Making sense of Hindu nationalism

A grandiose vision of Hindu utopia stirring into life after a millennium of oppression has been the cornerstone of the right-wing project in India. With the Narendra Modi government assuming power in 2014, the refrain has become shriller enticing more and more from the diaspora and the upper-class elite. As India embraced neo-liberal economic policies, the West ignored the fault lines and treated the nation as a useful ally against the war on global terrorism. The blend of global capitalism with Hindu nationalism while raising aspirations has also spawned an authoritarian version of India, possibly endangering democracy.

Twilight Prisoners: The Rise of the Hindu Right and Decline of India documents this stark reality of new India. A collection of essays, it is a narrative in which the author argues that the nation has descended into an authoritarian dystopia. New York-based writer Siddhartha Deb paints the picture of a nation where democratic institutions struggle to survive and dissent is mercilessly put down. Deb travels across the nation talking to zealots, activists, journalists, civil society representatives and politicians to present a disturbing portrait. The threat to the idea of India from the Hindu right manifests itself in different ways, he discovers.

Deb says Hindu nationalism, after biding its time for decades, emerged into the open only when the time was ripe at the turn of the 21st century. “It is the most successful right-wing phenomenon of our times, bridging Western fascism from the early 20th century with the multiple overlapping digitally inflected authoritarianism of our era. RSS focused on an upper-caste Hindu society within an unabashedly upper-caste, patriarchal Hindu nation. In its paranoia, violence and sense of victimisation RSS is not dissimilar to the Ku Klux Klan’’, he writes. The West was a willing accomplice in Modi’s ambitions, by ignoring sectarianism and death by mob violence while pursuing business opportunities offered by the Gujarat model, he adds.

Deb quotes the Human Rights Watch report on the tendency of the Modi government as one of “subverting justice, protecting perpetrators and intimidating those promoting accountability.” The regime would not hesitate to use draconian laws to put opponents behind bars for an indefinite period in the name of the “war on terror”.

A classic case is the Bhima Koregaon case in which a group of activists, writers and thinkers were incarcerated under concocted anti-terror charges. Deb notes that the case reveals “a chillingly familiar picture of repression in new India, one that follows a well-established pattern of turning victims into perpetrators by manipulating the legal system.”

“It is about the Modi government seizing the opportunity to put some very troublesome opponents behind bars, people it had long ago identified as a threat because of their commitment to civil rights and equality,” he adds. Those who have dared to stand up to the Modi government faced legal intimidation, government pressure, social abuse, scurrilous gossip, police cases and mob violence.

Deb contends that the prosperous Indian diaspora in the US along with the elite in India fanned the flames of sectarianism. American experts created a global aura for Modi as a business-friendly leader.

The author visits the site of the Ram temple in Ayodhya “being constructed as the centrepiece of Hindu utopia-Ramarajya.” He finds little has changed in Ayodhya. Deb visits a hidden camp of Burmese rebels in Manipur abandoned by India after promising support in their fight for democracy in their homeland. He terms CRC in Assam the “largest disenfranchisement project of the 21st century”. 

The last two decades of economic boom accompanied by its rising status in the world have coincided with a time of increasingly aggressive Hindu nationalism. Deb finds the national media a willing participant in the project of Hindu nationalism. He cites scandals like Vyapam, Loya case Jay Shah’s assets getting scant media attention.

Twilight Prisoners is a report from the frontlines outlining the promises made at the dawn of freedom transforming into the bitter twilight of oligarchy, authoritarianism and climate collapse.

The final section is about resistance to Hindu nationalism by the likes of Arundhati Roy. As long as there is resistance there is hope. The facts recounted may be familiar but need reiteration. This incisive account is a warning bell on the state of the nation. An immensely readable volume.