Introduction 13Thus we look at the religious, cultural, sociological, and ideological
dimensions of the Hindutva historiographical project, going back and
forth into the realms of history, myth, socialization, and governance. The
discussions on the above texts point out the facts that any fixity of cat-
egories, such as national history, myth, socialization, and governance,
is problematic, and that the transboundary transgressions are not just
unavoidable but indeed indispensable. This analysis would obviously
start from the early 1920s, which witnessed the establishment of Muslim
separatism and Hindu fundamentalism; would continue to the 1990s,
when the Sangh Parivar's narrative of national history reached its pin-
nacle with the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the attainment of state
power; and would terminate in 2004, when the Sangh Parivar lost power
and prominence at the Center.
Evidently, a notion of reading runs through the whole study, as it deals
with a set of related texts. This mode of reading and interpretation, often
called deconstruction, is also seen as a philosophical position and a politi-
cal or intellectual strategy. To deconstruct a discourse is to show how it
undermines the philosophy it asserts by identifying in the text the rhetori-
cal operations that produce the supposed ground of argument, key con-
cepts, or premises. In other words, working within the terms of the system,
one breaches it.^21 As communalization occurs in intergroup situations, a
study of communalism should investigate the concerned groups' ide-
ologies, processes of identity development, and historical context within
which political assertions of such an identity manifest. Although Muslim
communalism is not discussed in detail here, it provides a constant back-
drop to the study of Hindutva communalism. This deconstructive reading
facilitates recovering the pasts from metanarratives and replacing them
"with a plural field of multi-civilizational processes."^22 And that is the
logical destination for this project.
The purpose of this book is not to denigrate any of the individuals,
organizations, or other entities I discuss. Rather, it is an attempt to refuse
to be an indifferent bystander in the midst of hate politics, to expose and
resist the psychedelic history of the Sangh Parivar, and to rejuvenate the
multifaceted dialogues of the many histories of "Indias." I also take issue
with the popular tendency to view Hinduism simply as a system of noble
values steeped in a social vacuum without regard to its heavy human cost.
If the Muslim, Sikh, Christian, and other communalisms are left out, it is
not out of any personal sympathies or slantings but because of the inabil-
ity to cover the whole variety of madness in a single project. As a one-
man practitioner of one type of "dissenting-Hinduism" (with no books,
no prophets, no intermediaries, and no institutions) in defiance of the
Hindutva program allegedly being undertaken on my and others' behalf,
I feel obliged to be out in the open and am unable (and most definitely
unwilling) to hide behind a facade of neutrality.