Racialization and ethnicization: Hindutva hegemony and caste

ABSTRACT

This paper views Hindutva hegemony in India today as authoritarian populism. Its focus is Hindutva’s cultural-ideological work to make “peoples” by “fixing” meanings around socially constructed identities. Dalits and Muslims pose serious challenges to Hindutva’s project of a Hindu rashtra (Hindu nation). Whereas Dalit presence questions the existence of a “Hindu”, Muslim presence questions the existence of the “Rashtra”. Consequently, Hindutva constructs Muslims as an “external” Other (to be excised) and Dalits as an “internal” Other (to be incorporated). It does this through two processes – “racialization” of Muslims and “ethnicization” of Dalits. While the former emphasizes “difference” of Muslims to show them as permanent outsiders to a Hindu Rashtra, the latter represses the radical difference of Dalits to incorporate them within a Hindu multi-caste and patriarchal family. Yet, this “fixing” is unstable, rife with contradictions and tensions, that threaten the discursive suturing of a Hindu Rashtra.

KEYWORDS:

• Hindutva
• racialization
• hegemony
• caste
• dalit
• India

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers for critical comments, co-editors of the issue for their valuable feedback and encouragement, and comrades for ongoing discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Scholarly sources on Hindutva would include Anderson and Damle 2019; Basu 1993; Bhatt 2001; Corbridge and Harriss 2000; Hansen 1999; Jaffrelot 1996; Ludden 2005 (ed); Vanaik 1997.

2 Dalit is a term referencing the ex-Untouchable populations within Indian’s caste system. It is a term of self-definition and dignity symbolizing the brutal crushing of Untouchable identity.

3 As per Human Rights Watch report (2019), between 2015 and 2018, at least 44 people (36 of who are Muslims) have been killed by cow vigilantes across 12 Indian states.

4 http://vhp.org/organization/org-hindu-agenda/ (accessed 19 March 2021)

5 http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/be-fearless-vhp-to-cow-vigilantes/article19290187.ece (accessed 19 March 2021).

6 The lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq occurred in September 2015. The PM’s first statement was made in August 2016, and the second in July 2017.

7 http://www.news18.com/news/india/read-full-text-of-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwats-vijaya-dashami-speech-1532625.html (accessed 19 March 2021).

8 The RSS does not maintain an official roster of membership but is known to operate through its 57,000 branches all over India.

9 Apart from the RSS, examples include the Bajrang Dal (mentioned above), the Hindu Yuva Vahini (Hindu Youth Vehicle), Ram Sene (Army of Ram, a popular Hindu god). There are numerous other such organizations, each of which operates locally and usually becomes visible when implicated in local riots, vigilante acts, or even bombings.

10 Examples include the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS, Indian Labor Corps) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP, All India Student Council).

11 Sangh NGOs seek public and private funding including international funding. Examples include the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Center for Tribal Affairs) focusing on India’s indigenous people, Seva Bharathi (Indian Service) working mostly on aid and relief with its international front organization (Indian Development Relief Foundation, IDRF), and Vidya Bharathi or Indian Knowledge working to build RSS schools.

12 Examples include Jain Studios and the Gita Press (see Brosius 2005; Mukul 2015).

13 See the reports from the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (USA) and Awaaz – South Asia Watch (UK).

14 The term communalism is a uniquely South Asian term that refers to conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in particular (but about any “religious-based” conflagration). I place “religious” in quotes to emphasize that much more than religious differences are at play in any communal event.

15 Examples include Hindutva’s recent attempt to demand proofs of citizenship through the twin policies of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

16 Interestingly, Jaffrelot (1996, 233) refers to a “sangathanist populism”, and some scholars trace a Hindutva form of populism to the early part of the twentieth century (Visana 2020). There are other compelling characterizations too. Hansen (1999) views Hindutva as “swadeshi fascism” but rejects the label as not analytical enough, whereas Bhatt writes “ … it is difficult to think of a description other than ‘fascism’ that can aptly characterize the authoritarian intensities and will to institutionalize Hindutva power” (2001, 204; see also Desai 2016).

17 Some other works on populism that focus more on the historical matrix of views, ideas and visions of populist politics and parties include Postel (2007), Müller (2017), and Urbinati (2019).

18 Savarna refers to all Hindus other than Dalits (who are avarna or “outcaste”).

19 Ambedkar (1936) famously said that “Hindus cannot be said to form a society or a nation,” a view that questions Hindu nationalism.

20 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/brahmins-have-always-been-higher-lok-sabha-speaker-om-birla-stirs-row-with-casteist-remark-1597830-2019-09-11 (accessed 19 March 2021).

21 I also argued that the dominant form of casteism today is “cultural casteism” based on heterophilia (not heterophobia), or a demand to show(case) “cultural difference” such that caste-mixing continues to be proscribed (see Taguieff 2001 for “mixophobia” as key to heterophilic racism; also Balibar 1991).

22 This is apart from the fact that Adivasi lands are the most important potential asset that drives primitive accumulation in India.

23 Savarna itself is a term not without contradictions, chief among which is that between “elite castes” and “intermediate castes” – a fact that prompts some scholars to view the Dalit and non-Dalit division as fundamental (Teltumbde 2018). Further, one could add the small minorities of Jains and Sikhs who are constructed by Hindutva as part of the Dharmic and Indic traditions to be subsumed as “Hindus”.

24 As it turned out the cow had been killed earlier by a lion. The incident went viral on social media.

25 The quote was “If you want to attack, attack me, not my Dalit brothers. If you want to shoot, shoot me, not my Dalit brothers” (7 August 2016).

26 “Temporarily” – since that accusation has strangely disappeared in the chargesheets that have since been drafted by the state.