The ascent of majoritarianism

Due to the closure of the publishing house Westland, readers with interest in the rise and growth of Hindu national politics are advised to either head right away for the nearest well-stocked bookstore or order this masterly book online. From the time Christophe Jaffrelot’s first book on India, Hindu Nationalistic Movement and Indian Politics; 1925 to the 1990s, based on his 1991 PhD thesis, became available in India in the mid-1990s, he has been indisputably a formidable academic on this extremely important and now dominant political thought in India. At one point, it appeared that this book would not be published in India, for reasons that are not difficult to fathom.

Dr Jaffrelot has been known for his painstaking research and meticulous documentation. This attribute has been fortified because writers and journalists (now) writing with a critical gaze on the consolidation of Hindutva forces under Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014 have become progressively more cautious while being factually correct to the dot and ensuring that even half contentions are backed by sufficient references.

Modi’s India, not the book but the political entity, is not just a state, but a metaphor for the change in the way the electorally dominant section of Indians imagine the nation and themselves. It is in the period starting from 2014 that one has seen unabashed articulation of the majoritarian sentiment. Mr Modi and his foot-soldiers have fostered a sense of “vulnerability” among members of the majority Hindu community and enlisted them in the “project” to keep Muslims and Christians (to a lesser extent) “contained”. Now there are more people than ever before who consider the nation as “our country” in which “they” got a chance to move to Pakistan, and if they chose not to, then they have obviously agreed to live on “our” terms. This section of people may not be the demographic majority, but their numbers in two parliamentary elections have been sufficient to give the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a clear majority. Not just Lok Sabha polls, but the results have been similar in a large number of Assembly elections, especially in north, central, western and, surprisingly, north-eastern India. As the recently concluded elections in five states demonstrated, Modi’s India has seen the emergence of electoral choice being increasingly formed by the larger political narrative that Mr Modi and the BJP have woven and not by material conditions of the people.

Dr Jaffrelot’s book, completed well before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, is a powerful and methodically put together tome that provides comprehensive understanding and analysis of how Indians came to such a pass.

When Dr Jaffrelot’s first book became available in India, there were few books tracing the evolution and emergence of Hindu nationalists as a political force of significance. Between then and now, there have been countless books on various facets and personalities associated with this political movement and its ideology, critical appraisals, as well as hagiographic. This is one ideology backed by a cluster of organisations and parties that finds few neutral assessments because of its inherent authoritarian streak, which its supporters consider essential to redeem the pride of Hindus for injustices in history. The book is indeed a tour de force in presenting a political trajectory of the movement and its political thought from its earliest days, meticulously documenting and analysing developments over more than a century.

The first section provides a historical background and details the evolution of the Sangh Parivar, its ideology and organisation, the evolution of Mr Modi from being a party apparatchik to a nationalist and populist hero who harnessed anxiety against the single “enemy” outside and its imaginary “collaborators”. To the latter, additions were made in the Modi years, urban-naxals, leftists, liberals, sections of media and, of course, the dynasts. This combine is present as a cabal who undermine India from within and join hands with inimical forces outside.

Dr Jaffrelot provides the historical process by which lynch mobs have come to be idolised and how brigades of angry young Hindus have been raised.

In the second part, Dr Jaffrelot makes the case for writing the book —how public space has been Hindu-ised, how— as witnessed in the course of the debate over the Hijab issue—religious symbols of the majority are framed as culture while those of Muslims or other minorities are purely religious. The book details painstakingly how double standards are the new normal. In 2025, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh will complete 100 years of existence, marking the codification and crystallisation of the Hindu nationalistic idea. The latent support has been bolstered in the past 35 years on the shoulders of the agitation for the Ram temple. In Modi’s India, almost every polarising issue that gives it further strength has its roots in the Ayodhya issue. Dr Jaffrelot’s book is a scholastic yet extremely readable tool to comprehend India’s transformation.

The reviewer is an NCR-based author and journalist. His latest book is The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India. His other books include The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. @NilanjanUdwin