extent that the growth of a sense of a common Hindu identity was long the aim
of the RSS, the very organizational fact of such a Hindu gathering under the aegis
of the Parivar suggested that there was some confluence between Parivar ideol-
ogy and a shift in the nature of contemporary Hindu self-conceptions.
Contemporary political Hinduism, then, is a complex phenomenon. On the
one hand, the actual experience of political power demonstrates the limits of
religion-derived ideology in the governance of the Indian polity, democratic, plu-
ralist, economically emergent, and geopolitically promising as it is at the begin-
ning of the twenty-first century. On the other hand, as Hindu culture becomes
implicated in the affirmation of identity in the face of global erosion of differ-
ence – as Hindus construct identities through creative interpretations of history
and community – organizations mediating cultural politics can seem to offer
ways and means for such construction. It is here that the VHP in particular
seems able to exploit the need of some Hindus in their search for self-definition.
By providing organizational wherewithal, apparently useful educational
resources, and scope for relentless self-affirmation, the VHP can seem to offer a
way for Hindu self-definition. If there is sufficient support for such activity, then
the cultural route to making India a Hindu nation might still seem open. But
this does not seem a straightforward or open route. The very plurality of the
Indian people – especially the “Hindus” – that seemed to have made a direct
political transformation of India virtually impossible, now stands in the way
of any easy prognosis about the future of Hindu nationalism.
Annotated Bibliography
Basu, A. 1996. “Mass Movement or Elite Conspiracy? The Puzzle of Hindu Nationalism,”
in D. Ludden, ed., Making India Hindu. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 55–80.
Hindutva and the wider social context of India.
Bidwai, P and A. Vanaik. 2000. South Asia on a Short Fuse.Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Highly critical polemic against India’s nuclear policy.
Crossman, B. and R. Kapur. 1999. Secularism’s Last Sigh? Hindutva and the (Mis)Rule of
Law. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Critical review of the legal issues.
Fox, R. 1996. “Communalism and Modernity,” in D. Ludden, ed., Making India Hindu.
Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 235–49. The role of Western ideologies in Indian
politics.
Gold, D. 1991. “Organized Hinduism: from Vedic Truth to Hindu Nation,” in M. E. Marty
and R. S. Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Classic and seminal paper on Hindutva.
Gopal, S., ed. 1993. Anatomy of a Confrontation: Ayodhya and the Rise of Communal Politics
in India. London: Zed Books.
Graham, B. 1990. Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the
Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hansen, T. B. 1999. The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India.
Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wide-ranging historical and critical study;
strongly negative conclusions on the role of populism in the rise of Hindutva.
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