CHAPTER 25
Contemporary Political Hinduism
C. Ram-Prasad
The very idea of “political Hinduism” raises questions generally about the nature
of religion and specifically about the nature of Hinduism. To say that Hinduism
has had a political role in twentieth-century India is already to say a good deal
about an elusive and diffuse phenomenon. This is because many of the develop-
ments through the twentieth century that ostensibly were motivated by con-
cerns of religion are arguably products of more general concerns about identity,
ideological historiography, political power, and economic share. Few issues
covered in this chapter are obviously religious in content, if by “religious” we
mean anything pertaining substantively to the attainment of transcendence, or
even a socio-ethic founded on commitment to transcendence. But to the extent
that this book attempts to deal with all that might be considered “Hindu,” this
chapter focuses on developments in twentieth-century and contemporary India
where politics was or has been affected by appeal to a certain reading of Hin-
duism. (But only a certain reading: after all, Gandhi’s thought and action are
incomprehensible without a consideration of their religious dimensions, but by
no means can be integrated into the present topic.)
This chapter is in three parts. The first part looks at the seminal formulations
of the concept of an essential Hinduness and its political implications for the
nation-state of India. The second part looks at the unsuccessful history of
political parties and organizations associated with the ideology of an essential
Hinduness in independent India and the eventual electoral rise of the premier
Hindu nationalist party to (shared) power. The last part analyzes the experience
of Hindu nationalism in power and suggests that such experience says some-
thing about both Hindu nationalism and the problems of power in a democratic
India.