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The Sundarbans as a region is shared between Bangladesh (60%) and India (40%) and forms an intriguing geography to understand not only the consequences of macro‐political landmarks such as the partition, it is an arable field to explore the intersections of people, history, and politics‐ with a particular recognition of the constructions, constitutions, and manifestations of shifting, undefined, cultural and physical borders. This paper contends that Hindu nationalism in the Indian Sundarbans borderlands emerges as a result of what Sigmund Freud called ‘narcissism of minor differences’ between the Bengalis across borders and it makes for a distinct kind of nationalism that unfavourably impacts the Muslim Bengalis in the region. I situate that the ongoing aggressive Hindu nationalism in India's Bengal is a classic case of narcissism of minor differences and understanding its nuances can illuminate the multiple ways in which variant forms of nationalism are highly appropriated and propagated. Secondly, the study addresses how the liminal borderlands are fertile fields for such type of nationalism. Lastly, in order to further problematise the actors and the activism around nationalism, I study the work of Hindu nationalist women who volunteer with the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti to map and appraise the gendered aspect of this discourse. The Bengali Hindu Samiti women dedicate much of their nationalist activism in emphasising on both territorial and cultural borders and target Bengali Muslims who have migrated from Bangladesh and with whom they share deep civilisational and cultural sameness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nationalism in Asia and Africa is generally understood as a modern secular movement for independence. However, this idea is contestable. Analysing nationalism in India and the Sudan, this paper argues that nationalist movements there actually had their origins in Islamic religious resistance against the British colonial rule preceding the development of secular nationalism. Depending on political development following the colonial advancement, the secular elite‐led nationalism also largely fostered religious communal nationalism in India and the Sudan. This substantiates the argument that religion never ceased to play the most central role in the nationalist movements in India and the Sudan. Following an inter‐continental approach to study nationalism, this article explores exclusively the connection between religion and the first ever generic nationalist movements in the context of colonialism in India and the Sudan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the motivations and actions of Indian Americans who actively oppose Hindutva, that is, a Hindu nationalist vision for India. Diaspora activists who advocate in favour of progressive values for India tend to be underreported in the media and underanalysed in scholarship. The following study addresses this gap. Based on public records, interviews with activist leaders, and participant‐observation, the paper demonstrates how anti‐Hindutva diaspora actors identify and leverage political opportunities in order to engage in moral signalling in local, national and global spaces. By shining a light on ongoing counternarratives to Hindutva, this study highlights contestations within Indian‐origin communities and challenges monolithic portrayals of diaspora politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how middle‐class identity is experienced and employed by traditional and neo‐middle‐class identifiers in India. The economically and socially heterogeneous middle‐class identifiers vote similarly, but we know very little about what they want out of politics. We focus on the subjective experiences of middle‐class identifiers, we theorize the expressive function of middle‐class identities, and we examine the socially and personally focused core values of traditional middle‐class identifiers and neo‐middle aspirers. We introduce the "Class as Social Identity" scale and analyze qualitative interviews with strong middle‐class identifiers (Study 1) and the 2006, 2012, and 2014 World Values Survey India segments (Study 2). The interviews show that upper middle class and lower middle class identifiers express similar socially focused values but different personally focused values. The WVS analyses show convergence of upper‐middle‐class and lower‐middle‐class identifiers on conservation and self‐transcendence in line with dominant political narratives and divergence on materialism, hedonism, and stimulation in line with their rising differences in income and every‐day life pressures. We discuss the significance of these findings for the understanding of the political function of middle‐class identities in India in the context of heightened Hindu nationalism and recent socioeconomic challenges aggravated by the COVID‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WhatsApp and digital private spaces are transforming the quality of lived democracy in India today. Bringing together STS, geographies of democracy, digital and political anthropology, and feminist approaches to the home, this paper makes visible how the Silicon Valley imaginary of the "digital living room" is domesticated in India. Drawing on digital ethnographic research in urban north India we show how WhatsApp is being used by the Hindu right to digitise new party‐political intimacies. This has implications for how people at the margins of Hindu nationalist politics dwell in the "digital living room". Framed as a home like space, we problematise Facebook's "spatiotechnical" utopia by making visible how kinship and (domestic) politics are newly entangled in digital private spaces. Finally, we document how WhatsApp is deployed as a technology of discipline to determine modes of appropriate sociality and reconfigure spaces of digital‐physical inclusion/exclusion in the making of India's "ethnic democracy". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hindu supremacist ideology and Hindu nationalism are recently resurgent in India's far‐right government. This ideology has manifested itself in increased religious intolerance and human rights violations, including escalating oppression of religious and other minorities, journalists, civil rights advocates, and others. Using psychoanalytic theories of social trauma, groups, and prejudice, I link present‐day disturbances to the profound social trauma engendered by the colonial occupation of India by the British in multiple forms for nearly 200 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the future of Hindu–Christian dialogue by framing the issues around a few central questions: Are Hindus interested in dialogue with Christians? Is dialogue a Christian problem? Is there anything to discuss? Are there no differences? Is there anything to learn? Is there a future for Hindu–Christian dialogue? Most Hindus see Christianity as a tradition concerned exclusively with conversion. They think of Christianity as a religion that is not genuinely open to the religious claims and experiences of others. In addition, there is a widespread Hindu perception that interreligious dialogue is a special Christian problem because Christianity, among all the world's religions, is most challenged theologically by the fact of religious diversity. Finally, there are fewer Hindu scholars of Christianity than Christian scholars who study the Hindu tradition. These are among the significant challenges of Hindu–Christian dialogue that this article addresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, there has been a growing production of scholarly literature devoted to understanding the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement in India, particularly emphasizing its invocation of a monolithic past to consolidate the idea of India as a Hindu nation. Subramaniam calls this "bionationalism" to describe the transition of a traditional ethnic nationalism into one in which its core ideas are scientized using biopolitical claims. On the one hand, it allows for the claim of the long-term existence of scientific thought in ancient India and, simultaneously, retention of gender and caste hierarchies in its embrace of a new modernity. [Extracted from the article]

Tracing the shifting historical and contemporary discourses of self‐representation among upper caste American Hindu immigrants, this paper reflects upon the rise of diaspora "Hindutva Democrats" in the post‐2020 American political landscape. What makes "Hindutva Democrats" a peculiar political embodiment is their manipulative use of the language of social justice for addressing racism in America while downplaying, if not outright refusing to acknowledge, glaring human rights abuses against minorities (for issues such as casteism and Islamophobia) in India and in the Indian diaspora. Together, these confounding and inconsistent political stances illuminate the problem of the neoliberalization of calls for racial justice, amplified by narratives of American exceptionalism and its favorable capitalist ties to India in the contemporary political landscape. This analysis of the Hindutva Democratic movement illuminates the ways in which performances of race, caste, and racialization are embedded in historical, institutional, and gendered ideological projects across borders. These performances create insidious impediments toward the achievement of the global human rights which are foundational to sustainable peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the gendered nature of Hindu and Buddhist nationalism in India and Sri Lanka. Nationalist movements have become increasingly prevalent in both countries and frequently rely upon Islamophobic discourse centred around a fear of Muslim expansionism. Specifically, nationalists in each country frame their concerns through a gendered lens concerning Muslim fertility vis‐à‐vis Hindus and Buddhists, religious intermarriage of Muslim men with Hindu/Buddhist women, and the securitization of Muslim women's clothing choices. Femonationalist rhetoric has also increasingly been utilized by Hindu and Buddhist nationalists to frame Muslim women as victims of Islam's patriarchal structures and in need of saving by Hindus and Buddhists. This article draws upon original field research in India and Sri Lanka, including interviews with Hindu and Buddhist nationalist groups, their leaders, and Muslim minorities and organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, we have seen a steady rise in Hindu nationalism in India, culminating in a Hindu nationalist government in 2014. The BJP won again and expanded its majority in 2019. Then COVID‐19 hit! This essay explores the national and body politic in India during COVID‐19. It argues that Hindu nationalism has been mobilized and strengthened during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the historical development, growth, and contemporary articulations of the Bhumihar caste associations in Bihar by focusing on their relationship with land, political economy, and ideological orientations. As a landowning upper caste, the Bhumihars negotiated with a host of structural as well socio‐political transformations in the state primarily by constructing the self‐image of a warrior caste holding a Brahmin status. The paper in particular examines the impact of land reforms, violence unleashed by the Bhumihar caste militia during the agrarian unrest and the rise of Backward Caste mobilisation followed by the Hindutva mobilisation on the changing articulation of the Bhumihar caste associations. The paper also focuses on the emergence of the Bhumihar middle class and points out that through a visible process of culturalisation, the Bhumihars are able to maintain their exclusivity and purported superiority in the contemporary Bihar society even while upholding the mantle of Hindutva unity along with other lower castes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is one of the most diverse countries of the world but operates with a majoritarian Westminster constitution and simple plurality electoral system, albeit also with a federal structure. It was eventually coded as consociational by Arend Lijphart (1996) but this coding was questioned by authors such as Wilkinson (2000) and Adeney (2002). This article assesses the nature of both de jure and de facto power‐sharing in India over its 70 years of independence and tracks the evolution of de jure and de facto power‐sharing in relation to four dimensions of diversity: religion, caste, territory and language. It questions whether the electoral success of Hindu nationalism and the increasing acceptance of ethnic majoritarianism has reduced the degree of power‐sharing in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents interviews with professors Chandana Mathur from National University of Ireland, Maynooth and Soumendra Mohan Patnaik from the University of Delhi, India.They discuss the role of anthropology in contemporary challenges such as economic and social transformations. Topics include Mathur's writings on diasporic Hindu nationalism, Islamophobia, cosmopolitan trajectory, international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), development issues and displacement.

The article focuses on the films "PK" and "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" which reveal religious groups in a way showing various communities and their practices and beliefs. It explores Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, in the ascendant in India in the national government of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) redefining and reconsidering the history of India. It discusses the Hindi film industry as a secular site where Muslims and Hindus have worked together.

The article discusses the interpretation of Hindutva in Indian context and the role played by social media in reshaping the interpretation, with focus on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Topics include formation of political party Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) from cultural organization Bharatiya Jana Sangh; criticism facing Modi for his alleged role in 2002 Gujarat riots; and focus of Modi's government on the use of social media like Twitter and blogs.

Swami Vivekananda has been recognised as one of the most influential but arguably controversial Hindu gurus of the last two centuries. In this year of the 150th anniversary of Vivekananda's birth, this article will examine the concerns and approaches that have come increasingly to characterise etic scholarship concerning Vivekananda's life and legacy. Referring as a starting point to an earlier historiographical review completed in the early 1990s, the article then explores how scholarly studies have revisited the question of the nature of Vivekananda's influence on Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) and have come to give greater prominence to his role in the globalisation of yoga. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Hindu immigrants to America - those who subscribe to Hindutva values - desire full rights and recognition in their adopted homeland even as they simultaneously demand that so-called "migrants" to India (that is, Muslims and Christians whose communities have flourished in India for hundreds of years) acquiesce to their vision of India as a "Hindu state." In an American racial landscape that structurally privileges whites, I argue that the cultural categorization of Hindu immigrants into a "lesser-than-whites" minority has only served to fuel the growth of Hindu supremacist groups in the United States. In this article, I draw on fieldwork with two Hindu American summer camps in order to show that some Hindu immigrants misrecognize and repress their own current alienation in a manner that has subsequently aggravated latent antipathies towards Muslim and Christian communities in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than four decades, local-level workers of the Marxist Left and Hindu Right in the southern Indian state of Kerala have been involved in a grievous political conflict. Drawing on my ethnography among members of the two groups, I describe how responsibility for this violence has been elided and effaced especially among members of the Hindu nationalist group, Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). Crucial to this elision has been the workers' close-knit community of friends and supporters that they forge by extending everyday assistance, care, and mobilizing support in small neighborhoods, towns, and villages of the region. Modes of sociality and concepts of relatedness so generated not only mitigate individualizing experiences of suffering but also subsume individual responsibility for acts of violence within the whole. This article is about such dissolution of culpabilities, and the affects, emotive concepts and conditions of collective life that make it possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the third and last in a series of three surveying research on Hindutva (Hindu nationalism or political Hinduism), focusing on praxis: processes by which hindutva is mobilized, operationalized, and made relatable to specific contexts. As hindutva's influences expand to grassroots and diasporic contexts, mediated by discourses of rights, development, and cultures of multiculturalist ethnic assertions, hindutva becomes a mediating discourse in its own right. As such, it is sometimes a diffused logic and sometimes a clear point of reference, but always undeniably central to contemporary political practice at all levels. (The first essay in this series of three surveyed literature on seminal ideological articulations of hindutva, both historical and contemporary; the second examined prominent rhetorical constructions deployed to politically oppose hindutva). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the first of three in a series surveying research on Hindutva (Hindu nationalism or political hinduism), focusing on seminal articulations that set the stage for later debates, and define the directions of later politics. I review accounts of hindutva's ideological origins, from the pre-independence racialist articulations to the humanist emphases of post-independence years, to the strident culturalism of the 1990s. 'Hindutva' is formed through these successive phases of ideological assertion, as much as it precipitates and participates in a wider culture of identitarian assertions. The second essay of three focuses on prominent rhetorical constructions deployed to address hindutva polemically, and the third on hinduva as praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the second of three in a series surveying research on Hindutva (Hindu nationalism or political Hinduism). Here I review prominent rhetorical characterizations and strategies that scholars have used to come to terms with and politically oppose Hindu religious politics, both in India and transnationally. The essay suggests that this literature represents a distinct approach to the study of hindutva that needs to be separated from other, less politically oriented studies. (The first essay in the series surveyed literature on seminal articulations of hindutva, both historical and contemporary; the third examines writings that take hindutva as a form of practice). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Victor Turner's anthropological reading of pilgrimages in terms of communitas is of utmost relevance in the case of Hinduism: indeed, Hindu pilgrimages produce a relative and temporal obliteration of social cleavages – particularly caste divisions – allowing the emergence of a sense of group belonging. Moreover, the geography of pilgrimage sites maps out the sacred land, marking the area of extension of Hindu civilisation in space. Hindu nationalists have tried to exploit this particular alchemy to offer an ethnic definition of the nation (and its territory) and thereby gather a following by lending some of their demonstrations the appearance of a pilgrimage. This approach asserted itself in the early 1980s thanks to the Ekatmata Yatra (Unity March) in 1983, and was confirmed in 1990 during the Rath Yatra (Chariot festival). Nevertheless, the instrumentalist interpretation of such movements comes up against an issue that is already at the core of subaltern studies' historiography, i.e. that masses do not always mobilise for the reasons put forth by political leaders. More specifically, if women march massively in the streets during these Yatra pilgrimages, it is both because they feel concerned by the reason for demonstrations and because these demonstrations have legitimised their entry into the public space, which still remains relatively closed to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, modernist artists, like much of India's secular intelligentsia, have struggled to understand the nature of the threat that Hindu nationalism poses to more inclusive forms of national culture. Visual culture, and particularly Hindu iconography, was perhaps the form most obviously targeted by Hindu nationalist political practices. Artist and writer K. G. Subramanyan has been the most influential articulator of a secularist form of visual culture. A semiotic analysis of Subramanyan's modernist versions of Hindu icons not only explicates his model but also shows how his images facilitate a social interaction between artist and viewer that can be seen as a practice of secularism in everyday life. By studying secular forms of visual culture as social practice, this article contributes to the anthropology of secularism without reducing visual culture to a mere reflection of political ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]