Hindutva Borders: Portraying the Invader

In the film 'Great Wall' directed by Zhang Yimou, we see a mythical and historical narrative of the nation state, which often involves a specific portrayal of the "other", and the invader. Those narratives made me think of our on colonial narratives here, in India. While Indian history confronts the colonial era broadly, our collective repression of the trauma and effects of our partition that persist to this day continue to be evident. 

In India, the "otherization" happens through this narrative of the invader which dates back to the colonial times itself. With the coming of the Narendra Modi Government and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) reign, this otherization is now as explicit as we have ever seen it to be- especially through the eyes of law itself. However, this is not a sudden emergence with the political coming of the BJP. In this short blog writing, I want to simply think about the history that pre-exists the partition itself, that eventually led to the partition, and the repercussions and fissures of which we see to this day. In specific, I am addressing the genesis of the ideas of the 'Hindutva' or the Hindu Right and the nationalist reactions to colonial enforcement through the mechanisms of religion. 

Before I begin with that, it is pertinent to clarify what it means to be speaking about religion in a highly secularized world. In the modern world where secular narratives thrive, and religion is often discarded as being that of the ancient, an insignificant mystic thought which must be done away with, rationalized and thrown away- it is important to demystify such systemic thoughts. The rapid scientific modern globalization project juxtaposes religion against science, when it is far more complex than that. Native, mystical, old, sacred narratives must be accounted for as long as they exist. If they are written off- they do not disappear. They simply appear in less visible, more secular forms- making them even more insidious to confront. 

In 1996, the Supreme Court of India declared that 'Hindutva' or 'Hinduism' are the same, and that both can be described as tolerant, assimilative cultures which constituted a 'way of life' more than a religion itself. This formed an essential problem. While Hinduism is a religion which did assimilate various cultures in the eyes of colonial law (more on this later), Hindutva was a more explicit political initiative of violence by the Hindu Right. There are two main politicians who began the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who laid down the foundational ideas of what Hindutva would constitute are Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar. 

The ideas of Hindutva itself converge with various spatial identities and are based on territoriality. Savarkar's idea was that the "fatherland" and the "holyland" must be the same. In this way, he excluded Muslims and Christians who were native to India as he believed that the Muslims must "go back to Persia or Arabia" and the Christians must head back to Europe. For Golwalkar, definitive geographical unity is what constitutes a nation which is founded on the same geography, the same race, the same religion, the same culture and the same language. When they spelt these ideas out in the early 19th century and late 19th century, they were mainly carried through the wheels of religion- in the name of Hinduism, and it was recognized for that. However, with the project of modernization, the same discourse continues but in secular terms. The history behind such modernization which occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century is also a spatial history. 

This modernized narrative focused on homogenizing and erasing religions began during the colonial period, around the late 19th century and early 20th century. ‘A History of State and Religion in India’ written by Ian Copland, Ian Mabbett, Asim Roy, Kate Brittlebank and Adam Bowles delves into this. It traces the toughening of religious borders in the late 19th century that resulted in growing religious animosity and violence between communities. The attempt to Indianize Hinduism in the present context can be traced to back then when the nationalist movements reaction from the indigenous elite was to reorganize native religions to stand against colonial patronage and protestant conversions. This reaction was designed by homogenizing Hinduism most expansively through the assimilation of various sects to militarize it with heavy numbers. Much of this was necessitated to seek legitimacy from the colonial bureaucracy as the census, public employment reservations and eligibility for franchise were all based on the recognition of a legally recognized religion. 

The word “Hindoo” itself was first coined by Evangelical Charles Grant and Monier Williams (highly quoted by our judgements) wrote the first book on ‘Hinduism’. This colonial implication is complicated with the indigenous elite’s own endearment with the scientific package of modernity in their religious reformation, and the advent of technology and networking that were re-shaping their spatial identities hand in hand with their national identities, as it became easier to “otherize” other recognized religions such as Sikhs, but most pertinently- the Muslims. It is this historicized context of not just a “divide and rule” but the homogenization of diverse practices of the sacred and mythical that have been “categorized” that has eventually led to the conception of today’s “tolerant” and "secular" Hindu. 

Imagine the late nineteenth century. Festivals such as Ganesh Puja and Ram Leela are just being made public, urban processions. The railways are becoming a more regular mode of transport. The nationalist, assimilative initiation has been triggered by politicians to put up a so-called majoritarian united front to the British colonizers. The various sects who would perform these religiosities in their own way would travel to the main spaces, urban cities to celebrate in public, these national, religious, Hindu processions. Herein, we see a spatial narrative. Herein, the Hindutva politics too can significantly be understood as a spatial politics, along with colonialism. 

The core of this is to recognize the ways in which the invader is portrayed, both from within and outside our borders. Golwalkar and Savarkar founded an ideology that alienates persons of certain religions by portraying them as invaders, based on where they are from and what they practice. In order to unite and de-alienate, we must undo these religious borders. In order to undo the religious borders, we must undo the modernized, singular and secularist narratives of perceiving the world and our country.