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Hindutva does not belong to Modi nor his party, it belongs to the people as a unifying, decolonial ideology similar to pan-Africanism or Yugoslavism.
His own brand of "positive secularism" is even milder - deepening special rights and welfare schemes for religious minorities.
After the disbanding of the Hindu Mahasabha and Jana Sangh, Hindutva as a political ideology does not even exist, except as a bogeyman in the minds of the Anglophone elite.
Even the BJP gave up Hindutva for civic nationalism, Gandhian socialism, and positive secularism in 1980s.
Under Modi, there has been compete policy continuity on minority rights and welfare from the Congress era, with little to no "Hindutva agenda" coming to see the light of day.
The most radical policy they can dream of is religion-neutral laws and equal rights for equal citizens.
Hindutva was essential in forming a national consciousness, but was abandoned with time. The modern BJP refuses to self-identify as a Hindutva movement, adopting moderates like Sardar Patel, Deendayal Upadhyay, and JP Narayan as their icons, rather than Savarkar or the Mahasabha.
When they say Hindu Rashtra, all they mean is an "Indic polity".
When British India was partitioned into a Muslim homeland and a Dharmic homeland, one state became a 'Ghazi' garrison state, and one the successor state to the Indic
His own brand of "positive secularism" is even milder - deepening special rights and welfare schemes for religious minorities.
I'm not entirely comfortable with Modi's "Hindutva".
— Onye Nkuzi (@cchukudebelu) February 2, 2021
I know many of my Indian followers will come at me, angrily - but let me just say this out.
I'm not sure it is a great model for democracy in a diverse, multi-cultural developing nation.
After the disbanding of the Hindu Mahasabha and Jana Sangh, Hindutva as a political ideology does not even exist, except as a bogeyman in the minds of the Anglophone elite.
Even the BJP gave up Hindutva for civic nationalism, Gandhian socialism, and positive secularism in 1980s.
Under Modi, there has been compete policy continuity on minority rights and welfare from the Congress era, with little to no "Hindutva agenda" coming to see the light of day.
The most radical policy they can dream of is religion-neutral laws and equal rights for equal citizens.
Hindutva was essential in forming a national consciousness, but was abandoned with time. The modern BJP refuses to self-identify as a Hindutva movement, adopting moderates like Sardar Patel, Deendayal Upadhyay, and JP Narayan as their icons, rather than Savarkar or the Mahasabha.
When they say Hindu Rashtra, all they mean is an "Indic polity".
When British India was partitioned into a Muslim homeland and a Dharmic homeland, one state became a 'Ghazi' garrison state, and one the successor state to the Indic
when your idea of India is rooted Hindutva, no Hindu is anti-national. if your idea of India is rooted in humanity, no person would be anti-national - nationalism is *an infantile disease* (Einstein), *cruel epidemic of evil that is sweeping over the human world* (Tagore)
people from times immemorial have used religion for its spiritual valence - radical, progressive political leaders have used theology & spirituality to advocate emancipatory politics rooted in love, universality, look beyond superficial differences that power leverages to divide
every single religion I can think of is rooted in patriarchy & horrors have been perpetrated in its name, words can't capture the shame & barbarity - but until nonreligious spiritualism & morality is widespread, we have to contend with religion, its resonances & internal shifts
danger with leveraging religion instead of religion-agnotic spiritualisms is what you see happening today - absurdly grotesque formations - RSS, Gandhi's own murderers, claiming Gandhi while refashioning his religious spirituality of ahimsa into political religiosity of violence
religion has significant but ultimately limited political value, where someone can use religion to draw on universal values of love, fraternity, morality to advocate for progress, the other can use the exact same language to justify hate, genocide, heterobrahminical patriarchy
Killing Gandhi was an act of patriotism? https://t.co/VIGzUR3GC7
— Subhashini Ali (@SubhashiniAli) January 2, 2021
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people from times immemorial have used religion for its spiritual valence - radical, progressive political leaders have used theology & spirituality to advocate emancipatory politics rooted in love, universality, look beyond superficial differences that power leverages to divide
every single religion I can think of is rooted in patriarchy & horrors have been perpetrated in its name, words can't capture the shame & barbarity - but until nonreligious spiritualism & morality is widespread, we have to contend with religion, its resonances & internal shifts
danger with leveraging religion instead of religion-agnotic spiritualisms is what you see happening today - absurdly grotesque formations - RSS, Gandhi's own murderers, claiming Gandhi while refashioning his religious spirituality of ahimsa into political religiosity of violence
religion has significant but ultimately limited political value, where someone can use religion to draw on universal values of love, fraternity, morality to advocate for progress, the other can use the exact same language to justify hate, genocide, heterobrahminical patriarchy
Don't mean to be a negative nancy, but I **really**, really, dislike this trend of some Punjabi artists in the West now churning out artwork by making their own "covers" of popular magazines with photos from the protests.
Lot of genuine problems with this
For one, when these are shared on social media, the image is what captures attention, not the caption - a LOT of people are sharing these in groupchats/posting online with the assumption that they're real. Have had to correct some of my fam in India saying it's just artwork
This just adds to general misinformation, which is really not ideal at a time when we see coordinated efforts to spread that - the facts should stand out above all
Secondly, this gives really easy currency to those saying that farmers are protesting the bills because they're unknowledgeable; some Indian media outlets have already scored points off the National Geographic cover, "fact checking it", and inferring all info is as such.
Another problem is a lot of the "headlines" are lifted from other news stories - for example, the Rolling Stone "cover" literally copied the headline of IP Singh's great article (covered here). Give coverage to the people actually writing these
Lot of genuine problems with this
For one, when these are shared on social media, the image is what captures attention, not the caption - a LOT of people are sharing these in groupchats/posting online with the assumption that they're real. Have had to correct some of my fam in India saying it's just artwork
This just adds to general misinformation, which is really not ideal at a time when we see coordinated efforts to spread that - the facts should stand out above all
Secondly, this gives really easy currency to those saying that farmers are protesting the bills because they're unknowledgeable; some Indian media outlets have already scored points off the National Geographic cover, "fact checking it", and inferring all info is as such.
Another problem is a lot of the "headlines" are lifted from other news stories - for example, the Rolling Stone "cover" literally copied the headline of IP Singh's great article (covered here). Give coverage to the people actually writing these
From facing hate propaganda for around a decade and half, which started soon after Partition and made people disown their mother tongue during census of 1951 and 1961, #Punjabi has now emerged as the language of resistance during the current #Farmers movement. pic.twitter.com/o2z7B7lYNj
— I P Singh (@ipsinghTOI) January 13, 2021
