COVER STORY
Hindutva: Coming Soon to a Neighbourhood Near You
Do countries fawning over India because of its market size realize that its rising Hindu fascism endangers peace and stability outside its own region? BY MOHAMED NAWAB BIN MOHAMED OSMAN
An armed Hindu mob hits a Muslim
T
he recent spate of violence against India’s Muslims has captured the world’s attention. Following months of peaceful protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), riots in New Delhi killed more than 53 people — most of them Muslim (Economic Times, March 5, 2020). The government’s refusal to quell the rampage caused these deaths. Authorities have generally stood by and even participated in such events. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home [Interior] Minister Amit Shah have yet to visit the riot-hit areas.
THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE HATE Since attaining power in 2014, the Modi regime has enacted a series of policies targeting Muslims. While serving as chief minister of his home state of Gujarat (2001-2014), he quietly sanctioned a months-long period of anti-Muslim violence that resulted in 2,000+ fatalities, the overwhelming majority of 26 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MAY/JUNE 2020
whom were Muslims (Rana Ayyub, “Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up” ([2016]). As a result of his complicity, Modi was banned from the U.S. [on the recommendation of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which Obama abrogated in May 2014] and Britain for nearly a decade. Devoid of any serious policies and having presided over some of the worst economic policies in recent times, the Modi government used the politics of hate to mobilize support in the 2019 Indian elections, which he won by an even larger margin (Washington Post, Oct. 26, 2019). Since then, Modi has pursued a number of anti-Muslim policies, from revoking Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutionally enshrined autonomy to the controversial CAA that will render over 200 million — primarily Muslim — people, stateless. For many, the CAA has been regarded as a step too far, a sinister act designed to strip Muslims of their citizenship. This amendment has led to the current protests.
Modi and many members of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; https://www.facebook. com/BJP4India) are members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS; http://rss.org). Formed in 1925 and patterned after the Nazis, the movement has sought to establish Hindutva (Hindu nation) (Walter Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, “Messengers of Hindu Nationalism,” 2019). They entered politics while inaugurating a series of socialization processes, among them establishing schools, operating children’s camps and running anti-Muslim campaigns. An example of the latter is its anti-“Love Jihad” campaign to defeat the alleged practice of Muslim men “seducing” Hindu girls in order to convert them. For the RSS and Hindu nationalists, Hindutva can exist in its pure form only if a new set of laws are augmented, which makes Muslims second-class citizens and deprives them of certain Hindu-only privileges.
HINDUTVA COMES TO AMERICA I saw Hindu nationalists at work here while attending a teach-in session on citizenship and population in India on March 1, 2020, which discussed India’s Citizenship Amendment bill in Austin, Texas. The event featured two historians, a sociologist, a lawyer and other academics from the University of Texas-Austin. These four scholars explained the CAA from historical, political, legal and sociological perspectives. Unfortunately, a group of Hindu nationalists repeatedly disrupted this intellectual discourse. An earlier event that had been held in January 2020 was transformed into a shouting match. In anticipation, the organizers of the event that I attended had called in the police. If not for the police officer’s presence, there would have been complete mayhem. But the Hindu nationalists nevertheless interrupted and heckled the speakers.
