The revived contestations over history — from the Gyanvapi mosque case to the renewed demonisation of Aurangzeb — confirm that Hindutva conflates its ideas of religion and culture with those of nation and state. Nationalism and statehood are by definition indivisible, whereas religion and culture take on multiple manifestations. Culture of course contributes to national identity; yet, culture alone cannot mould the nationalism of a country, leave alone that of a plural land such as India. Indeed, an India confident in its own diversity could celebrate multiple expressions of its culture.
A ‘ground zero’
Hindutva sees culture differently. As the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s longest-serving chief M.S. Golwalkar wrote, culture “is but a product of our all-comprehensive religion, a part of its body and not distinguishable from it”. For the Hindutvavadis, India’s national culture is Hindu religious culture, and cultural nationalism cloaks plural India in a mantle of Hindu identity. Since Hindutva’s conception of nationalism is rooted in the primacy of culture over politics, the Hindutva effort is to create an idea of the Indian nation in which the Hindu religious identity coincides with the cultural. In this process, Indian history, following the Muslim conquests of north India, has become “ground zero” in the battle of narratives between the Hindutvavadis and the pluralists.
