members spread throughout most parts of India with more than 50,000 shakhas (branches). It also runs thousands of schools where young minds are poisoned with hate against Muslims. In Uttar Pradesh State alone, there are some 20,000 RSS-controlled shishumandir schools which teach that the Muslims and Christians are unreliable people stirring up hatred against both Muslims and Christians, with children being taught that both these groups are foreigners and outsiders. (Oza, 2007) This study is important because the RSS is too politically significant to be ignored and since its political wing has come to power i.e. the BJP attacks against Muslims have risen sharply. Cultural issues such as cow slaughter and the building of a Ram temple at Ayodhya have been raised again by the RSS as a means of dividing communities and keeping Muslims in a state of constant fear and insecurity. The RSS/BJP also claims that mosques at Kashi (also known as Varanasi) and Mathura are disputed places of worship. Since the BJP came to power in May 2014, religious minorities have begun to feel more insecure and vulnerable. Even government ministers and members of parliament have openly aired communalist (i.e. reactionary and divisive) sentiments, making hate speeches and inciting violence against minorities. In a recent public meeting, the BJP Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj is reported to have said that ‚Good days have come; now those with four wives and 40 children should not be allowed in the country‛ (cited in Vijayan & Gabriel, 2015: 22). The BJP leaders continue to spread false information about Muslims. They are also threatening to launch a ghar-wapsi (return home) programme, i.e. enforced conversion of religious minorities back to Hinduism. As London based Economist (2015) commented: The BJP’s election victory last year was attributed to its promise of competence and good governance. It persuaded enough voters that the Hindu- nationalist part of its agenda and the shadow over […] past allegations of his [Modi’s] complicity in anti-Muslim violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002 were marginal. Now many worry that Hindu nationalism is a pillar of Mr Modi’s vision, after all (Economist, 2015:71). The BJP’s ghar wapsi (return to your home) campaign seems to be a contemporary version of the Shudhi (purification) movement. Swami Dayananda, who started Arya Samaj in 1875, organised Shudhi rituals and was seen as the JEST, 4(2), K. Siddiqui, p.142-186. 143 Journal of Economic and Social Thought architect of Hindu revivalism. The Arya Samaj attempted the reconversion of untouchables (now known as Dalits) who had become Muslims or Christians in Punjab. For Swami Dayananda, the Hindu Varna system was a model for social cohesion to which each caste should adhere, including Dalits, after they underwent the process of Shudhi (Jaffrelot, 1996). The problem of communalism2 in India can be understood as a problem of community relation between Hindus and the Muslim minority. Prejudice and violence amongst India’s religious communities did not decline after the creation of Pakistan and independence (Siddiqui, 2013). If anything, the task of reassessing this situation and looking for a deeper understanding of it is even more important than it was previously. In the Indian context, communalism is defined as the ‘political use’ of religion. The paper seeks to examine why religious identity in India became so politicised in the late 1980s. Communalism is very much a ruling class politics, as it reflects an underlying relationship between class and power relations. The struggle against communalism should be linked with a much wider struggle against the existing social order, as Singh (1990:19) stresses that, ‚Communalism in contemporary India, as ideology and practice, is above all an aspect of the politics of the ruling classes in a society with a massive feudal- colonial inheritance, deep religious divisions, and undergoing its own, historically specific form of capitalist development‛. Also we should not ignore the fact that since the 1980s socio-economic changes have taken place in the northern Indian cities, where a sizeable Muslim population live and work in handicrafts and small-scale industries. Some members of this community have migrated to the Middle East where the demand for their products has increased since the oil boom in that region. These developments have disturbed traditional patterns in which Muslim artisans were dependent on Hindu traders, both to sell their finished products and to provide them with the capital they needed.
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