Abstract
India is constitutionally a secular state. However, the Mode government has been moving India toward a majoritarian state guided by the ideology of Hindutva since it came to power in 2014. The unprecedented victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 and 2019 has been attributed to the charismatic leadership of Modi, who was an RSS pracharak (publicist) before joining the BJP, and his electoral strategy. During his first term, Modi pursued the objective of Hindu nationalism by using state power to enforce pro-Hindu social behavior, such as rewriting history text books to downplay Islamic contributions to Indian history and culture and imposing beef bans in states where the BJP was in power. The Modi government is poised to pursue the Hindutva agenda by ending the “appeasement” of Muslims; by “reforming” India’s education (emphasizing Hindu identity in school curriculums); by passing a uniform civil code (ending the Sharia law for Muslims); by repealing laws that grant special status of Jammu and Kashmir (Article 370 of the constitution); by stopping illegal migration into India (of Muslims from Bangladesh); by building a Rama temple in Ayodhya (on the site of the Babri mosque that was raged to the ground by Hindu fanatics in 1992); and by enforcing rules to protect cows. The paper examines the effort of the Modi government in pursuing its Hindutva project of converting India into a full fledged Hindu nation during Modi 2.0 (2019-2024); and what that means for the future of secularism in India.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Nationalism, Secularism, Hindutva, Majoritarianism, Federalism, Authoritarianism
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