made possible through the decision of Hindus. This was clear in their portrayal
of the tests in religious-ideological terms, characteristically anti-Islamic. The
Hindu bomb would forever show the strength of India against Pakistan. Many
of them seemed genuinely surprised when (as everyone else had expected)
Pakistan, with massive Chinese assistance, managed a symbolic response
through its own tests. The BJP-in-government was not unhappy about this
response. It helped for the moment to heal divisions within the Parivar, brought
about through unhappiness over the BJP’s economic and social pragmatism. But
it was not entirely happy either, wishing to use the tests to play more widely to
Indian nationalism. The Defense Minister, from an allied party with a strong sec-
ularist base, claimed that the tests were meant to signal Indian preparedness
against China. While this articulation was diplomatically unwise, it was part of
the larger concern to present the tests as simply part of an Indian coming-of-age
on the international scene, not a narrow anti-Islamic reflex. Gradually, opposi-
tion within India to the weaponization of nuclear capability also turned from
rhetoric about Hindutva to substantive concerns about India’s geostrategy. Shifts
in the international response, from diplomatic condemnation to a tacitly acqui-
escent refocus on economic cooperation, strengthened this trend. The Hindutva
dimension of the tests faded away into issues about India’s place in the world
and the proper means of attaining it.
By the end of the decade in which the BJP’s drive to power had been impelled
by grassroots appeal to an exclusivist Hindu identity, Hindu nationalism found
itself at a crossroad. The use of real political power seemed to require instru-
mentalist alliances and economic governance, which meant the effective repu-
diation of an ideology to transform the Indian polity into a Hindu one. Against
this, it had become possible to even think of political power in the first place only
because of mobilization through appeal to Hindu identity. In power, the old
tension between ideological purity and political realism remained. And so long
as it remained, Hindu nationalism seemed doomed to attaining political power
only by denying itself.
In the next election, brought about prematurely because of the loss of support
from one regional party, an accident of personalities decided the strategy of the
Sangh Parivar. The Prime Minister, Vajpayee, had the impeccable credentials of
an RSS man who had been in the Jana Sangh throughout its existence and in
the BJP since its inception. Yet he had chosen to represent himself as the leader
of a national alliance of parties and views that subsumed the BJP and denied
any role for Hindutva in its manifesto. And he alone was likely to deliver any
political power to the Parivar, because of his personal standing with the national
electorate. Reluctantly, they went into an election supporting leaders (not only
Vajpayee but almost the entire front-rank of cabinet ministers) who had already
declared that they would not permit core Hindutva demands to form any part of
a new government’s policies. The alternative was loss of all access to political
power. In the previous election, the BJP leadership had hedged its bets and tacitly
condoned inflammatory rhetoric and spasm of violence while officially follow-
ing a much less ideologically loaded strategy. This time, it put all its eggs in one
contemporary political hinduism 545