A new Bollywood movie is galvanizing Hindu audiences and stirring up a fresh wave of anti-Muslim bigotry. In the name of India's Hindu majority, hijabs are banned in one Indian state and Muslims attacked for praying publicly in New Delhi. A hardline Hindu supremacist, infamous for his anti-Muslim comments and for policies that demonize or exclude Muslims, wins a second term as chief minister of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. His victory is seen as a ringing endorsement of the ideology of Hindutva.
The belief that India is not a secular nation, or even multi-religious, but an intrinsically Hindu country, is the central platform of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But the "Hindu majority" invoked by supporters of Hindutva, in their agitation against Muslims and other minorities, is not a monolithic bloc. In fact, it is highly stratified, with elite groups of Hindus exploiting the vulnerability of marginalized communities for their own political ends.
If Hindu unity is a facade, it also follows that the Hindu-Muslim binary, while a common framing for the discussion of Indian politics, cannot be as straightforward as it appears.
Source: Time0 COMMENTS
