Being Hindu: A Political History From Aditya Chola to Narendra Modi

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About the Book Being Hindu adopts a longue durée view of history and attempts to contextualize the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its progenitor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), as political phenomena by examining certain medieval state structures and instances of advocacy and popular mobilization in the colonial period. Further, it studies the politics of Narendra Modi and the policy initiatives undertaken by him as the prime minister of India to highlight their apparent cultural and moral underpinnings. Its eventual objective is to make a case for the historical authenticity of the Hindu mode of politics that emerged in post-Independent India. The attempt, in other words, is to demonstrate that it is a thing in its own right and not a cynical invention of hostility towards religious minorities, an irrational or 'fascist' mindset, or sundry anxieties, but has precedents in frameworks and practices going rather far back in history. The BJS and the BJP are thus shown to be locatable in a long tradition of Hindus organizing their political practice or politics through cultural resources and a cultural imagination distinctive to them. Narendra Modi, similarly, brings an inclusive Hindu catholicity and sangathanist outlook to his politics and developmental agenda. Being Hindu, in this way, relates a brief history of the political expressions of being Hindu over slightly more than eleven centuries-from the ascension of Aditya I, the first of the imperial Cholas, in 870 ce until our own time and age.

About the Author SAUMYA DEY is a professor of history at Rishihood University. Haryana. He did his PhD at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, Delhi. His chief research interests are cultural and intellectual history and the politics of colonial India. His prior books are Becoming Hindus and Muslims: Reading the Cultural Encounter in Bengal, 1342- 1905 (Munshiram Manoharlal, 2015). The Cultural Landscape of Hindutva and Other Essays: Historical Legitimacy of an Idea (Shubhi Publications, 2019 [Revised Edition, 2023]), Narrativizing Bharatvarsa and Other Essays (Shubhi Publications, 2021 [Revised Edition, 2022]), and The Seedbed of Pakistan: Cultural Conflicts, Elite Muslim Anxieties, and the Congress, 1885-1906 (Vitasta Publications, 2023).

Acknowledgement I am immensely grateful to my institution, Rishihood University, for the constant support it gives me. I am grateful to this grand theatre that is life and my little, quotidian role in it. I am grateful for the days and moments spangled with moondust.

Introduction A chin Vanaik, a former professor of political science at A University of Delhi, is a passionate votary the of 'secularization'.

He understands it as a process entailing a 'relative decline in religious influence and in the importance of religious identity'.! Vanaik is of the view that if secularization is to 'proceed apace' in India, it must 'address' Hinduism, or the 'beliefs, rituals, and practices of the overwhelming majority of the population'. Rather ironically, at the same time, he is dismissive of the centrality of Hinduism to Indian civilization and culture. As he puts it, neither is in any manner 'beholden' to Hinduism. Expectedly, he is not very sensitive to Hindu sentiments. Brazenly ignoring archaeological data, Vanaik avers that there is no 'serious empirical evidence' that a temple once existed at the 'presumed birthplace' of Shri Ram in Ayodhya. He also, by the way, indulgently speaks of the Naxalites as the 'extra-parliamentary left. Vanaik, in other words, is your typical 'left-liberal' academic, the sort who ruled the roost at our public universities not long ago.