The Saffron Wave

by Hansen, Thomas Blom

• ISBN13: 9780691006703
• ISBN10: 0691006709
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

The rise of strong nationalist and religious movements in postcolonial and newly democratic countries alarms many Western observers. In The Saffron Wave, Thomas Hansen turns our attention to recent events in the world's largest democracy, India. Here he analyzes Indian receptivity to the right-wing Hindu nationalist party and its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which claims to create a polity based on "ancient" Hindu culture. Rather than interpreting Hindu nationalism as a mainly religious phenomenon, or a strictly political movement Hansen places the BJP within the context of the larger transformations of democratic governance in India. Hansen demonstrates that democratic transformation has enabled such developments as political mobilization among the lower castes and civil protections for religious minorities. Against this backdrop, the Hindu nationalist movement has successfully articulated the anxieties and desires of the lange and amorphous Indian middle class. A form of conservative populism, the movement has attracted not only privileged groups fearing encroachment on their dominant positions but also "plebeian" and impoverished groups seeking recognition around a majoritarian rhetoric of cultural pride, order, and national strength. Combining political theory, ethnographic material and sensitivity to colonial and postcolonial history, The Saffron Wave offers fresh insights into Indian politics and, by focusing on the links between democracy and ethnic majoritarianism, advances our understanding of democracy in the postcolonial world.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Hindu Nationalism and Democracy in India	3	(2)
Hindu Nationalism and Postcolonial Trajectories of Democracy	5	(5)
Hindu Nationalism and the Imaginings of India	10	(4)
About This Book	14	(2)
Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in India	16	(44)
The Democratic Revolution	20	(2)
Social Antagonisms and Politics	22	(2)
Discourse and the Analysis of Politics	24	(5)
Governance and Nationalism in Colonial India	29	(2)
Colonial Governmentalities	31	(8)
India as a Cultural Nation	39	(5)
Competing Nationalist Discourses	44	(2)
Producing Citizens and Communities in Independent India	46	(11)
Conclusion	57	(3)
Imagining the Hindu Nation	60	(30)
Ideology and the Impossibility of Identities	60	(5)
Objectification of Communities	65	(2)
Inversion of Orientalist Epistemology	67	(4)
Semitization of Hinduism	71	(3)
From Hindu Community to ``Hindu Nation''	74	(3)
Hindutva and the ``Lack'' in the Hindus	77	(3)
The Nation as Fullness and Purity: M. S. Golwalkar	80	(4)
In the Gandhian Garb: Deendayal Upadhyaya and ``Integral Humanism''	84	(2)
Constructing the ``Founding Myth''	86	(2)
Conclusion: Hindu Nationalism and Democratic Revolution	88	(2)
Organizing the Hindu Nation	90	(44)
Culture versus Politics	92	(4)
The Sangh Parivar	96	(11)
Sevikas in Thane City	99	(5)
Hindu Missionaries at the Frontier	104	(3)
Cohesion, Leadership, and Control in the Sangh Parivar	107	(8)
Constituencies and Strategies of the Sangh Parivar	115	(11)
The ``Sangha'' Citadel in Pune	116	(6)
Lower Castes for a Higher Cause	122	(4)
The Sangh Parivar in the Political Field	126	(7)
Ambiguities of Politics	133	(1)
Democracy, Populism, and Governance in India in the 1980s	134	(20)
Populism and the Transformation of Governance	134	(6)
Competing Populisms	140	(1)
The Rise of the Other Backward Classes as a Political Identity	141	(7)
Caste and the Impurities of Politics	145	(3)
Religious Symbols in the Political Field	148	(2)
Muslim Minoritization	150	(2)
A Hegemonial Crisis	152	(2)
The Saffron Wave	154	(46)
Toward a National Hinduism	154	(3)
BJP as a New Beginning	157	(2)
Communalizing the Political Field	159	(6)
Patriotic Bricks	161	(4)
Contingencies of Electoral Politics	165	(3)
Opening Other Fronts	168	(4)
Roadside Patriotism	169	(3)
Ayodhya and Organized Communalism	172	(9)
The Demolition of Babri Masjid and After	181	(4)
The Disjunction of Agitational and Electoral Politics	185	(12)
Hindutva and Respectability	188	(3)
Political Imaginaries in Suburbia	191	(6)
After the Wave	197	(3)
Communal Identities at the Heart of the Nation	200	(18)
The Normal and the Pathological	200	(3)
Violence and Communal Consciousness	203	(11)
Communal Subjects and Political Action	214	(4)
Hindu Nationalism, Democracy, and Globalization	218	(21)
Hindu Nationalism and Governance	219	(4)
Hindu Nationalism and Democracy	223	(6)
Hindu Nationalism and Globalization	229	(6)
Democracy and Xenophobias in India	235	(4)
Notes	239	(30)
Glossary	269	(4)
Bibliography	273	(16)
Index	289