The (failed) production of Hindu nationalized space in Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Abstract

This article addresses the attempt by India's most extensive Hindu nationalist organization, the RSS, and its women's wing, the Samiti, to Hindu nationalize the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It makes two inter-related arguments. It argues that notwithstanding long-term, intense Hindu nationalist efforts to Hindu nationalize the city space and its subjects, the project has been and remains a failure. The heterogeneity of the city-space and its subjects infinitely exceeds such homogenizing moves. It also suggests that while Hindu nationalists claim that religious difference is key, gender and sexuality are inseparably crucial to their constructions, violations and eliminations of subjects, architectural structures and territorialities across scale. In a first section this article addresses the RSS's and Samiti's grids of intelligibility: their categories (especially of space, gender, sexuality and subjects), logics and prescriptions for conduct. A second section focuses on RSS and Samiti practices to transform the city, envisaging these in relation to the organizations' grids of intelligibility. They include: daily paramilitary training, periodic economic boycotts against Muslims and exceptional massive anti-Muslim violence including genocidal pogroms. The article concludes with remarks about the links between Hindu nationalist discourse and practice, the failures of Hindu nationalization, and resistant agentic and non-agentic counter-transformations of the city. The author draws from three types of primary sources: RSS and Samiti publications; the publications of groups against Hindu nationalism; and notes from multiple periods of fieldwork in Ahmedabad from 1987 to 2008.

Este artículo trata sobre el intento de la mayor organización nacionalista hindú, el RSS y su ala de mujeres, el Samiti, para nacionalizar como hindú la ciudad de Ahmedabad, en Gujarat. Desarrolla dos argumentos interrelacionados. Sostiene que a pesar de los intensos esfuerzos nacionalistas hindúes para nacionalizar como hindú el espacio de la ciudad y sus sujetos, el proyecto ha sido y permanece siendo un fracaso. La heterogeneidad la ciudad-espacio y sus sujetos excede infinitamente estos intentos homogeneizantes. También sugiere que mientras los hindúes nacionalistas afirman que la diferencia religiosa es clave, el género y la sexualidad son inseparablemente cruciales para sus construcciones, violaciones y eliminaciones de sujetos, estructuras arquitectónicas y las territorialidades a través de las escalas. En una primera sección, este artículo aborda las redes de inteligibilidad del RSS y el Samiti: sus categorías (especialmente de espacio, género, sexualidad y sujetos), sus lógicas y sus prescripciones para la conducta. Una segunda sección se centra en las prácticas del RSS y el Samiti para transformar la ciudad, concibiéndolas en relación a las redes de inteligibilidad de las organizaciones. Éstas incluyen: entrenamiento paramilitar diario, boicots económicos periódicos contra musulmanes, y excepcionalmente la violencia masiva antimusulmana, incluyendo matanzas genocidas. El artículo concluye con un comentario sobre los enlaces entre el discurso y la práctica nacionalista hindú, los fracasos de la nacionalización hindú, y las contratransformaciones resistentes agénticas y no agénticas de la ciudad. La autora se basa en tres tipos de fuentes primarias: publicaciones del RSS y del Samiti; las publicaciones de grupos contra el nacionalismo hindú; y notas de múltiples períodos del trabajo de campo en Ahmedabad desde 1987 hasta 2008.

Keywords:

• Hindu nationalism
• city-space
• Ahmedabad
• religious–political conflict
• sexuality

Keywords:

• nacionalismo hindú
• ciudad-espacio
• Ahmedabad
• conflicto político-religioso
• sexualidad

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Gita Shah, Ritu Menon, Sheba Chhachhi, Ratna Menon and Nivedita Menon.

Notes

 1. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is often translated as National Volunteer Corps or National Volunteers' Organization. But I find the literal translation (National Self Service Workers Organization) most useful for gender comparative purposes. In contrast to the ‘parallelism’ between RSS and Samiti (see below), the all-male RSS names itself as a larger scale structure (Sangh) than the women's group (Samiti). The RSS names its members' selves (swayam); this term is absent from the Samiti's name thereby inadvertently suggesting that women members are ideally selfless. For an in-depth analysis of the gender politics of the organizations' names, see Bacchetta (2004).

 2. I use ‘Hindu nationalize’ instead of possible alternatives such as ‘communalize’ (which is commonly deployed for South Asia) or ‘polarize’. This is because, as many scholars argue, ‘communal’ and ‘communalize’ derive from and ultimately perpetuate colonial administrative discourses designed for divide and rule practices (Pandey 2007). But also, ‘communal’ is highly imprecise. It englobes disparate phenomena ranging from peaceful religious interest groups to radically anti-Other, violent projects. It can obstruct more nuanced and accurate analysis of cultural, social, economic and political phenomena. Finally, Hindu nationalists do not seek to ‘polarize’ but rather to produce the city (and all space) and all subjects as homogenously Hindu nationalized.

 3. Shakha means ‘branch’ or ‘limb’ in Sanskrit and historically refers to a school of a specific Vedic sect. However, I have chosen to create the non-literal translation ‘neighborhood cell’ to mark the following: (1) there is no real analogy between the Sanskritic and RSS uses of shakha; the RSS is not a sect or a school, nor does it claim to be; (2) in India the RSS shakha is a specifically neighborhood-based unit, as opposed, for example, to RSS ‘branches’ in the diaspora which may or may not be neighborhood based; (3) the term cell signals that the shakha is the most basic grassroots level of the RSS's structure and reflects the RSS's notion of its structure as organic. For a summary of the RSS organizational chart in India and the diaspora, see Andersen and Damle (1987) and Jayaprashad (1991).

 4. For a queer feminist analysis of this event, see Bacchetta (1999).

 5. For a more detailed definition of Hindu nationalism, see Bacchetta (1996, 2004).

 6. The notion of sangh parivar (‘RSS extended family’) is a specifically male dominated kinship configuration as suggested by the inclusion of sangh (for RSS) and exclusion of Samiti. Sangh parivar also evokes racialization by suggesting blood ties and sexualization through asexuality (i.e. the incest taboo). On the hetero-normative male-dominated family as the basic model for nationalisms, see McClintock (1995) and Peterson (2000). The RSS also conceptualizes its ‘family’ hierarchically. For example, it claims this about ‘tribals’ (Saxena 2004): that ‘we’ (the RSS) ‘approach them’ (tribals) in the spirit ‘tu men ek rakta’ (you and I have the same blood in our veins) (Ibid., 21) and that RSS has ‘no sense of superiority’ over tribals (21). Yet it paternalistically calls them ‘backward’ (15) ‘children of nature with minimum needs’ (16) who require RSS education and ‘welfare projects’ (21).

 7. For the Samiti's interpretation of the Ramayana, see the collected discourses on it by Samiti founder Lakshmibai Kelkar (1988).

 8. The spatial division of Ahmedabad includes the following units: mohallas (relatively large units without much structure); chawls (very small units often of five or six homes owned by a single extended family); pols; and bastis or slums constructed in less densely populated areas or areas with appropriate space.

 9. Some additional groups in Ahmedabad that actively oppose Hindu nationalism include: Gujarat Lok Sangharsh Samiti, Gujarat Khet Vikas Parishad, Lok Adhikar Sangh, Gujarat Ekta Manch, Insaf, Prashant, Punaruthan, Gujarat Adivasi Sabha, Banaskantha Zila Dalit Sangathan and Dalit Panthers.

10. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (undated, 86) notes 52 ‘heritage’ Islamic structures under government protection in the city. Hindu nationalists themselves list 18 major Muslim monuments in Ahmedabad that they would like to, but have not been able to, ‘convert’ to temples (see Goel 1998, 90).