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Fascist Vision

Orthodox political entrepreneurs in India are promoting an ethno-religious sentiment as the country’s national identity.

By Ghanwah Ijaz Cheema | February 2022


In the initial years of independence, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the ruling Indian National Congress (INC) (chief legatee of the freedom movement) advocated for an Indian brand of multiculturalism and secularism. PM Nehru underscored that his modern, progressive, and secular strategies assisted him in striking a balance between ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity, which was a significant strengthening and unifying force of the Indian society. Reckoning the noxious interpretations attached to Hindutva as an ideology, PM Nehru was conscious that if it was endorsed or integrated into politics, it would rend the unique traits of Indian society. That is why he kept Hindu fundamentalists at bay even in the Constituent Assembly when drafting India’s first constitution.

Seventy four years down the line, in today’s national political landscape, one is witnessing the exact opposite in India: orthodox political entrepreneurs promoting ethno-religious identities. The Hindutva ideology has today dramatically reshaped the dynamics of Indian politics under the stewardship of PM Narendra Modi. But, the shift has been called into question as it certainly does not favour the blueprint of the architects of modern India and the future of the country’s secularist traditions and assurance of diversity.

It is imperative, therefore, to reflect on ‘what went wrong’ in the decades leading up to the current Indian political milieu.

As published in the CISS South Asia Monitor, during the independence movement, the Hindutva ideology was ‘mobilized’ against the Congress Party’s secular and pluralist standpoints. While Hindutva goons considered the creation of Pakistan a betrayal of the Hindu nation, they also labelled Congress and Mahatma Gandhi as pseudo-secularist – minority appeasers.

In the early years after independence, Congress, under the leadership of Nehru, remained in power with no strong opposition. A variety of more or less newly formed political parties like the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (Farmer Worker People’s Party), the Revolutionary Socialist Party, etc. could not challenge the gigantic Congress.

Meanwhile, Jan Sangh (the political arm of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh- RSS) aspired to consolidate India’s most prominent religious group – Hindus, into a solid voting bloc. Given the Hindu polity, they stood for the reunification of the motherland through Pakistan’s absorption (or perhaps conquest). They sought to ‘recreate’ the ‘golden age of Hinduism’, which never existed as a unified India under Hindu rule.

According to renowned French political scientist and an expert on Indian affairs, Christophe Jaffrelot, following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist, and an RSS member, Nehru’s fears of India’s communal divide ‘heightened’, since he believed that emerging Hindu communalism would ‘bring ruin and death to the country’– a concern he even raised during his 1951-52 campaign.

A staunch believer in sustaining a powerful centre, Nehru restrained politicians from promoting religious polarisation in their campaigns. It is widely acknowledged that his stringent scrutiny over the menace of Hindutva and his centralised strategy to rule saved India as a secular nation and prevented nurturing of this ideology in the country’s political terrain.


Following Nehru’s demise, regional parties soon began to contest Congress’ dominance. Long since marginalised right-wing parties, such as the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and Janata Party, came to the surface with the creation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as their successor.

According to Jaffrelot, in the 1980s, secularism in India was severely strained. Even Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ‘sought to capitalize on religious differences’ to destabilise rival political parties. The Congress party began ‘opportunistically pandering to one religious community after another’ to keep the reins of power. In his view, with Indira Gandhi’s death in 1984, her son and new Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi added more fuel to the fire. The harm to the secular rationale was colossal as nurturing religious differences rather than inclusivity backfired and opened doors for Hindu nationalism in Indian society.

Meanwhile, two major incidents that further instigated Hindu nationalism in Indian politics were opposition to the Mandal Commission, particularly by the upper caste Hindus, and the launch of the Ayodhya movement. The Ayodhya movement was undertaken by BJP leader L.K. Advani in 1989 to ‘rebuild the temple’ in Ayodhya. The campaign incited, according to Jaffrelot, a ‘wave of riots’ between Hindus and Muslims, further polarising ‘voters along religious lines.’ The nationwide riots subsequently facilitated BJP in winning the 1991 state elections in Uttar Pradesh. Furthermore, in 1992, a BJP-sponsored rally outside the Babri Mosque turned violent and the Mosque was razed. This incident again triggered religious riots against the Muslims, where more than 2,000 people died. The BJP and Sangh Parivar’s staged political drama consequently increased the former’s status as a political force to be reckoned with and Hindutva influence.

However, even though Hindutva gained popularity with such acts, these extreme tactics could not help BJP form a lasting government at the centre. In this context, according to a Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies paper, when the BJP came to power in 1999, it had ‘to build bridges with secular allies.’ Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s majority in parliament relied on coalition partners. Consequently, in Christophe Jaffrelot’s analysis, three of RSS-BJP’s ‘long-standing policy priorities’: constructing a Hindu temple, creating a uniform civil code (or personal law), and repealing Article 370 were put on the ‘back-burner.’

Some Hindu fundamentalists were displeased, while others were offended by Vajpayee’s style of governance. At this point, anyone who instigated some minor stunt for the Hindu community would have gained unparalleled support. In 2002, the opportunist, Narendra Modi (then Chief Minister of Gujarat), found it the right time to fan inter-communal violence.

The flagship event that brought Modi to the forefront in the Indian political landscape was the massacre of thousands of innocent Muslims in Gujarat. Hindutva vigilantes breached the boundary wall of the Gulbarg Society Complex (a Muslim housing complex), set houses ablaze and burnt thousands of Muslim families alive. Senior Indian police officers have testified that CM Modi initiated and condoned the violence.

Fast forward to 2022 and in today’s India, the fascist vision of the founding father of the Hindutva movement is now being even more sincerely and viciously implemented. The first tenure of PM Modi was considered a phase when soft Hindutva was applied, but since May 2019, Modi’s regime has left no stone unturned to implement the fanatical RSS ideologies.

Over the past 2 to 3 years, most of the controversial actions undertaken by the BJP government have been an essential part of the RSS agenda. As journalist Kenan Malik asserts, ‘When the BJP came to power in 2014, its Hindu chauvinism was kept on a short leash.’ However, ‘a resounding second victory’ gave Modi ‘licence to pursue exclusionary policies without restraint.’

It has taken decades for Hindutva to carve out a strong foothold in Indian politics. Perhaps, this has happened due to the deliberate negligence on part of secular entities or the movement’s persistent efforts, but today, India has entered a new political order. The Hindutva stratagem has deeply infiltrated the Indian political landscape, endangering its democratic values that could take years, if not decades, to be rooted out from a society that once embraced multiculturalism and secularism.

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