Lessons From the Past for the Future: The Definition and Mobilisation of Hindu Nationhood by the Hindu Nationalist Movement of India

Imagining Nationhood: The Mobilisation of Identity Through History, and History Through Identity

According to Reicher and Hopkins (2001), the definition of nationhood and national identity is a socially constructed phenomenon governed by self-categorisation and social-identity processes. This means that definitions and understandings not only are governed by individual perceptions and activities, but also by the perceptions and activities of other people and institutions acting upon either corresponding or conflicting definitions and understandings. What the nation is, who belongs, and what it means to belong is therefore a constantly contested topic, and the success of one set of definitions and understandings over another in representing social reality entails social power (Turner, 2005). This is because shared self-categorisation and social-identification leads to the consensualisation of norms, attitudes, and behaviours through the process of shared self-stereotyping (Haslam, 1997), which is central to coordinated mobilisation. This process of categorisation and identification is also what makes leadership possible by affording priority to those who have the ability to persuasively communicate shared definitions and understandings of nationhood and national identity.

Reicher and Hopkins (2001; see also Reicher, Haslam, & Hopkins, 2005) have referred to leaders with the ability to define and mobilise collectives on the basis of self-categorisation and social-identity processes as identity entrepreneurs. Their expertise lies in their ability to capture and represent their intended audience as constituting a definite social category or group, and defining what it means to belong to that social group. To this effect, identity entrepreneurs employ three key strategies to specify the capacity, direction and leadership of mobilisation. First, they delineate who is included in the group (category boundaries) to determine who will be mobilised. Second, they define what it means to belong to the group (category content) to determine how and for what purpose it will be mobilised. Third and finally, they identify those who best exemplify the group (category prototypes) to determine who will have the legitimacy to lead and direct the mobilisation project. Accordingly, identity entrepreneurs will attempt to include as many people as possible within the category boundaries of the group (i.e., ingroup relative to outgroup members) in an effort to maximise the mobilising capacity of their projects. They will also define and present rivalling agendas as discordant and their own agendas as concordant with the category content of the group that they seek to mobilise. This follows the meta-contrast principle (Turner, 1985) and the process of establishing comparative and normative fit. That is, the maximisation of intergroup differences and minimisation of intragroup differences (see Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994). In the context of national mobilisation this involves persuading target audiences that they are acting in the best interests of the nation when acting in accordance with the agenda being propagated, while at the same time rejecting rivalling agendas. Most importantly, identity entrepreneurs are motivated to present themselves as representative, or prototypical (Reicher, 1982), of the group that they intend to mobilise so as to have the legitimacy to define the group agenda. This is because only those viewed as prototypical of the group are accorded the legitimacy to define who belongs and what it means to belong to the group. However, like social categories and social identities, prototypicality is socially constructed and the legitimacy to lead and mobilise a group and agenda is determined by the verisimilitude that the identity entrepreneurship embodies (Reicher, Haslam, & Hopkins, 2005).

However, in order for identity entrepreneurs to convincingly define and mobilise a target audience as a national category, they must embed their definitions of the boundaries, content, and prototypes of the national category in widely shared understandings of the national category. History has been argued to provide such understandings and therefore to be an essential ingredient in the construction of nationhood and national identity (e.g., Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1990; Liu & Hilton, 2005; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001; Smith, 1991, 2003; Suny, 2001). This is because history can be descriptive in that it can provide a people with an understanding of their origins and identity. On the other hand, it can be prescriptive by instilling a frame of reference for the future. According to Liu and Hilton (2005), the descriptive and prescriptive elements of history are embodied in historical charters, or foundational myths, that serve as warrants for social and political arrangements in the present and future. While there generally tends to be consensus about the episodes, events, and figures that are important in the history of a nation (Liu et al., 2005), their meaning and relevance for present states of affairs are often contested (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Historical charters tend to be communicated in narrative forms (Liu & László, 2007). This allows identity entrepreneurs to represent the historical trajectory of a nation and its people in a story-like structure (Liu & Khan, 2014) that legitimises lessons for the present and future by establishing temporal continuity with its past (Sani et al., 2007)ⁱ. Like the boundaries, content, and prototypes of social categories, historical charters can be invoked to legitimise, i.e., confirm, the validity of the agendas mobilised by identity entrepreneurs. As Liu and Hilton (2005) put it: “A great advantage of history for politicians is that most of the participants are dead, and while immortal as symbols, can speak only through the tongues of present day interpreters” (pp. 539-540).

Taken together, the tenets of Reicher and Hopkins’s (2001) self-categorisation and social-identity framework of identity entrepreneurship and Liu and Hilton’s (2005) social representations theory of history propose that there are two components central to the rhetorical construction of nationhood: identity and history. Both are highly interrelated in that one arguably cannot be invoked without the other in defining a nation and its people. Specifically, constructing nationhood on the basis of self-categorisation and social-identity processes requires category boundaries, content, and prototypes to be embedded within a historical narrative so as to render them coherent with existing, but also past and future, understandings of the nation. This proposition echoes Reicher and Hopkins’s (2001, p. 51) statement: “…if national mobilisation depends upon national identity, then establishing identity depends upon embedding it within an essentialising historical narrative”. Equally, history would not have the mobilising capacity that it has if it was not being invoked to define the essences of identities; as Liu et al. (1999) state: history “is the story of the making of an ingroup” (p. 1023).

The founding fathers of the Hindu nationalism movement worked in an era where favourable social comparisons against the British were all but impossible. Unlike Europe, history-writing and historical sense as an aspect of nation building had not received extensive attention in the Indian subcontinentⁱⁱ. Distraught over the seeming absence of historical records in 19^th century India, James Mill characterised Hindus as “… a crude and credulous people … who cannot estimate the use of record of past events” (Mill, 1858, p. 115). For the British, such a “lack of history” constituted an “epistemological failure” – a sign of ignorance and barbarity among its subjects (Devare, 2011). It was against this background that the version of history invoked by the Hindu nationalist movement served to challenge British perspectives by making temporal comparisons in which a glorified past was compared favourably to the dominance of Britain in the present (Liu & Khan, 2014).

The Hindu Nationalist Movement: Ideology and Operations

As the term implies, the Hindu nationalist movement consists of a network of organisations that profess and propagate Hindu nationalism. This network is referred to as the Sangh Parivar (family of organisations) and today consists of more than 44 affiliate organisations that operate within a wide range of societal domains deemed necessary for the establishment of Hindu nationhood in India (Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a). Many of these organisations are amongst the largest of their kind in India, and some, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers’ Organisation; hereafter RSS), have branches outside of India (Kinnvall & Svensson, 2010). For example, its education provider, Vidya Bharati runs approximately 14,000 schools and employs 73,000 teachers that educate 17,000 000 students nationwide (Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a). Similarly, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is today the largest student union in India with more than one million members (Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a). Most notably, the political arm of the Hindu nationalist movement, the Bharatiya Janata Party (hereafter BJP), received around 20% of the votes in the five general elections between 1991 and 2004 (McGuire & Copland, 2007), and won a majority of seats in the Lower House of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha, in the 2014 general elections by securing 31% of the votes. It has been observed that the election equalled BJP’s “second transformation”, as it, despite its “middle-class, upper-caste orientation”, succeeded in attracting support from a broad spectrum of voters, including members of low-caste and tribal communities (Palshikar & Suri, 2014, pp. 42-44); a comparison of the election manifestos of the BJP in 1998 and 2014 reveals a strategic de-emphasis on the core Hindu nationalist idea of “one nation, one people and one culture” (Ram, 2014) in favour of an emphasis on the economic rejuvenation for a rising India, or “Acche Din” to use the terminology of the BJP (literally translating into “Good Days”). The prototype of the Gujarat model – the economic growth and prosperity that Gujarat state secured under the chief ministership of Narendra Modi (hereafter Modi) - proved helpful to capture popular imaginations. The Hindu nationalist movement does thus not represent the views of an extremist or dissident minority; on the contrary, it is firmly rooted in the mainstream of Indian society (see Basu et al., 1993; Bhatt, 2001; Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a; Ludden, 2005 for overviews).

There are two core components that bind the Sangh Parivar together: their roots in the RSS, and their adherence to Hindutva ideology (derived from the two terms “Hindu” and “Tattva”, which literally translates into “Hindu Principles”; the term used for the ideology of the Hindu nationalist movement). These organisational and ideological foundations were both conceived during the Indian independence movement as a response to the mobilisation of Muslim nationalism by the AIML and secular nationalism by the INC. However, chronologically, it was Savarkar’s writings that inspired the foundations of the RSS. While Savarkar initially had been a staunch proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity in the freedom struggle against the British, as evidenced in his earlier work, The Indian War of Independence (Savarkar, 1909), his encounters with Muslim khilafist and nationalists during his imprisonment made him question the viability of Hindu-Muslim unity in an independent India. It was in Ratnagiri Jail that he began writing Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? with the purpose of connecting prevalent yet disorganised notions of Hindu nationhood (Bhatt, 2001; Jaffrelot, 1996)ⁱⁱⁱ; Savarkar’s ambition was to provide a coherent and comprehensive definition of the premises of Hindu nationhood and identity. The draft of his work was first published under the title Essentials of Hindutva (Savarkar, 1923), whereas the complete version of Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? was first published in 1928.

However, while Savarkar’s ‘Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?’ provided the philosophical underpinnings of the Hindu nationalist movement, Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (hereafter Hedgewar) founded the organisation most central to interpreting and implementing Savarkar’s vision of Hindu nationhood in Indian society in 1925 – the RSS. Hedgewar consulted extensively with Savarkar before finalising the organisational structure and mission of the RSS, which was founded with the aim of strengthening Hindu society and reviving Hindu national consciousness (as articulated by Savarkar); Hedgewar’s goal was never to acquire state power, but to reform Hindus and Hindu culture from the grassroots in the face of rising Muslim nationalism across India. The key concept underpinning the organisation’s structure was that of congregated prayer. Hedgewar believed that Hindu society could become invincible if it congregated and prayed together for fifteen minutes every day and developed this belief into the most basic unit of the RSS, the shakha. The shakha (“branch” in Sanskrit) is both a social group and physical location where RSS members meet daily to engage in a program of physical exercises and ideological sermons. Even though the format and content of the shakha have been developed over years, its physical and ideological components have remained the same (Basu et al., 1993; Bhatt, 2001; Islam, 2006b; Jaffrelot, 1996)^iv. Membership in the RSS tends to last for a lifetime but the main target group for recruitment has always been adolescents. Hedgewar believed that bringing together and organising adolescents in the early stages of their lives would foster relationships amongst them that would last for a lifetime, but also an unquestioning allegiance to the ideology and leaders of the organisation. While the RSS established a woman’s wing in in 1936 – Rashtriya Sevika Samiti – membership in the RSS continues to be exclusively male.

From its inception, Hedgewar prioritised the expansion of the shakha network and following a merger with the youth-wing of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha in 1931 (hereafter ABHM; All-Indian Hindu Assembly; an independent Hindu nationalist political party), the RSS grew rapidly, establishing itself in more than ten Indian states. By 1938, the RSS consisted of approximately 60,000 swayamsevaks (volunteers) divided between 500 shakhas; these figures doubled between 1940 and 1947 (Jaffrelot, 1996). However, the growth and expansion of the RSS came to an abrupt halt on the 30th of January, 1948, when Gandhi was shot at point-blank range by Nathuram Vinayak Godse (hereafter Godse), a former member of the RSS. Godse had become increasingly disenchanted by Gandhi’s anti-violence and pro-Muslim policies, which he believed perpetuated subordination and humiliation of the Hindu community. His frustration culminated when Gandhi initiated a hunger-strike in response to the Indian government’s decision to withhold the transfer of 550 million rupees to Pakistan as part of the partition agreements. Fearing Gandhi’s fast would result in his death, the Indian government made the transfer.

Godse’s association with the RSS had serious repercussions for the Hindu nationalist movement and triggered a nationwide ban and anti-RSS riots. Despite the ban eventually being lifted, it had left the organisation with a significant decrease in membership numbers. Internal differences about the future direction of the organisation also came to the fore as there for a long time had been an ambition to establish a more political orientation for the organisation among younger leaders (e.g., Basu et al., 1993; Bhatt, 2001). Golwalkar who had served as Sarsanghchalak (Supreme Leader) of the RSS since Hedgewar’s death in 1940, managed to steer the organisation away from further decline and internal conflicts by implementing the principle of Saravangeena Unnati (All-Round-Development of India). What the principle came to entail was the establishment of a network of affiliate Hindu nationalist organisations – the Sangh Parivar.

Golwalkar became a member of the RSS in Varanasi during his studies at Benares Hindu University and very quickly moved up the ranks of the organisation. He wrote We, or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) under expectations of him from within the RSS to take the organisation forward and expand it both ideologically and geographically. While Hindu nationalists had been inspired by Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1928), it was believed that Savarkar’s ideas required elaboration and adaptation to the work of the RSS.

The importance of the works Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1928) and We, or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) within the RSS and Sangh Parivar is best understood by separating the ideology from the operations of the movement. While the two works define the premises of Hindu nationhood and identity, the Sangh Parivar operates with the purpose of implementing this understanding of Hindu nationhood. The BJP and its pursuit of state power is thus only one of many means that the Hindu nationalist movement employ to establish Hindu nationhood in India.

As for the works, neither Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1928) nor We, or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) have served as literal operating manuals in the organisations that comprise the Sangh Parivar. For example, the manifesto of the BJP does not consist of extracts from the two works but rather a wide range of policies and standpoints that balance the party’s ideological roots with its political strategies aimed at achieving political success (i.e., gaining support and votes). Similarly, even though many components of the curriculum of the education provider of the RSS, Vidya Bharati, are influenced by Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s writings (Jaffrelot, 2005a; Sundar, 2004; Thapar, 2009), other components comprise materials, resources, and processes aimed at achieving set educational standards. This process of ideological appropriation applies to every organisation that makes up the Sangh Parivar and enables them to function successfully in their respective domains of operation (Basu et al., 1993; Bhatt, 2001; Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a; Ludden, 2005).

However, what makes the vision of Hindu nationhood proposed by Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939) central to the Sangh Parivar is that it continues to constitute the main component of the RSS’s ideological curriculum (Basu et al., 1993; Baxter, 1969; Bhatt, 2001; Curran, 1951; Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a). This is important, as most leaders of the organisations that comprise the Sangh Parivar have been members of the RSS since early adolescence and have previously held leadership positions within the RSS (Islam, 2006b; Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a; McGuire & Copland, 2007). For example, every president of the BJP, including its current president, Amit Shah, has served as an RSS swayamsevak before joining the political party. In addition, both BJP’s first Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and its present Prime Minister, Modi, were leading RSS activists in their youth.

The leaders in the RSS and its affiliate organisations are as a result indoctrinated in Hindu nationalist ideology before assuming positions in the upper ranks of the Sangh Parivar. However, it has not always been unproblematic for the Sangh Parivar to balance their ideological loyalties with the situational demands of their respective domains of operation. The BJP has in many instances had to downplay its Hindu nationalist agenda and distance itself from the RSS in order to be perceived as a legitimate democratic party (McGuire & Copland, 2007; Noorani, 2000). The affiliation between the BJP and the Sangh Parivar has arguably, for a long time, also been strategically concealed so as to bring audiences who are not necessarily sympathetic of the RSS into its fold (Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a). When the BJP was in power in 1998, the party even denied that We, or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) had been written by Golwalkar (see Islam, 2006b for an overview of the episode)^v. In light of the recent electoral success of the BJP, the party’s close links to the RSS, and the consequent apprehension of intensified Hindu majoritarianism (Adeney, 2015), there are concerns about the extent to which the BJP is inclined and capable to fully act on its “ideological foundation” (Varshney, 2014). Prime Minister Modi, with his political beliefs deeply rooted in Hindu nationalism and alleged facilitation of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, is carefully positioning himself in relation to the ideological foundation of the movement: balancing pressures from within the Sangh Parivar to show his commitment to the ideological foundation of the movement on the one hand, and gaining recognition as the Prime Minister of all Indians on the other (Bandow, 2014). A seeming shift has, however, occurred lately as regards the publicity of BJP’s relation to the Sangh Parivar, exemplified by how leading BJP figures openly attended an RSS-organised “coordination meeting” in September, 2015 (PTI, 2015).

Other than educating its leadership in the writings of Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939) and establishing a network of operations to propagate their vision of Hindu nationhood, the Hindu nationalist movement has relied heavily upon the orchestration of campaigns to instil, uphold and reinforce Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s vision of Hindu nationhood. Many of the most influential of these campaigns, such as the Ekatmata Yatra (Pilgrimage of Unity) and Ramjanmabhoomi (Birthplace of Lord Ram) campaign (to be described in the discussion), have been directly inspired by themes from Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s writings, including the indigeneity of Hindu people, religion and culture and the historical and contemporary threat of Islam and Christianity (and thereby Muslims and Christians) in the subcontinent. Many of these views have gained significant support in mainstream Indian society in the last three decades (Basu et al., 1993; Bhatt, 2001; Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a; Ludden, 2005), which has been concurrent with a process of conceiving Indian history in Hindu-centric terms (Thapar, 2005; Trivedi, 2014; Visweswaran et al., 2009), and efforts to assimilate the history, myths and symbols of Dalit (ex-Untouchable) communities into a unified Hindu past and present (Narayan, 2009). Recent controversies relating to the consumption of beef and to the prohibition of cow slaughter in a majority of Indian states and union territories (Bukhari, 2015; Punwani, 2015; Teltumbde, 2015) might also be seen to fit into such a wider pattern of ‘Hinduising’ Indian society.

Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1928) and We, or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) thus continue to constitute the backbone of the ideology and operations of the Hindu nationalist movement. Given the centrality of Hindu nationalism and the Hindu nationalist movement in contemporary Indian politics, scrutiny of the guiding tenets of Hindu nationhood represents an imperative undertaking.

The Current Study

This study examines the theory of Hindu nationhood formulated and propagated by the ideologues of the Hindu nationalist movement at a critical moment in time – the Indian independence movement. Two frameworks guided this examination: the self-categorisation and social-identity framework of identity entrepreneurship (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001), and the social representations theory of history (Liu & Hilton, 2005). The two frameworks are integrated so as to elucidate the rhetorical strategies by which (a) the ideologues of the Hindu nationalist movement constructed and mobilised an account of Hindu nationhood, and (b) invoked history in so doing. While Reicher and Hopkins (2001) have highlighted the importance of history in the construction and mobilisation of identities, they, nor others applying their framework, have explicitly delineated how history – in terms of both structure and content – is invoked. Similarly, Liu and Hilton (2005), and others applying their framework, have emphasised the significance of identity entrepreneurs in the construction and mobilisation of identities on the basis of history without delineating the specific self-categorisation and social-identity processes employed by identity entrepreneurs in constructing and mobilising identities on the basis of history.

The primary contribution of the paper to social psychology thus lies in its demonstration of the applicability and compatibility of two theoretical frameworks, emanating from two distinct yet related theoretical traditions within social psychology, to the analysis of the rhetorical construction of nationhood, at a critical point in time, in India (for other examples of theorising and research combining the two traditions see Elcheroth, Doise, & Reicher, 2011; Klein & Licata, 2003; Zouhri & Rateau, 2015). However, it should be stressed that the findings of our analysis, and the conclusions drawn from them, are context-specific; although parallels can be drawn to processes operating in other contexts in which nationalist identity projects have been or are being mobilised, such inferences are secondary to our endeavour.

The secondary contribution of the paper is to the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies, and lies in the illustration of the applicability of social psychological theory for understanding the strategies underpinning the rhetorical construction of nationhood, or to employ the interdisciplinary terminology denoting the phenomenon: the imagining of national communities (Anderson, 1983). It also constitutes a particularly important contribution to the interdisciplinary literature on Indian nationalism, and Hindu nationalism in particular, by being one of the only in-depth and systematic analyses of the theory of Hindu nationhood formulated by the ideologues of Hindu nationalist movement in its entirety. Although Hindu nationalist sentiments first were articulated by Hindu revivalists in the 19^th century (see Zavos, 2000), the theory of Hindu nationhood professed and propagated by the Hindu nationalist movement today was formulated by Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939) in the pre-independence era. However, despite the centrality of these ideological manifestos for the movement, the interdisciplinary literature on Hindu nationalism has generally tended to dedicate more attention to its modus operandi. Extracts from Savarkar’s (1928) and Golwalkar’s (1939) writings have only been cited intermittently so as to illustrate the movement’s ideological foundations. These citations have often only consisted of extracts in which Savarkar and Golwalkar rationalise the exclusion of religious minorities from Hindu nationhood (for examples, see Basu et al., 1993; Jaffrelot, 1996, 2005a; Nussbaum, 2007; van der Veer, 1994). The most extensive systematic study of the Hindu nationalist theory of nationhood to date can arguably be found in Flåten’s (2017) analysis of Hindu nationalist textbooks, but this undertaking focused upon secondary narrations of the theory of Hindu nationhood originally put forward by Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939). The selective focus on components of historical narratives has parallels in social psychology, wherein research tends to expose and examine specific elements of history (e.g., understandings of specific historical events) and their implications for identity constructions and intergroup relations (e.g., Liu, Sibley, & Huang, 2014; Smeekes, Verkuyten, & Poppe, 2012), as opposed to how identities and intergroup relations are constructed and embedded within foundational myths about the origins of nations and peoples.

Corpus

The corpus consisted of the texts Hindutva: Who is a Hindu (Savarkar, 1928) and We, or Our Nationhood Defined (Golwalkar, 1939).

Savarkar’s Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? was published in 1928, and so far there have been seven editions of the booklet. The last edition was published in 2005 and was used for the present analysis. It consists of 141 pages of text organised under 31 headings. The booklet does not contain a foreword or commentary and the entire text was therefore analysed.

Golwalkar’s We, or Our Nationhood Defined was first published in 1939, and there have been three editions of the booklet, with the last edition published in 1947. However, the first edition was re-published in 2006 under the title: Golwalkar’s We, or our nationhood defined: A critique with the full text of the book (Islam, 2006a). The first edition of We, or Our Nationhood Defined (Golwalkar, 1939) was used in the present analysis and consists of 83 pages of text organised under seven chapters. The foreword and appendices were excluded from the analysis because they were not written by Golwalkar.

The two editions of the booklets used for the present analysis were published in the English language.

Analytical Strategy

The texts were analysed using thematic analysis, which has been described by Braun and Clarke (2006) as “a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) from within data” (p.79). The main reason for employing this method was because of its flexibility in that it was not bound to any particular theoretical or epistemological framework. The epistemological position of this study is thus neither exclusively essentialist nor constructionist, but positioned between the two epistemologies. The writings of Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939) are argued to reflect their construction of the foundations of Hindu nationhood, and this construction was situated in a greater discourse about the foundations of the impending independence of the Indian nation that was at the forefront of debates in the era of their writings. Braun and Clarke (2006) have described such intermediate epistemological positions as being contextualist.

The thematic analysis followed a six-step process proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006). The first author (SK) led the analysis through the six-steps, and two of the co-authors (TS & YJ) contributed to the last three steps. The six-steps are as follows: (1) Familiarisation with the data was achieved by reading and entering the texts into QSR NVivo, the software used to analyse the text. (2) Generation of initial codes involved coding extracts in the texts pertaining to the definition of Hindu nationhood. (3) Searching for themes involved classifying the initial codes under broader themes that captured their content. Themes were derived on the basis of recurrence, repetition and emphasis, but also their relevance to the research aims, which was to examine the structure and content of the Hindu nationalist ideology. Themes were for the most part identified on the semantic level. This means that the themes were identified within the explicit meanings of the texts. However, in the process of refining, defining, and interconnecting themes, the analysis was also interpretative in that inferences were made about the broader meanings, interconnections, and implications of the themes. (4) Reviewing themes involved refining and defining the themes derived during the third step. The principles of internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity (Patton, 1990) ensured coherence within and discreetness between the themes. The texts were also re-read at this step to ascertain that no themes had been overlooked in the previous steps. (5) Defining themes involved naming the themes and corroborating their definitions. This step also required identifying extracts most representative of the themes – that is, the extracts presented in this article. (6) Producing theory and report involved interpreting and reporting the final themes while also describing interconnections between the themes. We present the sixth and final step in the following section.

Themes

We identified three main themes composed of ten distinct and coherent sub-themes. These are presented in the Appendix. In addition, a more elaborate outline of the eleven sub-themes can be found in Khan (2011). The current paper primarily focuses upon the three main themes, which encapsulate the strategies employed by Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939) in invoking history to define Hindu nationhood. The first theme concerns the ideologues’ definition of the historical origins of Hindu nationhood in order to define who belonged to and in the Hindu nation. The second theme pertains to the ideologues’ definition of the historical trajectory of Hindu nationhood so as to define who did not belong to and in the Hindu nation. Finally, the third theme captures the lessons that the ideologues’ historical representation Hindu nationhood carried for the present and future of nationhood in the Indian subcontinent.

Contributions

This analysis of the theory of Hindu nationhood put forward by Savarkar’s (1928) and Golwalkar’s (1939) texts during the Indian independence movement seems to have two contributions to make to the literature. First and foremost, the examination demonstrated the utility of combining a self-categorisation and social-identity framework of identity entrepreneurship (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001), with a social representations theory of history (Liu & Hilton, 2005), to systematically elucidate the rhetorical strategies by which Hindu nationalists constructed Hindu nationhood by invoking history during the Indian independence movement.

Second, although the link between history and identity, and vice-versa, is well-established within social psychology and nationalism studies alike (e.g., Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1990; Liu & Hilton, 2005; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001; Smith, 1991, 2003; Suny, 2001), the combination of the theoretical frameworks elucidates how identity entrepreneurs invoke history along the lines of cognitive-motivational processes involved in the categorisation of groups, as postulated by self-categorisation theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987).

Narrative theorists, such as László (1997) and Wertsch (2002), have proposed that the narrative form of history invoked in the construction of identities is contingent on standard narrative features, such as plots, characters and events, so as to convey authenticity. Furthermore, they argue that narratives of history invoked by identity entrepreneurs transform into schematic narrative templates through repetition via institutions utilised for their dissemination, such as schools and media in the case of nation states, and eventually form collective memories. Wertsch’s (2002) work in the former Soviet Union shows that such schematic narrative templates followed a standard narrative structure. They began with a peaceful era, which came to be disturbed by the agitation and aggression of an outside force that in turn led to an era of oppression and suffering, ultimately overcome through the collective and heroic actions of the people. It is clear that the narrative structure delineated by Savarkar and Golwalkar with regard to the origins, trajectory, and future of Hindu nationhood followed an identical structure. The reason why such a narrative structure is particularly compelling in the mobilisation of identity projects, and in the construction of collective memories, is because historical narratives are structured along the same lines as the cognitive-motivational categorisation of groups. Beginning a narrative of the identity category being mobilised with a foundational myth, or so called golden age, lends itself to establishing the normative fit (see Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994) of the social category being mobilised. That is, the definition of the essence of the social category, i.e., the normative meaning of belonging to that category. This distinction, however, becomes significant, and has implications for the way in which the identity project comes to perceive itself, and its standing in relation to, and relations with, other categories when the comparative fit (see Turner et al., 1994) of the category is invoked, which takes place at a critical juncture in the narrative of the history (see Liu & Khan, 2014) – specifically at the point that an antagonist is introduced. In the case of the narrative of the Hindu nation’s encounter with Islam and the British, both Savarkar and Golwakar represent the juncture in a manner that accentuates differences between the Hindu nation and people and its antagonists, portraying differences between them as fundamentally irreconcilable. This process of accentuating intergroup differences simultaneously also involves accentuation of intragroup similarities. This means that groups traditionally viewed as different become viewed as more similar when the comparative context is widened to include groups that on average are more different to the intragroup category than the average difference between groups comprising the intragroup category. While Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s theory of a homogenous Hindu nation and people is falsifiable on basis of a wealth of historical evidence (see Ambedkar, 2008; Kasbe, 1978), there is no question that their historical narrative is crafted as persuasively as possible by structuring it on the basis of basic principles of intergroup differentiation. Thus, what constitutes an “essentialising historical narrative” (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001, p. 51) is one that follows a standard narrative template that communicates a credible representation of who and who does not belong, and what it means to belong, to a social category being mobilised.

The (re)Enactment of Hindu Nationalism in Modern India

What is most remarkable about the writings of Savarkar and Golwalkar is the fact that their narrative did not include a concluding episode in which the antagonist was defeated, but only hints at the victory and glory that could be achieved if resistance was mobilised like it was during the rise of the Maratha Empire and the 1857 rebellion. This shows how critical the point in time was for the shaping of a collective memory in India. The representation of a Hindu national consciousness and spirit, and the calls for the re-vitalisation of this national consciousness and spirit, and in turn re-establishment of Hindu nationhood, highlight the pertinence of the impending independence of India at the time and the contestation of its foundations – the final chapter was being enacted at the time of Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s writings, and the ideologues were presenting their agenda as the answer.

Why neither Savarkar (1928) nor Golwalkar (1939) elaborated upon exactly how the Hindu nation and people could re-vitalise the Hindu national consciousness and re-establishing Hindu nationhood might be attributed to the pre-independence context of their writings. While the secular nationalist and Muslim nationalist movement were being mobilised in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, notions of Hindu nationhood were only being expressed as views and sentiments before the publication of Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s texts (see Zavos, 2000). However, given that the Hindu nationalist movement was marginalised for almost 60 years after its inception, Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s theory of Hindu nationhood has had a greater impact in modern day India than it had in the pre-independence era. Many of the modern day campaigns of the Hindu nationalist movement have in fact strategically been orchestrated to instil, uphold and reinforce Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s narrative and vision of Hindu nationhood by emphasising the indigeneity of the Hindu nation and people, the historically oppressive encounter with Islam, and the necessity of restoring the former glory of Hindu nationhood.

Among the most prominent of these campaigns was the Ramjanmabhoomi (Birthplace of Lord Ram), or Ayodhya, campaign. Historically, the birthplace of Lord Ram^x was believed to be marked by a small platform adjacent to the Babri mosque which was built in 1528 by the first Mughal Emperor of India, Babur. The site largely remained undisputed until after the partition when someone broke into the mosque and installed idols of Lord Ram, his wife Sita, and his companion Hanuman in 1949. As thousands of devotees gathered as witnesses, Hindu nationalist organisations claimed that the idols had manifested themselves to reclaim the site. Recognising the sensitivity of the issue, the state government ordered the removal of the idols. Following the event, the issue only resurfaced again when it was revived by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Council of Hindus) in the 1980s, with the orchestration of a number of nationwide rallies calling for access to the ‘shrine’ where the idols had been installed in 1949 (Jaffrelot, 1996; Katju, 2003).

Around the same time the state-owned Indian television station Doordarshan began screening a 78-episode weekly Ramayana television series, which reinforced the view that the town of Ayodhya was Lord Ram’s birthplace (see Rajagopal, 2001). The movement was further reinvigorated in 1989 when the BJP passed a resolution making the Ramjanmabhoomi its main campaign issue in the lead up to the elections (Jaffrelot, 1996; Katju, 2003). The BJP resolution was followed by Lal Krishna Advani’s (then president of the BJP; hereafter Advani) notorious Rath Yatra (Chariot March) in 1990. A truck that had been decorated to resemble an ancient Indian chariot (portrayed in the screening of the Ramayana) – from which Advani, standing on a platform behind the driver’s cab, addressed the public through loudspeakers – led the Rath Yatra. In total, the procession covered 10,000 miles and 10 states across India and along its course almost 300 interreligious riots erupted, the most since partition (Jaffrelot, 1996; Katju, 2003).

The agitations of the Hindu nationalist movement culminated on the 6^th of December, 1992, when an estimated 150,000 Hindu nationalist activists gathered for a rally outside the mosque. While the crowd was being addressed by prominent Hindu nationalist leaders, a small group of activists managed to break through the barricades protecting the mosque. Thousands of other activists followed suit and, within minutes, activists shouting Hindu nationalist slogans and hurling stones at the police surrounded the mosque. The police eventually retreated and thousands of activists began climbing the mosque using sledge hammers and iron rods to destroy the structure. Within hours large parts of the mosque were razed to the ground. Interreligious riots erupted in most major northern Indian cities in the aftermath of the demolition (Jaffrelot, 1996; Katju, 2003).

While there is agreement about the role that wider political and economic factors played in the mobilisation of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement (see Kinnvall, 2004; Varshney, 1993), there is also consensus that the combination of Hindu mythology and Hindu-Muslim history in the same campaign proved to be a compelling recipe for its success (Jaffrelot, 1996; Katju, 2003). Not only did widely shared understandings of the Ramayana enable the Vedic civilisation to be portrayed and mobilised as a golden age for the Hindu people, the historical encounter between Hindu and Muslim civilisations, embodied in the conquests of Babur, was also completely consistent with Savarkar’s (1928) and Golwalkar’s (1939) narration of this as a historical juncture characterised by the subjugation and humiliation of Hindu nationhood. The campaign to “liberate” the site did thus not only come to symbolise Hindu resistance against the enduring oppression of Islam in the subcontinent but also the mission of restoring Hindu nationhood to its former glory.

Ideological Flexibility and Political Mobilisation

There is no doubt that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement was pivotal in bringing the message of the Hindu nationalist movement to the fore in mainstream Indian society. This can be inferred on the basis of the results of the Indian general elections that followed the event. While the BJP only managed to secure two out of the 544 seats in the Lok Sabha after their first run in the general elections of 1984, the party gained 254 seats in 1998 (McGuire & Copland, 2007). This enabled the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance to lead India until it was defeated by the INC-dominated United Progressive Alliance in the general elections of both 2004 and 2009. As noted in the introduction, the BJP has once more, after the 2014 general elections, been elevated into the position of India’s most influential party.

However, the quantum leap of the BJP to power in 2014 was achieved by downplaying the Ramjanmabhoomi agenda while strategically co-opting neoliberal issues of material prosperity and economic growth. George (2014) terms this new mobilisation strategy as “Hindutva 2.0” which promises a “Hindutva rate of growth” – a model of economic rejuvenation and prosperity along with Hindu assertion - against the “Hindu rate of growth” which is a derisive description of a crippled economy. Indeed, as George (2014) further notes, this strategy helped the BJP to overcome its traditional weaknesses in terms of connecting with an estranged propertied class, and addressing the political and economic aspirations of erstwhile excluded middle and lower castes. Several commentators have noted a rather unsurprising connection between Hindu nationalist movement and neoliberalism. For example, drawing upon Marxist philosopher Nicos Poulantzas’ (1978/2000) analysis of the relationship between capitalist states and ‘individualisation’, and the Gramscian concept of “hegemony”: (Gramsci, 1971), Gopalakrishnan (2006, 2008) traces the parallel growth of Indian neoliberalism and Hindu nationalism to the 1990s. He argues that although there are core differences around the concept of choice and freedom, Hindu nationalism and neoliberalism share “similar visions of relationship between the state, society and the individual” and a common movement towards “individualisation” which reduces social processes to the level of individual choices (Gopalakrishnan 2006, p. 2805). Gopalakrishnan emphatically brings out how both Hindu nationalism and neoliberalism propose similar (and somewhat parallel) rhetoric of transformation and a political project of “new society”. While a “utility maximising” individual is a seat of rationality and choice for neoliberalism, Hindu nationalism too emphasises the sovereignty of individuals as long as it is as a “good Hindu” whose primary affiliation is to the Hindu nation. In this sense, Gopalakrishnan argues that both Hindu nationalism and neoliberalism reify collective social activity in the form of the Hindu nation and the market respectively. While one may not agree with Gopalakrishnan’s analysis in toto, it is clear that religion is not the sole mobilisation element of the Hindu nationalist movement.

One, however, needs to be careful in assessing the impact of Hindu nationalism on Hindu society, as the election results of the BJP only serve as a proxy of the wider success of the Hindu nationalist movement. As described in the introduction, the agenda of the RSS has never been to acquire state power. In fact, it took the RSS almost 30 years to establish a political wing to directly challenge the INC hegemony to state power through electoral politics and this division of labour continues to be a source of tension within the Hindu nationalist movement (see Noorani, 2000). From this perspective, the success of the Hindu nationalist movement should not only be assessed by counting the votes that its political wing has gained over the last decades, but by assessing the success that the movement has had in implanting its vision of Hindu nationhood in modern day India. Especially in relation to the continued political and societal salience of attributing fixity and essence to Hindu – and by extension, Indian – identity, but also by engaging the current hegemonic position of Hindu nationalist narrations of an Indian past and present as equalling, to reconnect with the opening part of this article, a critical moment in time.

Given the exponential growth of the Sangh Parivar – and of the RSS in particular – since the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign^xi, the Hindu nationalist movement could be argued to have had immense success in propagating Hindu nationalism. However, true tests of this inference would have to be assessed by examining the extent to which the theory of Hindu nationhood is understood and endorsed in present-day India. Likewise it could be argued that in order to assess the success of right-wing movements around the world today, researchers, observers and commentators alike need to give more attention to a) if, and if so, how, right-wing movements are operating and mobilising on the basis of essentialising historical narratives and construals of nationhood and national identity; and b) the extent to which such essentialised histories of nationhood and national identity have been implanted and accepted in the societies in which they are being mobilised. Research into the rise of right-wing movements around the world, particularly in Europe, has dedicated more attention to why people vote for right-wing political parties (e.g., Arzheimer, 2009; Ivarsflaten, 2008; Lucassen & Lubbers, 2012; Rydgren, 2008) than to the consequences that the mobilisation of right-wing movements may have for the way in which people come to view the foundations of their respective nationhoods and national identities. Following research on “the rhetorical pressures” contained in forceful attempts to combine ideas ‘of authentic identity with certain ways of thinking and behaving’, the present article emphasises the need to attend to the manner whereby essentialised identities, on the basis of notions of enmity, threat and dissent, turn into ‘background, common-sense categories’ (Finlay, 2007, pp. 324, 334; see also Finlay, 2005; Jaspal & Coyle, 2014).

Limitations and Future Directions

The present study is not without its limitations. Two distinct yet related questions emerge from the study, which propose avenues for future research: (1) To what extent are the writings of Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939) relevant to the mobilisation Hindu nationalist movement today; (2) To what extent is the structure and content of the Hindu nationalist theory of Hindu nationhood put forward by Savarkar and Golwalkar understood and endorsed amongst members of the general public?

The first question, we believe, has to some extent been addressed. That is, the writings of Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939) are by no means operating manuals of the Hindu nationalist movement, but rather the theory of nationhood underpinning its activities. Even though the theory was formulated so as to counter competing theories of nationhood propagated during the independence movement, the narrative of the origins of Indian (i.e., Hindu) nationhood, its historical trajectory, golden- versus dark-ages, protagonists and antagonists, continues to be propagated by the Hindu nationalist movement in contemporary Indian society. This was most evident in Ramjanmabhoomi campaign discussed above, which continues to be spearheaded by the Sangh Parivar, albeit not the BJP but the VHP. It was also evident in 2002 when the BJP led-government systematically changed the history curriculum and textbooks of the leading government education institution, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), so as to reflect the Hindu origins of the Indian community and nation (Delhi Historians’ Group J. N. U., 2001; Kamala, Witzel, Manjrenkar, Bhog, & Chakravarti, 2009; Thapar, 2009). Although the INC began a process of ‘re-secularising’ the history curriculum and textbooks after the BJP was defeated, the ‘saffronisation’ of history has continued since the BJP led government swept into power in 2014; alongside a series of appointments of RSS affiliates and Hindutva sympathisers to top government and ministry positions, Modi also appointed a relatively unknown historian, with established ties to the RSS, as chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), who after his appointment proposed that the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, be viewed as historical fact (Mohanty, 2014). These are just two examples. Moreover, even though the RSS remains secretive about its inner workings, and its affiliates underplay their relationship to the RSS (particularly the BJP), there exists no reason to believe that previous research into the ideology of the RSS and the Sangh Parivar – ranging in publication dates from 1950 to 2005 (e.g., Curran, 1951; Jaffrelot, 2005a) – has changed, nor that the Sangh Parivar has ceased the practice of appointing RSS leaders to top leadership positions within the organisational network. Although the mobilisation strategies of the movement may change, and should be continuously scrutinised by academics, political commentators, and journalists alike^xii, the political project of consolidating Hindu nationhood will remain the same; what is striking is the fact that this flexibility was accorded by the inbuilt prescriptive ambivalence in Hindu nationalist ideology, which also applies to the expansion strategy that the RSS embarked upon in the 1940s.

We cannot claim to have addressed the second question in this paper, as the data that we have analysed does not enable us to make any statements about how the theory of Hindu nationhood is understood amongst members of the general public, nor about the attitudinal and behavioural implications of endorsing the ideology. Findings from qualitative research conducted by Sen and Wagner (2005) in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum located in Mumbai, with both Hindu and Muslim participants, suggested that the participants had an understanding of the central themes in the historical narrative put forward by Savarkar (1928) and Golwalkar (1939), mediated via their understandings of the premises of the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign. Similar findings were identified by Tripathi (2005) in his interviews with apolitical students and VHP rallyists in Allahabad; unsurprisingly, understandings of Hindu nationalist ideology were more sophisticated amongst Hindu nationalist activists than apolitical students. However, other than the above two studies, empirical research into lay understandings and the endorsement of Hindu nationalist ideology, and its implications for intergroup relations, is non-existent. This lacuna is paralleled with a general lack of social and political psychological research addressing pertinent societal issues in India. For example, research into the culture-specific context and nature of ideology along the political spectrum in India does not exist, and with the exception of only very few studies, research into intergroup relations tends to be decontextualised (for an overview, see Khan & Sen, 2009). This signals significant scope for social and political psychology to make important contributions to the largely interdisciplinary literature on the antecedents of intergroup violence and harmony in India. Topics and issues for future research that come to mind include: the operationalisation of political ideology in India, with a focus on secular versus Hindu nationalism; how and what emotions are invoked in Hindu nationalist campaigns and their implications for intergroup relations; and the effects of Hindu nationalism on Dalit and Indian Muslim imaginings of the past, and their implications for the construction of national identity, belongingness, and wellbeing amongst members of these minority communities.

There are multiple avenues that lend themselves to social and political psychological research — the greater point being made here is that the discipline(s) is theoretically and methodologically equipped to make important contributions towards better understanding political, identity, and intergroup dynamics in India, insofar as it takes into account the context of these dynamics in calibrating its research questions. The present paper is just one example of such an approach to social and political psychology in India.