24 Hindu Nationalism

Kumud Ranjan

epgp books

 

Introduction:

 

Conceptual Understanding:

 

This module deals with the theme of ‘Hindu Nationalism’ and its sociological analysis. This analysis would require a socio-historical understanding of Hinduism and deployment of the term in context of ‘religion’. In this module the idea of Hindu Nationalism has discussed starting with the conceptual category of Nationalism which has been discussed in detail. The essay further investigates in the early phases of Hindu Nationalism at the ideological level along with Organisational structure. It talks about the different ideological, political and social strategy which has been used by the groups belonging to the category of Hindu Nationalism.

 

Max Weber examines the nation as ‘prestige community’, endowed with a sense of cultural mission Nations, he claims, are too various to be defined in terms of any one criterion, but he affiliates nation to ethnic communities as populations unified by a myth of common descent. What distinguishes the nation is a commitment to a political project.1

 

Clifford Geertz, from an anthropological perspective, indicates that there are two competing yet complementary components- ethnic and civic- in the nationalism of post-colonial states The ethnic dimension is portrayed as a commitment to ‘primordial’ loyalties which endow individuals with a distinctive identity; the civic as a desire for citizenship in a modern state. Since state and ethnic boundaries often clash, the result is endemic conflict.2

 

In contrast, Anthony Giddens presents an unambiguously statist definition of the nation described here as a ‘bordered power­container’. This and much else is the subject of a critique by walker connor, who rejects tendencies to equate nation with state, and nationalism with state patriotism. Like Weber, he defines the nation as a community of descent, but distinguishes it from ethnic communities by its degree of

 

1 John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism, OUP, 1994, PP-15 self­consciousness; whereas ethnic group may be other-defined, a nation must be self defined. 3

 

Ideology is defined by Lloyd Fallers as ‘that part of culture’ which is actively concerned with the establishment and defense of patterns of belief and value. Ideology is thus apologetic part of culture. It is intended mainly to create a sense of national self-esteem. This approach is not ‘primordialist’ because culture is not considered here as static ‘given’ but as subject to reinterpretation. 4

 

In this context it has been argued by Jaffrelot that neither Geertz nor fallers places sufficient emphasis on the social background of reinterpreters who shape ideologies. This factor deserves greater attention because the major aim of these leaders is to adjust the outward expression of their discourse in order to preserve what they consider to be the basic values and identity of society. Their choices are determined by both cultural framework and social status; thus Hindu nationalism largely reflects the Brahmanical view of the high caste reformers who shape its ideology.5

 

In this context the explanatory model of Anthony Smith for the emergence of ethnic nationalism proves very useful. According to Smith ethnic nationalism start from ‘a recognisable cultural unit, their primary concern being to ‘ensure the survival of the group’s cultural identity’. 6

 

Hindu Nationalism: Ideology and Strategy:

 

Borrowing from Geertz definition of ‘Ideology’ Jaffrelot tries to argue that how ‘Hindu Nationalism’ originated and developed as an Ideology. According to Geertz ideology is ‘Symbolic Strategy’ evolved in a society by modernization process. The term in this perspective tries to that part of culture which is actively and explicitly concerned with the establishment and defense of value and belief. And even the concept of Nationalism is an ideology following the definition. Jaffrelot writes here further in this context:

 

“This theoretical perspective emphasizes the ‘instrumentalist idea of manipulative reinterpretations of cultural material, nevertheless the model remains predominantly

 

3   ibid

4   Christophe Jaffrelot (1993) The Hindu nationalist Movement and Indian Politics 1925 to 1990s: Strategies

of Identity-Building, Implantation and Mobilisation (With special reference to Central India) Penguin Books

India, New Delhi, pp:12-13

5   ibid

6   ibid

 

‘cultural’ since the major aim of reinterpreters is to adjust the outward expression of ideology while preserving the basic values and identity of society. 7

 

Hindu Nationalism: Invention of Tradition and Reform Movements

 

This perspective reflects on the idea that how tradition was reinvented in context of emergence of Hindu nationalist Ideology. Jaffrelot believes that if it is possible to analyze this as a subcategory of that can be used as sub category of this invention process. This sub category can be called ‘Strategic Syncretism’. It is because the content of this ideology has been supplied to a large extent by material taken from the cultural values of groups who were seen antagonistic towards the Hindu community. Further Jaffrelot argues that this ‘Syncretism’ is ‘strategic’ because it underlies an ideology that aims to dominate the others, in terms of prestige and also based on socio-political lines. He believes that his hypothesis can be tested based on three significant and cumulative episodes. First one is the shaping of socio-religious movements, birth of Hindu Mahasabha in the wake of Khilafat movement and the ideological development of ‘RSS Complex’.8

 

In context of the first episode of religious movement we can certainly look at the reform movement of Brahmo Samaj in 1828 under the leadership of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. His reading of Upanishads seems to be influenced by “a more rigid monotheism of the people of the book” since the philosophy of the “the speculative Brahmin” tended to be replaced by a rational theism.9

 

According to Jaffrelot the approach of Roy is ‘syncretic’ because he endeavors to reform Hinduism by resorting to precepts of Christianity and western rationalism; but this syncretism proves to be strategic since Roy claims that he draws this neo-Hinduism from a purely indigenous golden age which enables him to rehabilitate the Hindu identity scoffed at by the Europeans. This is one of the first building blocks of a pre-nationalist ideology evolved to resist foreign aggressions seen as most dangerous for the native cultural equilibrium. However, this process enters its phase of maturity after the emergence of another socio-religious reform movement, the Arya Samaj.

 

The emergence of Arya Samaj:

 

Arya Samaj was founded by Swami Dayananda in 1875 after being influenced by Brahmo Samajists in Calcutta. He institutionalized the idea of a Vedic monotheism and joined in the criticism of the idolatry of popular Hinduism raised by popular Christian

 

7   Christophe Jaffrelot (1993) Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building, Economic and

Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 12/13 (Mar. 20-27, 1993), pp. 517-524.

8   ibid

9   ibid

 

missionaries. Dayanand argued and believed that the so called Vedic caste system was presented by as much more flexible than the one then current in India. Indeed, he maintained that ‘jati’ did not exist in the Vedic times but that the prevalent social organization then was Varna system.

 

References to the four varnas do exist in the Rig Veda, the earliest of the vedic texts; in the hymn X-90, relating a famous foundation myth allegory, to be born out of the sacrifice of the primordial man (‘Virat Purusha’): “the Brahmin (priest) was his mouth, his arm was made the Kshatriya (warrior), his thighs became the Vaishya and from his feet the Shudra (servant) was made”. This fourfold schema is an ideal, normative one, whose relationship to social practice is not very well known, but it clearly implies a hierarchical structure based upon ritual distinctions: like in the jati system, the Brahman and the Shudra stand poles apart in the social organisation. 10

 

Dayananda described these four Vedic ‘classes’ as merely born out of the collectivity needs in terms of socio-economic complementarity, claiming further that status distinctions came at a later stage. He legitimises the caste system under the garb of so-called ancestral Varna incorporating certain individualistic values. Dayananda’s reformism, far from contesting the social system tries to protect its equilibrium, as confirmed by his recommendation relating to the strict endogamy of Varna. It is easy to recognise here the same process of Ideological reconstruction theorised by Geertz and Fallers: the Arya Samaj tries to evolve an ideology likely to vindicate an identity threatened by the criticism against one of its major pillars-like the caste system or, generally speaking, by the negation of its ‘cultural quality’. Here, the building of a tradition through the invention of a golden age seems to be the natural formulation of a pre-nationalist ideology.11

 

This ‘invention of tradition’ by the socio-religious reform movements is of a special type because it is provoked by and modelled on the antagonist’s culture in its raison d’etre and in its content. Ram Mohan Roy and Dayananda ‘discover’ in the Vedas what they need to resist the western influences. This is an ideology of strategic syncretism: syncretism because there is a strong intention to reform one’s society through the assimilation of western values consistent with the Hindu cultural equilibrium; and strategic syncretism since the equilibrium in question remains the prime concern. This strategy combines two dimensions, the first one being directed towards ‘psychological’ demands, the second one concerning ‘mimetic’ aspects of ideology building. Recovering

 

10  Christophe Jaffrelot (1993) Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building, Economic and

Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 12/13 (Mar. 20-27, 1993), pp. 517-524.

11  Christophe Jaffrelot (1993) Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building, Economic and

Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 12/13 (Mar. 20-27, 1993), pp. 517-524.

 

self esteem: In claiming that vedic society was at least as monotheistic and as respectful of the individual as the Christian west, the socio-religious reform movements attributed-syncretic phase- to their history the prestigious values the Europeans were so proud of-first strategic moment-and try to legitimise at the same time-second strategic moment-cultural institutions like the caste system under the idealised garb of the Varna. Underlying these arguments, a major aspect of the reformers’ message was: there was no need to leave Hinduism because of rationalist scepticism or to be converted, since this religion, in its pristine purity, had the same virtues as Christianity and the modern science. 12

 

The only relevant objective is to reestablish this golden age of Hinduism, and especially its Varna system. The sociological basis of this ideological strategy is easy to trace. Among the Hindus, the persons most willing to protect the cultural equilibrium belong to the high caste elite, not only because they aspire to preserve a privileged position but also because they alone seem to have an overall view of their society. The Varna model expounded in the Vedas, with its organicist emphasis on the harmony of a complementary social system is most likely a Brahmanic creation. Indeed, the leaders of the socio-religious reform movements come mainly from the high caste intelligentsia (Ram Mohan Roy was a Brahmin whose knowledge of English enabled him to work in the East India Company administration and Dayananda, a Gujarati Brahmin, came from an orthodox milieu.13

 

Hindu Mahasabha: Socio-Political History

 

Though the Hindu Sabhas entered into a federal structure in the second decade of this century in northern India, the Hindu Mahasabha was effectively launched, as an ideological pressure group within the Congress party in 1922, very largely in reaction to the Hindu-Muslim riots that broke out in the wake of the Khilafat movement. In 1921, on the Malabar coast the Moplahs (Muslim descendants of 9th century Arab merchants) provoked violence and forcible conversions that had a traumatic (and catalytic) effect on the Hindu Sabhaites especially on leaders of the Arya Samaj: a context of aggression similar to a certain extent, to the one created by western penetration, provoked an analogous reaction. Indeed, the ideological discourse propagated from the Hindu Mahasabha tribune until the mid-1920s, during the Hindu Sangathan (Hindu organisation) movement, reproduced the ‘strategic syncretism’ mechanism. 14

 

12  ibid

13  Christophe Jaffrelot (1993) Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building, Economic and

Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 12/13 (Mar. 20-27, 1993), pp. 517-524.

14  ibid

 

At this stage, Hindu nationalists were inclined to identify certain values which they regarded as the basis of the Muslims’ strength and solidarity, such as an avoidance of sectarian divisions, an emphasis on social cohesion, and to insist that these values could also be established within sect- and caste-ridden Hindu community whose members continued to be described by the British as weak.-‘ But this process of assimilating aspects of the other was still undertaken under the cover of reestablishing a mythical golden age and it remained subordinated to a hierarchical view of society.15

 

RSS AS A HINDU NATIONALIST SECT :

 

Like the Hindu Mahasabha the RSS took shape, in 1925, in reaction to Hindu- Muslim riots. Founded by one of Moonjes lieutenants in Nagpur, Hedgewar, its aim was also to consolidate the Hindu nation through a psycho-social reform involving some assimilation of the other’s equalitarian values. The method which it used, however, appeared to be much more relevant. For Hedgewar, such an assimilation could not be achieved within the framework of a reinterpreted Varna system since it was still a division-true, fourfold only-of the Hindu nation,37 so it attempted to create an ethic of selfless individualism which could provide the basis for a more inclusive and cohesive form of Hindu nationalism. The RSS was thus supposed to become a sort of Hindu nationalist spearhead based on individual solidarity. Its syncretism (the import of egalitarian values typical of the European nationalism and the Muslim communal fraternity) was strategic because it aimed at building a Hindu nation strong enough to resist these ‘foreigners’ and because it was seen as a mere elaboration of the familiar, indigenous sectarian pattern.16

 

Marcel Mauss in his work starts an explanation by asking that what sort of society deserves to be called a nation. He defines nation as follows “ A society materially and morally integrated, with a stable and permanent central authority, with determinate borders, whose inhabitants possess a relative moral, mental, and cultural unity and consciously adhere to the state and its laws.

 

As we all are aware today that what initially started as awakening of ‘Hindu Society’ to protect the cultural and geographical identity moved ahead in future with the rise and aspirations of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It was founded by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar This was also followed by the other establishments which certainly includes the institutionalization of Hindu Mahasabha in 1909 followed by the formation

 

15  Christophe Jaffrelot (1993) Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 12/13 (Mar. 20-27, 1993), pp. 517-524.

16  ibid

 

of All Indian Muslim League in 1906 and then also reform movement of Arya Samaj which began in 1875 by Swami Dayanand Saraswati.

 

Jaffrelot writes in his work ‘The Sangh Parivar: A Reader’ :

 

In his book, Hindutva. Who is Hindu? (1923) , Savarkar considers that the Indian National identity is embodied in the Hindu Culture, which compasses not only Hinduism-as a religion-but also a language, Sanskrit (and its main vernacular derivative, Hindi), the worship of Hindustan as a Sacred land and the cult of the Vedic golden Age. His motto was ‘Hindu, Hindi, Hindusthan!’ In Savarkar’s views the religious minorities are requested to pay allegiance to this dominant identity and hold back the manifestations of their faith within the private sphere. (2005: 1).

 

Jaffrelot further argues that a recurrent theme in belief systems is the identification of hostile forces which plot against the nation and which are responsible for the ‘disruptive’ strains in the country. These forces are often identified with particular social groups, who are usually defined as different, united and powerful. RSS writers identify two general types of potentially ‘disruptive’ forces in contemporary Indian Society: (a) Muslims and Christians who propagate values that might result in the denationalization of their adherents, and (b) the ‘westernized’ elite who propose capitalism, socialism, or communism as solutions for Indian Development.

 

Christians consider themselves a community, and it is this community orientation and not the dogma itself that is considered a possible impediment to their identification with the larger nation. RSS writers allege that Christian values have tended to distance Christians culturally from the national mainstream in some parts of the country. From this proposition, a subproposition is deduced: because some Christians do not consider themselves culturally Indian, they do not experience a sense of community with other Indians. One could phrase the proposition in the more esoteric terms of the belief system: because Christians are culturally different, they have separated themselves from the ‘national soul’.

 

Jaffrelot cites an example where students who are taught in Christian schools of a tribal area in north eastern India are typically western and has no relation with Indian environment. It is these students who later demand for an ‘Independent Nagaland’.

 

The case against Islam follows similar trajectory. But Islam is viewed as a more serious problem because of the size of the Muslim community, the recent history of the communal animosity between Hindus and Muslims and also due to the existence of Muslim states   in   the  subcontinent.

 

They look foreign lands as their holy places. They call themselves ‘Sheiks’ and ‘Syeds’. Sheiks and Syeds are certain clans in Arabia. How then did these people come to feel that they are their descendants? That is because they have cut off all their ancestral national moorings of this land and mentally merged themselves with the aggressors. They still think that they have come here only to conquer and establish their kingdoms.

 

Paraphrasing a leading RSS publicist Andersen and Sridhar writes that democracy and capitalism join hands to give a free reign to exploitation; socialism replaced capitalism and brought with it an end to democracy and individual freedom.

 

The RSS belief system is often described as conservative and reactionary. There is little doubt that it represents a form of Hindu nationalism. However, the belief system and practice of the RSS do not support the aristocratic order, the dominant caste in the Varna System, and the landed and industrial magnates. The RSS defense of Hinduism is sometimes interpreted as support for orthodoxy or for the feudal aristocracy; its anti-communism is considered by same as a defense of the higher classes and capitalism. However, few RSS leaders subscribe to such views. Indeed, there is an egalitarian to much RSS writing and practice. Speaking of the caste system Golwalkar writes:

 

The feeling of inequality, of High and low, which has crept into the Varna system, is comparatively of recent origin. But in its original form, the distinctions in the social order did not imply any discrimination of big or small high or low among its constituents. On the other hand, the Gita tells that the individual who does his assigned duties in life in a spirit of selfless service only worships God through such performances.

 

In context of RSS Brahmanism and its Social Contradiction it has been argued that however, the egalitarian nature of the RSS was contradicted by the fact that for a long period of time it has been associated with high castes. The organization had been founded and developed by Maharashtrian Brahmins. Hedgewar came from a Telugu Brahmin family long resident in Nagpur and Golwalkar was a Karhada Brahmin and all the early swayamsevaks were Brahmins. In his diary, Moonje himself a Deshastha Brahmin referred to RSS members as ‘Brahmin Youths’ or ‘Brahmin lads’.17

 

VS Savarkar had codified the ideology of ‘Hindutva’ after borrowing its ethnic nationalism from the west. Hedgewar undertook to implement it by providing Hindu nationalism with the Social model of the Hindu nation and more immediately with a solid organization. In this context he emulated western individualistic values under the pretext of reinterpreting the other worldly individualism inherent in the Hindu tradition of

 

17 Christophe Jaffrelot (Ed.) (2005) The Sangh Parivar: A Reader, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp-60-65.

 

asceticism. Thus the religious and more precisely sectarian appearance of the RSS can probably be explained by the fact that Hedgewar and Golwalkar found in the institutions associated with asceticism a means of developing the sociological structure of an egalitarian, united nation.18

 

The Pervasiveness of the Brahmanical ethic in the ideology and practices of the RSS was probably the main reason why it failed to attract support from the low castes.19 RSS followed Sanskritized Hindu culture and championed the high tradition and even the techniques are very much related to Brahminical culture. There was anxiousness to transform this Hindu character into a nationalist ideology and Hedgewar believed that it is important that Shakhas20 should be inspired by the Hindu samskaras which is considered to be a Brahmanical concept.

 

The German influence and sources of the Hindu nationalist ideology:

 

Marzia Casolari in her article writes the inspiration and influence of Italian Fascism on Hindu radicalism from the early 1920s. She argues that it mainly after BS Moonje’s trip to Italy in 1931 and then later he attempted to transfer these values into Hindu Society and organized it militarily based on fascist patterns.

 

She argues that the interest of Hindu nationalist in fascism and Mussolini must not be considered as dictated by occasional curiosity confined to a few individuals. It should be understood as culminating result of the attention that Hindu Nationalists, especially in Maharashtra focused on Italian dictatorship and its leader. Fascism appeared to be an example of conservative revolution for the Hindu nationalists. This concept was discussed at great length by the Marathi Press since the early phase of the fascist regime.

 

Marathi journalists were impressed by the socialist origin of the fascism and the fact that the new regime has been able to transform the Italy into a new first class power from a backward country. The Indian observers were convinced with the fact that fascism had been able to restore the order from political conflicts and tensions.

 

The Marathi newspaper Kesari gave considerable space to the political reforms carried out by Mussolini, in particular the substitution of the election of the members of parliament with their nomination and the replacement of parliament itself with the great council of Fascism. Mussolini’s idea was the opposite of that of democracy and it was

 

18  Christophe Jaffrelot (Ed.) (2005) The Sangh Parivar: A Reader, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp:6-

65

19    Ibid, pp:90

20  Shakha means branch: in the RSS arrangement it still designates the basic unit of the whole edifice. It is both a place and a social group: every day the members of one shakha meet at the same place for accomplishing physical exercise and to listen to ideological sermons.

 

expressed by the dictator’s principle. According to this principle ‘One’s man government is more useful and more binding’ for the nation than the democratic institutions. Is all this not reminiscent of the principle of ‘obedience to one leader’ (‘ek chalak anuvartitva’) followed by the RSS. 21

 

She further writes that by late 1920s the fascist regime and Mussolini were already very popular in Maharashtra. The aspect of fascism which appealed most to Hindu Nationalists were the militarization of society which was seen as the real transformation of society, exemplified by the shift from chaos to order. The anti-democratic system was considered as positive alternative to democracy which was seen as typically British value.

 

In the same context Jaffrelot writes that how Golwalkar’s book ‘We or Our Nationhood’ defined gave the RSS the charter it had previously lacked. Even more obviously than Savarkar’s Hindutva, it reveals the strategy of stigmatization and emulation of ‘threatening others’ at work. Paraphrasing Golwalkar Jaffrelot writes that on the one hand Golwalkar stigmatizes the ‘semi­barbaric life’ of the chief nations of the world which contrast with the situation of India and on the other he expresses inferiority complex vis-à-vis western countries.

 

Golwalkar repeatedly indicts congress for ‘the amazing theory that the nation is composed of all those for one reason or the other happens to live at the time in the country. He referred to the example of failure of Czechoslovakia as a multi-national state after the annexation of Germany. He used this argument justifying ‘the fears of many political scholars, regarding the wisdom of heaping together in one state element conflicting with the national life. Here Jaffrelot is trying to point out those political scientists to whom he refers repeatedly and seems that his inspiration is from German writers.

 

Golwalkar quotes at length the definition of the nation proposed by the famous German writer Johann Kaspar Bluntschli:

 

“It is a union of masses of men of different occupations and social states, in a hereditary society of common spirit, feeling and race bound together especially by a language and customs in a common civilization which gives them a sense of unity and distinction from all foreigners, quite apart from the bond of the state.”22

 

21  Casolari, Marzia (2000) Hindutva’s Foreign Tie-up in the 1930s: Archival Evidence, EPW, Vol – XXXV No. 04, Pg no.219.

22  Christophe Jaffrelot (Ed.) (2005) The Sangh Parivar: A Reader, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,pp:70

 

Bluntschli differentiates the German view of Nation from that of the English and the French in the following terms:

 

In English the word ‘People’, like the French ‘Peuple’ implies the notion of a civilization, which the Germans (like old Romans in the word ‘nation’) express in Nation. Etymology is in favour of German usage, for the word nation (from nasci) points to birth and race.23

 

Bluntschli criticized the idea of social contract because ‘A mere arbitrary combination of men has never given rise to a people. In contrast he emphasizes that ‘The essence of a people lies in its civilization (Kultur).

 

Golwalkar refers to other political scientists who adopt similar point of view of the nation. According to Zaffrelot Golwalkar borrowed this inspiration from Burgess who again was inspired by the Bluntschli. Burgess writes that ‘A population of an ethnic unity, inhabiting a territory of a geographic unity is a nation. He also borrows from RG Gettell and A.N. Holocombe. Holocombe criticizes the definition of Burgess on the grounds of racism with an approach of more liberal view of nationalism. He considers that the ‘cultural unity’ is the most fundamental characteristics of nationalism. Most of the books in this context mentioned by Golwalkar were German and talked about German ethnic nationalism.24

 

Golwalkar also applied this nationalist ethnic reasoning to the Muslim minority, which posed a threat not only because it enjoyed the backing of a whole series of Islamic states but also because it was a ‘foreign body’ lodged into Muslim leader, Maulana Mohammed Ali, who had died abroad to direct his remains to be taken not to the land which had fostered him and his forefathers before him, but to the foreign land of Mecca. He argues that Muslims take themselves to be the conquering invaders and grasp for power and therefore Hindus are at war at once with the Moslems on the one hand and the British on the other.25

 

23  Ibid,pp:71

24    Christophe Jaffrelot (Ed.) (2005) The Sangh Parivar: A Reader, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,pp:71.

25  Ibid, pp:74

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Reference bibliography

 

Books:

 

●     Aloysius, G (1998) Nationalism Without a Nation In India, Oxford University Press, USA

●     Desai, AR 1986 (2005) Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Popular Prakshan Ltd., India

●     Jaffrelot, Christophe (2007) Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, Princeton University Press, USA.

●     Jaffrelot, Christophe (1998) The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India, Columbia University Press, USA.

(first Published 1995)

●     Jaffrelot, Christophe (Ed.) (2005) The Sangh Parivar: A Reader, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

●     Jaffrelot, Christophe (1993) The Hindu nationalist Movement and Indian Politics 1925 to 1990s: Strategies

of Identity-Building, Implantation and Mobilisation (With special reference to Central India) Penguin Books

India, New Delhi.

●     Hutchinson John  &  Anthony D. Smith (1994) Nationalism, OUP.

●     Sarkar, Sumit (1989) Modern India: 1885­1947, St. Martin’s Press

●     Sarkar, Sumit (1999) Writing Social History, Oxford University Press.

●     Sarkar, Sumit (2001) Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History,

Indiana University Press.

●     Savarkar, Vinayak (1923) Hindutva, Veer Savarkar Prakshan, Bombay.

 

Articles:

 

●     Casolari, Marzia (2000) Hindutva’s Foreign Tie-up in the 1930s: Archival Evidence, Vol – XXXV No. 04,

Accessed: 27th May, 2015 URL: http://www.epw.in/special-articles/hindutvas-foreign-tie-1930s.html

●     Jaffrelot, Christophe (1993) Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building, Economic and

Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 12/13 (Mar. 20-27, 1993), pp. 517-524. Accessed: 24th May, 2015 URL:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4399528

  • King, Richard (1999) Orientalism and the Modern Myth of “Hinduism”, Numen, Vol. 46, No. 2 (1999), pp. 146-185.Accessed: 24th May, 2015URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3270313
  • Jaffrelot, Christophe (1993) Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 12/13 (Mar. 20-27, 1993), pp. 517-524. Accessed: 24th May, 2015 URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4399528 Magazines:

 

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