Why Hindus don’t tire of Hindutva

It is always difficult to determine the precise role different factors play behind any partyrsquos victory Yet the Bharatiya Janata Partyrsquos propensity to deploy Hindutva in every election demonstrates its certitude that a large segment of Hindus will not recoil from the party in revulsion if not vote for them on this count alone This is despite Hindutvarsquos divisive and violent expressions over the last 10 yearsReally why donrsquot Hindus tire of HindutvaA 2019 Pew Research Centre survey provides a clue In 30000 facetoface interviews the Pew Centre found that 64 per cent of the Hindus think it is important to be Hindu to be ldquotrulyrdquo Indian Thus for these Hindus a nonHindu cannot be truly IndianThe implication of this perception was suggested in a survey that the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies conducted for the Indian Muslims Project an initiative of 50 scholars in India and abroad Conducted at the polling stations during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections the survey found that 26 per cent of the Hindus feel to varying degrees that Muslims cannot be as ldquopatriotic as any Indianrdquo For this significant minority of 26 per cent Hindus the loyalty of Muslims to India would require repeated affirmationBoth these viewsmdashthat only a Hindu can be truly Indian and Muslims cannot be as patriotic as any Indianmdashdate to 1947 as historian Gyanendra Pandey has shown in an article Can a Muslim be an Indian Through an analysis of newspapers and speeches of nationalist leaders Pandey showed that the core of Indian nationalism was assumed to be Hindu Muslims in order to belong to India had to take a loyalty test They had to because of the assumption that they supported in substantial numbers Jinnahrsquos demand for Pakistan The loyalty test as Pandey showed involved their readiness to fight and die for India in a war against PakistanYet these tendencies were not normalised largely because the Nehruvian State articulated ideas and introduced policies reflective of composite nationalism The Hindu element in Indian nationalism was not given primacy India belonged equally to all those who wished to be Indian regardless of their religionThe Statersquos slide on composite nationalism began because of Indira Gandhi inventing the Hindu card to fight the 1983 Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and subsequently to counter the militancy in Punjab The Hindu element in Indian nationalism then acquired prominence further enhanced because of the Babri Masjidrsquos locks being opened during the tenure of her successor Rajiv GandhiIt was in this context the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was born culminating in the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in January The CSDS poll showed that 59 per cent of the upper caste Hindus and 467 per cent of the Hindu Dalits think the Ram Temple ldquohelped in consolidating Hindu identityrdquo an identity considered necessary by 64 per cent Hindus to be truly Indian as the Pew survey found Since Muslims cannot be truly Indian even eight decades after Independence they must still take the loyalty testBut the nature of this test has changed since the post1947 years It now involves accepting without protest Hindu cultural impositions These include abstaining from consuming beef agreeing to Hindutvarsquos definition of Muslim rulers having been Indiarsquos bane and surrendering medieval mosques to Hindus on the ground that these were built after demolishing temples This list growsSince the Muslim cannot be truly Indian it becomes legitimate for Hindus to confine himher to ghettos Muslims must be expelled from Hindudominated villages and urban neighbourhoods for ensuring their security Muslims must be economically boycotted in order to deprive them of their capacity to plot against India There must be laws to discourage them from marrying Hindus for that makes it inordinately difficult to identify those who cannot be truly IndianBut no less an important aspect is the Statersquos stoking of Hindu suspicion of Muslims It is because of the ldquoPractices of the Staterdquo the title of academic Tanweer Fazalrsquos book that the Muslim is cast in the mould of one who cannot be truly Indian She is therefore the perennial fifth columnist For instance the Bangladeshi infiltrator as an everpresent threat to Indians is the Statersquos creation present even in Jharkhand Mumbai and Bengaluru It is the State that projected Muslim youth leaders as antinational for protesting against the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act The culture of vigilantism has flourished in recent years because of the immunity the State is perceived to have granted to vigilantesSince those not truly Indian will continue to reside in India their intent and loyalty will always remain suspect This requires Hindus to remain on constant vigil with a quasiwar like mentality and willingly slip into a state of paranoia which is perpetuated through the rhetoric and policies of Hindutva leaders Their paranoia to them is a national imperative Tiring of Hindutva cannot be an option for them It is symbolically significant that even critics of Hindutva no longer define it as a communal ideology which it is but as Hindu nationalism now considered as a natural state of being by 64 per cent of HindusThe writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon Challenging CasteSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper