In Hinduism, women creating spaces for their own leadership

By DEEPTI HAJELA

When Sushma Dwivedi started seriously thinking about performing wedding rites and other Hindu religious blessings in New York City and elsewhere, she knew who she needed to talk to - her grandmother.

Together, they went through the mantras that are recited by pandits, the priests who perform Hindu religious rituals, to find the ones that resonated with what Dwivedi was trying to do -- offer Hindu blessings and services that were welcoming of all, irrespective of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, any of it.

Her grandmother isn’t a pandit — in India, as well as in Indian diaspora communities, that’s been a domain that is largely populated by men, with cultural mores at play. But she had a wealth of religious knowledge, of ritual, of proper pronunciation, to share with her granddaughter.

And that her grandmother played an integral role in Dwivedi’s understanding and practice of Hinduism reflects a larger religious reality. Those who study the religion and its traditions say that while there aren’t a lot of women priests (although that is changing in India and in other places), women in Hinduism globally continue to take on leadership roles in other ways - building communities, taking on positions in organizations, passing on knowledge.

“We just jammed together and sort of went through scriptures. ... And in that sense, that’s the ‘old school’-est Hindu way on Earth, right? You pass it down,” Dwivedi said.

After all, it was through her grandparents, immigrants from India, that Dwivedi had been exposed to Hinduism while growing up in Canada. They helped build a Hindu mandir, or temple, in their Montreal community, and made the religion an integral part of her life from childhood.
Full Coverage: Women in religion

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This story is part of a series by The Associated Press and Religion News Service on women’s roles in male-led religions.

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Hinduism encompasses a range of practices and philosophies, and has a pantheon of divine figures encompassing both male and female. People can call themselves Hindus and yet practice in different ways from each other. There is no central authority, like an equivalent to the role the pope plays in Catholicism.

So leadership, in India as well as Indian immigrant communities, is decentralized and diverse, encompassing religious scholars, Hindu temple boards and more, said Vasudha Narayanan, a religion professor at the University of Florida who studies Hinduism in India and in the Indian diaspora.

“I would also say that women sometimes create the spaces where they can be leaders in all these other ways,” she said.

Dr. Uma Mysorekar, president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, sits in her office in the Flushing neighborhood of New York's Queens borough Friday, Dec. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

They’re women like Dr. Uma Mysorekar, who serves as president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America. It runs one of the oldest Hindu temples in the United States in the Flushing section of New York City’s Queens borough.

Mysorekar, trained as a physician, got involved with the temple in the mid-1980s, and has been part of its administration for years, as it expanded its facilities as well as its programming. There are programs for seniors as well as young adults; the temple kitchen is available on food delivery apps.

Being an administrator wasn’t her intention when she started, Mysorekar said.

“I didn’t get involved to become a president. But when the circumstances were forced in, I did accept that challenge.”

She’s convinced that in Hinduism, women can be leaders simply by virtue of their ability to communicate the faith to others, notably to children.

“How many women have led ... going back to times immemorial, and what they have contributed, it should give you that exemplary feeling,” she said. “It’s not that women have to be priests to be leaders, women have to be able to spread the teachings.”

And in this modern age, when so much vital activity occurs online, women are making a difference there, too, said Dheepa Sundaram, assistant professor of Hindu studies, critical theory and digital religion at the University of Denver.

“If you look at social media spaces, you see a lot of women leading different kinds of groups now,” she said.

She pointed to shubhpuja.com as an example, a site co-founded by a woman, Saumya Vardhan, that allows people all over the world to connect with pandits in India, who perform pujas, the religious rituals, that can be seen via videoconferencing.

“We’re seeing women carve out different spaces in the spirituality ecosystem to find a way to actually gain power in that ecosystem,” she said.

And there are examples of women making inroads even when it comes to being pandits, of pushing back against patriarchal restraints.

Manisha Shete, a practicing Hindu priest, smiles as she performs posthumous rituals for her client's mother at a residence in Pune, India, Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Abhijit Bhatlekar)

Manisha Shete, 51, a female priest who has been working as the coordinator at Jnana Prabodhini, a Hindu reformist school in Pune in western India that trains men and women to perform rituals, first began to officiate at religious ceremonies in 2008.

Her aspirations stemmed in part from an interest in India’s ancient scriptures; after getting married, she studied

“After my wedding, I studied Indology — the history, culture, languages and literature of India.

“During my research work at the Sanskrit language department in Jnana Prabodhini ... I felt that I can do this and I should do it. It was my favorite subject,” Shete told The Associated Press.

Shete said at her school in Pune, where the course for the priesthood can extend up to 18 months, 80% of the students were women, including many who had been housewives and many others who voluntarily their jobs to enter the school.

She said the demand for female priests is growing in urban areas, especially among young women, and she often gets requests even from Indian families overseas to conduct rituals.

“People have started accepting women priests. Every reform comes with some obstacles. But it is happening.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

S1 E4 Wendy Doniger on Hinduism – Thinking About Religion

https://www.thinkingaboutreligion.org/s1-e4-wendy-doniger-on-hinduism

Dr. Wendy Doniger’s On Hinduism is a sort of captstone on an epic career exploring Hindu literature, religion, and history. In this conversation we discuss a number of themes from the book, including her own religious background, common misconceptions about Hinduism, the caste system, orientalism, the so-called “Hindu Trinity,” Hindu nationalism, a controversy in India over the charge that she committed …

Wendy Doniger and the Hindus | by Murali Balaji | The New ...

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/07/10/wendy-doniger-and-hindus

In her essay “India: Censorship by the Batra Brigade” [NYR, May 8], Wendy Doniger touches on a number of issues when it comes to the academic study of religion and larger questions of representation. She frames the debate over her book, as well as other topics when it comes to Hinduism, as one between Hindu right-wing activists and scholars, which essentializes a complex history that involves academic …

On Hinduism - Wendy Doniger - Oxford University Press

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/on-hinduism-9780199360079

Wendy Doniger. Includes more than 60 essays and lectures spanning the decades-long career of one of Hinduism's most prominent scholars. Examines a rich array of Hindu concepts--polytheism, death, gender, art, contemporary puritanism, non-violence, and many more. On Hinduism. Wendy Doniger.

Are Hindu reformers anti-Hindu?

Jawed Naqvi

Published September 14, 2021 -

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.


LIKE other religions Hinduism has faced challenges from ancient times from within its fold and outside. Hindutva is a modern invention and the idea of a right-wing militarist nation state it panders to would not be possible before the advent of the nation states that came with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Some Muslim ideologues opposed the movement for Pakistan also on similar lines, saying there was no sanction for a nation state in Islam.

The three-day international conference on ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ ended on Sunday with important insights into Hinduism itself, but the discussions also revived memories of the pitfalls of similar projects and criticisms attempted in the recent and distant past.

One takeaway from the conference was that critiquing Hindutva, the militant philosophy that set out to model Hindus on the European fascism of the 1930s (by replacing European Jews with Indian Muslims and Christians as targets of hate) would remain incomplete if B.R. Ambedkar’s call for the destruction of the Hindu caste system remained unheeded. Ambedkar canvassed for equal and secular rights for everyone, starting with the liberation of the Dalits from Hinduism’s Brahminical hold and women from its patriarchal fold.

Read: How to dismantle Hindutva?

Organisers of the conference offered a word of caution. “To equate Hinduism and Hindutva is to fall into the narrow, bigoted, and reductionist fiction that instrumentalises Hinduism by erasing the diverse practices of the religion, the debates within the fold, as well as its conversations with other faiths. If the poet A.K. Ramanujan reminds us about the importance of acknowledging Three Hundred Ramayanas, then Hindutva seeks to obliterate that complexity into a monolithic fascism.”

Hinduism as we know it today has been in ferment since its inception.

A scholarly intervention made a less-discussed argument that underscored many commonality of views between Hindutva practitioners and Zionist settler class Jews in occupied Palestine. Akanksha Mehta particularly focused on the affinities between women activists of Hindutva and Jewish settler women. She introduced a different perspective to the currently overstated comparisons between the Taliban and Hindutva practices. Their colonial project and the economic underpinning of Hindutva and Zionism together with hidebound social and gender iniquities perpetuated within both groups present a remarkable similarity.

Ambedkar had noted the absence of a defining feature of Hinduism other than the caste. There were anti-idolatry Hindu sects and there were worshippers of deities and images and nature. In Bengal, they worship Durga as slayer of evil and protector of her followers. In swaths of Uttar Pradesh the role is given to Hanuman — sankatmochan, who clears the path of personal and social impediments. In Maharashtra, Ganapati is the vighna-haran or remover of obstacles dogging the followers.

Ambedkar listed Hindus who followed Muslim customs, observed circumcision and buried their dead. He pointed to Muslims who called Brahmin and Muslim priests to together preside over their weddings. It is a relic of the mediaeval Bhakti movement that Muslims and Hindus are entwined in the worship of common saints, particularly in Punjab. Atheists and monotheists also came out of the Vedic fold in early Hinduism and its accompanying Brahminical practices. Nastikas took a materialist view of the world and were opposed to Brahminical rituals. They were shunned as a class as were followers of Buddha and Mahavira.

I got a call from a close friend from Mumbai on Friday, a Jain with a modern lens. “I’m calling you to forgive me for any wrong I may have done you,” he said to my complete surprise. It was part of a period of Jain rituals, Sumedh Shah confided. It was observed over several days and ended with the quest for forgiveness from friends and family. The discussion veered around to a Jain belief that they were the original Indian atheists. And since Mahavira was the 24th teerthankar, a contemporary of Buddha around 600 BC, the claim would tend to put the atheism of Jains ahead of the Hindu nastikas.

Be that as it may, the point is that Hinduism as we know it today has been in ferment since its inception, not unlike other religions that branched off from their original purposes of peace and harmony, as Swami Vivekanand observed, into puritanism, mysticism and even bloodletting by acquiring weaponised and sectarian forms.

For close to two centuries in India, Hindu reformers have been trying to tweak Hinduism. Of these the most persistent but not entirely successful lot belonged to the Bengal Renaissance — from Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) to Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). The question is: were the reformers anti-Hindu or Hindu-phobic, to use the term thrown by many right-wing Hindus at their critics. Supporters of militant Hindu groups in the US and India have used such terms to describe and even threaten rival Hindus against critiquing India’s current tryst with what is otherwise regarded as a great religion of the world.

The Bengal Renaissance canvassed support for banning child marriage, encouraging widow remarriage and scientific education, discouraging superstition and sati — the practice of Hindu widows being forced to sit on their husband’s funeral pyre.

The Bengal effort was, however, a social movement largely aloof from politics. The synthesis of politics and social reforms was to flower with Gandhi. When he arrived on the scene from South Africa, the political churning against colonialism had already spread from Bengal to Maharashtra and Punjab, but it had acquired pronouncedly Hindu motifs. The use of religion for anti-colonial mobilisation also tempted Muslim leaders like Maulana Azad. He applied the Bengal model to unfolding events in Turkey to woo Muslims to the Congress.

Gandhi strove to use religion to bring Hindus and Muslims together, but his attempt at reforming Hinduism was slammed as vacuous by Ambedkar, and as too emasculated for a fascist project by leaders like Savarkar and Golwalkar. It may not be wrong to ask, therefore: if Ambedkar failed to annihilate the Hindu caste system, what’s the chance the virulent Hindutva project could be dismantled with well-meaning intellectual cogitation?

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2021

India

Bulldozer is a Sign Hindutva is Flat

The author searches for meanings in the symbol of a bulldozer as they are unleashed on the streets of India to demolish all in their path.

Brahma Prakash
24 May 2022

Image Courtesy: Tribune India

Like my ideologue, John Berger, I keep looking for a figurative image to understand the art and ideology of our time. For some time now, I have been searching for a complex definition of Hindutva: Its possible grey areas. Its coated meanings. Its teeth hidden in the tongue and belly like a bulldozer itself. I was looking for a figurative image that captures its dynamite power. Its unbridled emotions. Its automobility. I looked for a body and machine that captured its muscle and movement. Its muscular politics.

I was trying to understand the electric power of Hindutva that makes the words viral and puts the body in a trance. Perhaps an installation work of Hindutva that instils the fear of aligning aesthetics and anaesthesia together. I was looking for an artefact. An object that has cultic and exhibitory values but can equally cut the body like the swords of the Ram Navami procession. I was looking for an image that brings artillery and artefact together. Music and terror together. Slogan and silence together. Fun and violence together. I was looking for a toy of Hindutva that steals the love and instils the violence in children’s minds, like the toy gun culture of the US empire. I was looking for the object that rolls all these things together in one bundle like a bulldozer itself.

The figurative image for the Hindutva that I have found is that of a bulldozer—moving and bulldozing. It was open, out there, in body and spirit, politics and procession, sign and sensation, mobs and automobility, manhood and machinehood. It is a device that becomes biopolitical as well as geopolitical in its domination. It moves to demolish; it moves to displace; it moves to dominate. It moves to decimate. It moves to dismiss any prospect of dialogue. It moves to move the earth where one stands. It moves to create a new site for the settlers at the expense of the livelihood of the others.

In India, the bulldozer does not remain a machine. It has become an artefact now. It has entered the popular psyche. There is a massive demand for bulldozers. People are offering it as wedding and birthday gifts. There is massive demand for bulldozer toys. A report says bulldozer pichkaris sold like cakes in Banaras during Holi. There are popular songs and music tracks dedicated to the device. The media is full of news and views of it. Leaders are trying to name themselves after it—bulldozer baba, bulldozer mama, brother bulldozer, and so on. Bulldozer is a new bull of Indian politics. In a medicine shop in Bihar, a young man was asking for a bulldozer (condom). I checked. In fact, there is a JCB condom. Its promotion says, “It restores the confidence and relieves you of the inferiority complex.” Clearly, the bulldozer is a sign of the insecurity of Hindutva masculinity.

FLATNESS OF HINDUTVA

I soon realised that Hindutva doesn’t hold complexity. It simply cannot. It is not interested in complex seeing. Perhaps we do not need a complex definition for Hindutva. Bulldozer is a sign that Hindutva is flat. It wants to excavate everything; the soil that nurtures the soul, the food that nourishes the body, and the home that gives us a sense of belonging. It wants to dig out everything. It plans to smoothen out history. It wants to cut down the raising hands. It wants to roll down the raising heads. It wants to make everything flat and transparent, going with the agenda of neo-liberal politics. For Hindutva, everything is an exhibition, from faith and religion to nationalism. It is a remarkable show of politics on a spectacular level. How will we know unless you show? It is a neo-liberal formation of Hinduism in destructive form. Some say the bulldozer brings development.

Of course, there is a difference between Hinduism and Hindutva. But not in the way the liberals want to show us; Hinduism is good, Hindutva is bad. The differences lie in the ways they disclose themselves. Hinduism maintains pretensions, Hindutva is flat. One is ceremonial, the other is a show. When it comes to caste hierarchy, let us be brutes; if Hinduism is cunning, Hindutva is crude. What Hinduism does with its’ accommodating ideology’, Hindutva does it by othering! What lower castes were to Hinduism, Muslims are to the Hindutva. One maintains its ideology through hegemony; the other wants to maintain it by brute force symbolised by the bulldozer. Hate remains the common, and so the hierarchy.

One cannot hide by saying Hindutva is dangerous for Hinduism. In fact, Hindutva has given a new lease of life to Hinduism, which was facing a crisis from its lower castes. Check the geography. Hinduism has expanded its territory. The expansion becomes only possible through the ideology of Hindutva. The Hindutva of today is the Hinduism of tomorrow. What we are facing is the normalisation of Hindutva ideology as Hinduism. Hindutva is a general manifestation of Hinduism in a neo-liberal regime. We can say that Hindutva is not an aberration. It is the religion in its true Sanatani sense.

One cannot hide by saying Hindutva is inspired by western ideology; it has its Indian roots too. Did we forget its history: how dissenters were punished, women were burnt, and Buddhism was crushed in its own land? What we are witnessing is new but not so new. Do we believe that the hatred we see today was made in seven or ten years? It has been accumulating for years and is outpouring now. It has found its opportune time and moment.

The bulldozer is a sign that Hindutva is flat! Made of iron, its heart is flattened, and its eyes are flattening. It sees nothing. It hears nothing. It wants to make everything flat. It believes in the uniformity of all. The most insidious thing Hindutva does with life and culture is make everything flat. It sees things in black and white—you are a Hindu or a Muslim. You are nationals or anti-nationals. You are with Us or against Us. Its art, rhetoric, epics and sculptures typically follow and fall on this line. It makes everything flat. Have you seen the Bollywood movie? The Kashmir Files? In the movie, politics falls flat, and so does difference, without addressing the gaps. See the sheer flatness of the Statue of Unity, the world’s tallest monument, standing in front of the Narmada; it is spectacular. It asks for the gaze but does not unveil. It does not gape. It remains straight. Nothing is better than a bulldozer to represent this art of Hindutva. Flat. Brute. Massive. A spectacular machine. It does not hide anything. It does not have revealing power. Flatness becomes its clarion call. The art of bulldozer has a flatness of aesthetics. It reminds us of futurism—the art of the fascists.

If Hinduism is represented by the figure of a Brahmin with a ponytail, Hindutva reminds me of the figure of Brahmarakshas. In many folk narratives, the figure is shown as a huge but mean figure. It is a scary figure with horns and tentacles on his head and a ponytail. He hangs upside down on a tree. Like a bulldozer, the figure has a swishing tail, carnivore teeth and sharp nails. Despite their differences, Brahmins, Brahmarakshas and bulldozers keep looking for sacrifices. Sometimes they capture the mind. Sometimes they rip apart the body; sometimes, they rip apart the land.

BULLDOZER, TOO, HAS A HISTORY

The deployment of bulldozers against the minorities might be new in India, but it has a long genocidal history. Before the bulldozer came into the world, ‘bulldozer’ was the term deployed to intimidate Black people in parts of the United States. Bulldozing was used to describe intimidation by violent and unlawful means. The lawlessness of the bulldozer is not new, nor is the violence inscribed in the term. In the United States of the 1870s, the term “bulldose” was used for administering a large and efficient dose of any medicine or punishment.

The first recorded use of the term goes back to 1876, when its meaning and chilling effect were there but not yet the machine. Ahead of the US presidential election of 1876, Black American voters were on the receiving end of severe beatings and lashings for participating in their rights in the form of “bulldose”—“a dose fit for a bull”. They would be thrashed, whipped and often lynched. “Many were bulldosed into silence,” writes Andy Hollandbeck in In a Word: The Racist Origins of ‘Bulldozer’. He also writes that bulldozing got a clear meaning, ‘to coerce or restrain by use of force’. The invention of the massive machine made the term more concrete. Bulldozer brought the figurative image of its powerful meaning: using brute force.

The arrival of the bulldozer in India is not a coincidence; it symbolises the ideology of the time. The bulldozer does not move much, but it marks the genocidal connection beyond geographical boundaries. It was there against the Blacks in the United States. It is there in China against the minorities. It is used in Palestine by Israeli authorities. It has been at the centre of indigenous and ethnic displacement across the world. In this regard, Pranay Samajula writes, “The fact that bulldozers have cropped up in both India and Israel as a chilling symbol of state repression itself is common to both cases: in both India and Israel, the far-right regimes that govern the two countries share a common vision of an ethnic-majoritarian apartheid state, and willing to go to extreme lengths to realise that vision.”

Long before the demolitions and displacements in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, Israeli authorities deployed it against Palestinians in massive ways. The machine came, carrying legacy and meaning, and so did the chilling memories and effect. What is this connection between unknown territories? We are not sure if Indian authorities have learnt from white or Jewish supremacists, but their genocidal connection is clear. Their bulldozing connection is clear. So clear is its brutality of power and the flatness of its aesthetics.

Brahma Prakash is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views are personal.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism 

Kamala Harris’ heritage draws attention to Hinduism’s complex history in Caribbean

For many who claim Indo-Caribbean heritage, Vice President Kamala Harris’ spotlight is the perfect chance to dive into the community’s lesser-known past: where indigenous faiths and cultural traditions found more in common than not.

Indo-Caribbeans in the 19th century celebrating the Indian culture in West Indies through dance and music on an estate in Trinidad and Tobago. 

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

July 24, 2024
By Richa Karmarkar


(RNS) — A standard feature in any biography of Kamala Harris is the fact her parents — one a Hindu from India, the other a Baptist from Jamaica — met at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were both students in the 1960s.

In this sense the vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee embodies a heritage shared by millions across the Caribbean basin and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, many of whom are now talking about the sudden possibility that the next U.S. president could be of Indian and Jamaican heritage, and a person who claims to “know the lyrics to nearly every Bob Marley song” to this day.

Indians first came in numbers to the Caribbean in the early 19th century, when the British Empire brought them west as indentured servants, mostly to the islands of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, as well as Guyana and Suriname on the northeast shoulder of South America.

Indian Hindus, who at the time would not have defined themselves as Hindus, brought their spiritual practices with them, according to Alexander Rocklin, assistant professor of religious studies at Kenyon College and author of “The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad.” Those practices went on to influence the existing Catholic and Protestant Christians, Muslims and devotees of African spiritualities.

Alexander Rocklin. (Photo courtesy Otterbein University)

“The various groups that were living in a lot of these colonies, which were very cosmopolitan, were interacting with one another,” said Rocklin. “They were exchanging ideas, exchanging culinary traditions, exchanging cultural forms. And so they were also then participating in one another’s religious lives as well.”

In his research on 19th- and 20th-century Trinidad, Rocklin found clear evidence of Hindus worshipping the Virgin Mary as a Hindu goddess, visiting with African Obeah practitioners for their remedies against evil spirits, and celebrating Muharram, a Muslim holiday that for many was seen as simply “Indian.”

Though indentured servants lived in the same barracks that once held slaves, the British occupiers awarded them freedom of religion, as long, said Rocklin, as it resembled something colonizers would recognize. Indo-Caribbean Hindus thus began to fashion worship services with pundits who gave sermons and congregations, dressed in their “Sunday best,” that sang bhajans or Hindu worship songs in place of hymns.

“It was not seen as hypocritical for people to cross over lines, and for communities to come together and celebrate, but also engage in healing and devotion to to deities that were exclusively identified as being Hindu,” said Rocklin. “People were interested in living together in a way that the British colonizers couldn’t really even contextualize.”
RELATED: Why Hinduism’s Holi is more than an explosion of color for the Indo-Caribbean diaspora

Shawn Binda, a Canadian Hindu of Trinidadian origin, launched Hindu Lifestyle, his YouTube channel, in 2017, sensing the need to explain Hinduism’s history in Western society, especially to second-wave immigrants who want to maintain their ties in a “non-Hindu world,” he said. Binda’s research shows that Hinduism even had a part in the foundations of Rastafari, the religion that began in Jamaica and may be considered one of its most indelible cultural exports.

Binda, who lives in Toronto, points to the two faiths’ traditions of vegetarianism, spiritual use of ganja, or marijuana, and a shared philosophy referred to in Rastafarai as “I n I,” and in Hinduism as “oneness with the Divine.” Leonard Howell, known as the first Rasta, was called Gangunguru Maragh, or Gyan Gan Guru Maharaj, by his followers, using the Hindi words for “knowledge,” “teacher” and “king.”

While Binda said it would be “incomplete” to say Hinduism gave birth to Rastafarianism or other existing traditions, these overlaps signify deep interaction, if not direct influence.


Shawn Binda in a video about Hindu and Rastafari beliefs. (Video screen grab)

“Rastafari took that concept of the divinity within everyone, and just kind of made it more tangible,” he told Religion News Service. “It’s one thing to say you recognize the Divine within all. But now you take that, and the language that you use meaning like ‘One Love,’ it actually makes it more simple, more real, and something that that we can all learn from.”

In one video, Binda declares that Marley, the great global champion of Rastafarai, was analogous to a sadhu, a type of Hindu holy man who dons dreadlocks and forgoes material possessions for spiritual enlightenment.

In today’s global community, some people of Caribbean origin are finding their way back to India, where Hinduism began. Beauty influencer Lana Patel said her Trinidadian-Gujurati and Jamaican-Punjabi family is made up of Rastafarians, Hindus, Catholics, Christian converts and Spiritual Baptists, the latter a West Indian religion that draws from African beliefs and American Baptist practices.

When Patel’s parents came to the United States in the 1970s, she said, they found it difficult to find their place within America’s racial lines, which did not exist back home.

“I think being Caribbean is being this beautiful, rich melting pot of culture,” she said. “And I think we aren’t so much caught up in labels and more caught up in just existing and being happy in our existence. Everyone is just Caribbean. It’s not like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re the white man, you’re the Black man, you’re the brown man.’ Everyone is one, and they love each other.”


A variety of Instagram posts by beauty influencer Lana Patel. (Screen grab)

Patel, a trans woman, found herself drawn to her late grandfather’s Hindu traditions as she got older, rejecting the Christian homeschooling, conversion therapy and “fire and brimstone” approach to hell and heaven that so explicitly excluded her. Patel, who now lives in Los Angeles, credits her family with welcoming her Hindu identity, however, with curiosity and open arms.

She feels the same warmth when she visits her parents’ homelands. “Going to a Gujurati mandir (temple) just felt so peaceful and serene,” she said. “I just had this ‘aha’ moment, because I felt like I spent so much time running from myself. My grandfather passing was the wake-up call I needed to return back to myself and get in touch with my roots.”

Binda hopes that more conversations about Hinduism’s global reach will dispel the myth that the faith is limited to one ethnicity or geographical location.

Comparing Hinduism to “an open source architecture,” he said, “Hinduism can be embraced by by any and everyone, whether that means they identify as being Hindu or not.”

Making Sense of Hindutva

Hindutva may have proclaimed the supremacy of all things traditional, but it makes no room for diversity, dynamism, dilemmas, and doubt. Such has never been the only Indian way.

By Devdutt Pattanaik
September 01, 2023

Local musicians blow horns as a Hindu priest, face smeared with color and sacrificial blood, performs rituals during the Deodhani festival at the Kamakhya Hindu temple in Guwahati, India, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023.

Credit: AP Photo/Anupam Nath

Hindutva can easily be seen as an Indian version of a global movement of men, by men, for men. It reclaims their masculinity and combines religion with nationalism. It can be lumped together with the resurging Orthodox Christianity in post-communist Russia or the Evangelical Christianity sweeping neoliberal America. The enemy in all these cases is both external and internal – anyone who challenges an imagined glorious traditional history, where men played the dominant role, where women knew their place, and all things queer (now articulated as LGBTQ+) existed in shadows and footnotes.

But, with Hindutva, there is one additional challenge: an understanding of Hinduism itself. And the problem is structural.

Hinduism is structurally very different from the monotheistic religions that inform the global discourse. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are based on ideas such as God, God’s Law, Judgement Day, and the Apocalypse. Hinduism is based on ideas such as infinity, timelessness, rebirth, and caste. As a result, the word “evil” cannot be translated into any Indian language. And the definitive article “the” does not exist in any Indian language either.

There arises a further complication given the fact that even the “modern” concept of the secular nation-state is structurally the same as monotheistic religions. An all-powerful state replaces an all-powerful God. The constitution replaces God’s Law. Traitors replace heretics. Nationalism is submission. Democracy is the ritual to choose the divine messenger who will enforce God’s Law.

Even science follows the structure of monotheistic religions. While it replaces faith with doubt and miracles with measurement, it insists on pursing and presenting “the” truth, like evangelists of yore. So, science and monotheistic religions remain at loggerheads. Only now scientists are being challenged by those who insist feelings are as important as facts. As a result, defining a woman has now become a national crisis in the United States as everyone scrambles for “the” truth. Ontology, not epistemology.

Indians, not just Hindus, have learnt over the centuries that the point of diversity is to work with diverse truths, which make sense to diverse communities. The opposite of equality is not inequality; it is diversity. The opposite of diversity is standardization. Standardization makes things efficient. Diversity, unfortunately, is inefficient.

Do Australian Politicians Know the Difference Between Hinduism and Hindutva?


Engagement with the growing Hindu community is essential for Australian politicians, but there is an obvious tightrope to walk.

By Grant Wyeth
May 17, 2022

As a highly multicultural society, Australian election campaigns require politicians to actively connect with the country’s array of community groups. This is overwhelmingly a positive phenomenon, yet Australian politicians are generally a socially awkward group, and often lack the cultural sophistication to be able to engage meaningfully with Australia’s multicultural communities. The under-representation of minority communities in Australia’s parliament also limits the necessary knowledge political parties require to connect with minority groups, but also be attentive to any overseas political issues they may be walking blindly into.

The lack of knowledge about Indian politics in particular has become apparent during this election campaign. Indians are Australia’s fastest growing group, and as a result are becoming a critical community to seek support from during elections. However, in recent weeks, in their attempts to do so, both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, have unwittingly allowed themselves to be used for domestic Indian political purposes.

In early May, Albanese and Shadow Home Affairs Minister Kristina Keneally attended a function at the Hindu Council of Australia, and last week Morrison and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke attended an event hosted by the same organization. During these events all four allowed themselves to be draped in scarves of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), unaware that they were not simply wearing a religious symbol as a show of respect to their hosts, but instead wearing a highly political symbol of a group they should in no way be seen to implicitly endorse.

The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) are the religious wing of the Sangh Parivar, the umbrella name for a collection of Hindu nationalist organizations that includes its paramilitary wing, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling party — all of which are organized around the ideology of Hindutva. While the VHP may in name be the Sangh Parivar’s religious wing, they — in particular the VHP’s own youth organization, the Bajrang Dal — are also often its vigilante wing.

The VHP have been the primary driver of communal violence in India over the past few decades, including the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992 and the Gujarat riots in 2002. Vigilante violence against Muslims, Dalits, and Sikhs in India has increased dramatically since the BJP took power in 2014, often with the government’s tacit approval. This violence is part of a collective political project by the Sangh Parivar to construct a new Indian state, one that has animosity toward the country’s minorities as its organizing principle.

This is critical to understand for Australian politicians as the BJP and its sister organizations have actively sought to cultivate an intimate relationship with the Indian diaspora. For the most part these are people who cannot vote in Indian elections, but they serve an ideological and financial purpose. The Sangh Parivar is not simply an organization that wishes to govern the Indian state — the BJP would be a stand-alone political party were this the case. It wants something more from people than just votes; it wants minds and souls (and often fists). This makes transnational reach an essential component of the movement.

Australia has already seen a serious example of this reach with an attack on a group of Sikh men in a Sydney suburb early last year. Providing a blunt illustration of the nature of the Hindutva movement, when a man convicted of the assaults was released after six months in custody he received a hero’s welcome upon his return to India. At the time the immigration minister tweeted, “Attempts to undermine Australia’s social cohesion will not be tolerated.” Yet he obviously didn’t learn the lessons from this incident when he allowed himself to wear the VHP’s insignia last week.

The added complexity for Australian politicians is that Canberra is actively seeking to build a much stronger and more intimate relationship with India. Yet as the BJP has become the country’s dominant political party – and looks like it is now entrenched in this position – the ability to differentiate between the state and its ruling party is becoming more difficult, especially as the Sangh Parivar continues to capture the state. 

Australian politicians need to be able to distinguish between Hinduism and Hindutva – Hindutva is a political ideology that seeks to remake Hinduism into an identity rather than a religion, an identity that is based on hostility toward other groups, mostly Muslims, but also Dalits, Sikhs, and Christians. There is an obvious tightrope to walk here for Australian politicians, as engagement with the growing Hindu community is essential and should be encouraged. Yet this will require a keen awareness of when politicians are being co-opted into causes that they should be keeping themselves well clear of.

Defying Deification: Indian Politicians as Hindu Gods

Don’t believe the hype; worshiping Indian leaders is not common.

By Krzysztof Iwanek
February 01, 2019

Credit: Tej Kumar Book Depo / Wikimedia Commons

Two posters caught the attention of the Indian media in January this year, and each happened to portray a sibling from the same political family. One – a badly photoshopped merger – showed the god Rama’s torso, complete with a quiver hanging from his back, but with the face of a political leader, Rahul Gandhi, superimposed on the deity’s head. The other posters compared Priyanka Gandhi, Rahul’s sister and also a politician, to goddess Durga, a deity that represents the feminine cosmic power in the universe. One of those posters was a double reference: Priyanka Gandhi is the granddaughter of Indira Gandhi, the famous prime minister of India who had been, if very seldom, portrayed as Durga herself. Thus, somebody chose to portray Priyanka Gandhi as not only the reincarnation of Indira Gandhi but, by default, also Durga’s coming to this earth.

There are more such instances. There is a temple dedicated to the deceased Indira Gandhi in central India, and worship there continued at least as of 2017. The same Rahul Gandhi was also portrayed as Rama on posters a year ago. At that time he was shown aiming a bow at his political rival, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was likened to the demon Ravana, a mythological figure whom Rama killed. Like Ravana, Modi was portrayed with 10 heads, his face copied into each of them. No nuances here – our leader is a god, their leader is the king of demons.

Ironically, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi represent the Indian National Congress, a party usually perceived as the socialist and secular power, the biggest alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP is now led by Modi and his associates – and is currently ruling India. It is this party that is more often accused of arousing religious sentiments and more often refers to Hindu traditions. The ground reality, however, shows the Congress and the BJP are not as far from each other as many would like to think.

But the BJP has had its share of district-level deifications as well. During the 2014 elections, a chant often raised in favor of Modi was a remake of a religious mantra that worships the god Shiva (“Har Har Modi” instead of “Har Har Mahadev”). Local party members from the holy Hindu city of Varanasi – a constituency where Modi was fighting elections at that time – even changed the words of a Sanskrit prayer, putting “Modi” instead of “Devi” (Goddess). Moreover, just like Indira Gandhi, Modi was also supposed to have a temple built for him in Meerut (though I do not know how this story has ended).
y of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.GET THE 

The same, perhaps even more rarely, may happen to politicians of other parties as well. A member of the All India Trinamool Congress – the party now ruling West Bengal – once suggested that its members should wear the picture of the undisputed party leader, Mamata Banerjee, as a lucky charm against the evil magic of their political rivals (the communists).

All of these, however, are scattered and regional instances and we should not read too much into them. Religion and politics are obviously intertwined in many ways in India – as they are in many places. But this does not mean that Indian politicians are often portrayed as gods and that this is the national trend.

These occurrences can perhaps be explained by looking at the nature of Hinduism. First of all, it is not a centralized religion with a hierarchical clergy and a strict doctrine, like the Roman Catholic Church. The actions of the people who established an Indira Gandhi temple or those who planned to found a Narendra Modi temple were not authorized by any central institution, and there was no such decisive apex body they could have asked anyway. Many, if not most, Hindu priests would perhaps disapprove of such acts. I do not have any survey at hand to prove this but there have been instances of highly respected Hindu figures criticizing such deifications. Media pundits may sometimes raise the hype but the orthodox pandits are not really behind all of this.

These initiatives are usually not even endorsed by the central party leadership. Most of these deifying posters and slogans were prepared by regional party workers, or others. It is the local tribal community that worships Indira Gandhi in central India. When Rahul Gandhi was depicted as Rama fighting the “Ravana Modi,” the Congress leadership pointed out that the posters were “unofficial” (but did not reject them). When Modi’s name was included in a Sanskrit prayer, the state president of the BJP criticized this and declared that it should not have been done. Modi himself, while very much focused on building and sustaining his image, spoke against the cult-like adoration of people (vyakti-puja). Such deifications happen because the district-level gung-ho party activists may sometimes go to extremes to make their efforts noticed and their voices heard.

Second, with no centralized and strict doctrine to go by, Hinduism is a collection of many different cults and traditions which do not have to be – and often are not – coherent. Or, to put it differently: In the 19th century, when the image of Hinduism in the West had been established, the benchmark for any religion as defined in Europe was the Roman Catholic Church. This is the only reason why Hinduism was and is described as “a less organized” and “less centralized” religion – in comparison only, by arbitrarily using Christianity (and Catholicism in particular) as the yardstick for all religions. Many examples of local Hindu cults may be challenged with completely different instances from other regions but this does not negate them or make them less true or genuine. It is the same on the political level. There is historical evidence that in some marginal cases Mahatma Gandhi was worshiped like a near-god or a saintly figure. Nowadays, a fringe radical party, Hindu Mahasabha, has established a temple where Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, is believed to be worshiped. Once again, neither of these cults are authorized by established religious figures nor must they be perceived as representing the same religious tradition (or any tradition). Defining and understanding Hinduism is certainly not arrived at by stamping each tradition with a “Hindu cult” brand.

Third, some of the deities of Hinduism live “closer” to men. Holy men are often worshiped as gods and some deities were believed to have descended to Earth in various myths (such as those about Vishnu’s avatars). This is perhaps why it is easier for some politicians to bandwagon behind these religious traditions by trying to deify party leaders.

While there should be no hype around these attempts, they do confirm the significant role of Hinduism in modern Indian society and as a rallying force in the country’s politics.

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World Hindu Congress renounces 'Hinduism', embraces 'Hindutva', 'Hindu Dharm'

The third World Hindu Congress (WHC) adopted a declaration asserting that the word Hindutva was more accurate and renounced the word Hinduism as it includes the gamut of all that the word 'Hindu' implies.

HINDUTVA IS FASCISM HINDUISM IS ARYANISM

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat addressing the World Hindu Congress. (Screengrab)


Press Trust of India
Bangkok,UPDATED: Nov 25, 2023
Posted By: Chingkheinganbi Mayengbam


The World Hindu Congress on Friday renounced the word Hinduism, contending that the term reflected oppressive and discriminatory and embraced Hindutva and Hindu Dharma to refer to the "eternal" religion.

The third World Hindu Congress (WHC) adopted a declaration here asserting that the word Hindutva was more accurate as it includes the gamut of all that the word 'Hindu' implies.

"In the term “Hindu Dharma”, the first word, i.e, 'Hindu' is an unbounded word. It signifies all that is Sanatan or Eternal. And then there is Dharma, which means 'That, which sustains'," read the declaration adopted at the end of the first day of deliberations of the WHC.




It said that in contrast, Hinduism is totally different because it is suffixed with an “ism”, which is a term defined as an oppressive and discriminatory attitude or belief.

"It is for such reasons that many of our elders preferred the term "Hindutva” over Hinduism as the former is a more accurate term since it includes the gamut (spectrum) of all that the word “Hindu” implies. We agree with them and should do the same," the declaration read.

The assertion in the declaration came against the backdrop of a row that erupted after DMK leaders made certain controversial remarks about Sanatan Dharma at a symposium with the theme 'Abolition of Sanatana'.


The declaration said that Hindutva was not a complicated word and simply meant Hindu-ness.

"Others have used the alternative “Sanatan Dharma”, often abbreviated as “Sanatan”. Here the term “Sanatan” works as an adjective indicating Hindu Dharma’s eternal nature," it said.




The declaration noted that many academicians and intellectuals portray Hindutva as the antithesis of Hindu Dharma, out of ignorance.

"But most are anti-Hindutva because of their visceral hatred and biases against Hindu Dharma. Many politicians driven by political agendas and personal prejudices have also joined that group, and are criticizing Sanatan Dharma, or Sanatan with increasing regularity and vitriol," it added.

The WHC condemned such attacks and urged Hindus worldwide to unite to overcome those who are engaging in such bigotry and emerge victorious.

Earlier, addressing the inaugural session of the WHC, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said India will show the path of happiness and satisfaction to the world which is stumbling from experiments with materialism, communism and capitalism.

He appealed to Hindus across the world to reach out to each other and connect with the world together.

"We have to reach out, connect with every Hindu. And Hindus together will connect everybody in the world. As Hindus are connected in more numbers, the process of connecting with the world has also started," Bhagwat said at the gathering of thinkers, activists, leaders, and entrepreneurs, from across the world.

The quadrennial event began with the blowing of the conch by Swami Vigyanananda, the founder and global chairman of the World Hindu Foundation with delegates from over 60 countries participating in the three-day event.

Spiritual leader Mata Amritanandmayi Devi, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) General Secretary Milind Parande, WHC organising committee chair Susheel Saraff, Bharat Sevashram Sangh Working President Swami Purnatmanand, Hinduism Today-USA Publisher Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami among others.

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Published On:
Nov 25, 2023

It’s Lord Ram’s birthday this week. Here’s why he’ll be remembered in six faiths.

This week, millions will mark the birth of one of the most iconic figures in global lore.

A statue of the Hindu god Ram. Photo by Pavan Kumaar/Unsplash/Creative Commons

March 28, 2023

By 

Murali Balaji

(RNS) — In a climactic scene of “RRR,” the Telugu-language blockbuster, one of the protagonists, an Indian freedom fighter named Ram, transforms into an icon of Lord Ram, an incarnation of the god Vishnu and one of the most important deities in Hinduism. With Ram’s bow and arrow, the mortal Ram defeats the British colonizers.

The scene, and the success of “RRR,” is an example of how Ram has grown in the Western imagination in the past three decades or so, beginning with his depiction in the popular 1995 screen version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s tale, “The Little Princess.”

But Ram, also called Rama, has for centuries been influential wherever Hinduism spread around the globe, even among believers in Islam, Christianity and Sikhism. This week, his birthday will be celebrated by millions of Hindus and members of other faiths on Ram Navami, the last day of the nine-day Chaitra Navratri festival.

While some scholars have recently begun to suggest that Ram was likely an actual ruler in ancient India (or a composite of several), the scriptural version of Ram has had an outsized impact on Hindus and followers of Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.

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The Ramayana, the Sanskrit epic attributed to Sage Valmiki, a former bandit turned Hindu rishi, tells the life of Ram, a human prince and fierce warrior who marries the princess Sita. Ram is about to inherit his father’s throne when his stepmother, in a succession struggle, schemes to send Ram into exile. While Ram and Sita are abroad, Sita is kidnapped by the demon king Ravana and Ram must rescue her with the help of the monkey god Hanuman. 

The sacred text, which highlights the importance of virtue and the victory of light over darkness, is one of the bases of the Hindu festival of Diwali, which marks Ram’s return from exile. 

An artist dressed as Hindu monkey god Hanuman, left, takes a selfie with artists dressed as demon king Ravana, center, and Hindu god Ram, right, before a final Ramleela performance as part of Dussehra festival celebrations in New Delhi, India, Oct. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The Ramayana also idealizes dharma, the central tenet of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Ram always puts duty and righteousness above all else, qualities that have helped his legend survive even in societies where Hinduism is no longer practiced as widely, if at all. Most importantly, it teaches that no one is completely good or completely evil, an idea underscored by its villain, Ravana, a staunch devotee of Lord Shiva who became blinded by power.

Over time, both Jainism and Buddhism adopted versions of the Ramayana as part of their religious lore. In Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, once Hindu strongholds, the Scripture’s importance as a guide to virtue remained even as their populations were converted to other faiths. In mostly Buddhist Cambodia, the Ramayana is known as the Reamker, or the Glory of Rama, while in Muslim-majority Indonesia, it is a national symbol and intricately woven into the country’s social fabric.

But even though it spawned many local versions, Valmiki’s epic was inaccessible to millions of Hindus, who did not read or write Sanskrit until the 1600s, when St. Tulsidas, one of the greatest figures of the Hindu bhakti movement, penned the Ramcharitmanas, a poem that extols the accomplishments of Ram, in Awadhi, a language linked to Ayodhya, Ram’s birthplace. Tulsidas, who had been imprisoned by the Mughal emperor Akbar, is widely believed to have composed the poem on Ram’s birthday.

As millions of impoverished Hindus left India in the 19th century as indentured servants and scattered across the British Empire, the Ramcharitmanas became a unifying source of comfort.

Because of the syncretic connections between Sikhism and Punjabi Hinduism, many Sikhs came to view Ram as king of Ayodhya, though there are some disagreements about whether Sikh gurus also considered him a divine being. Still, Ram is mentioned in both the Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth, a text long considered to be one of the works of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th in Sikhism’s lineage of founding teachers. In recent years, some Sikh groups, particularly in the diaspora, have pushed back on that idea.

A devotee has the name of Hindu god Rama written on his forehead during a religious procession to celebrate Ram Navami, a Hindu festival marking the birth anniversary of Lord Ram, in Hyderabad, India,  April 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A., File)

The Meo Muslims of northern India have long revered Ram and trace their roots to him, and many men in the community still take names with roots in the Ramayana. However, in recent years, some Meos have abandoned Ram and other Hindu traditions due to a rise in both right-wing Hindu sentiment and Islamic puritanism fueled by money from Arab states.

But Muslims in other parts of the world still hold the Ramayana in deep reverence. Its story was long retold in popular Balinese and Javanese shadow puppetry known as Wayang golek until Muslim rulers disapproved. Refashioned into the more palatable Wayang kulit, it maintains the same references to Ram. Many Indonesian Muslims continue to draw their names from the Ramayana and the country’s national airline is called Garuda, the mythological bird that makes appearances in numerous Hindu stories.

Far from India, in the Caribbean countries of Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, names like Ramsingh, Rampersuad, Ramkissoon, Ramnarine and Sitaram continue to be common, even among West Indians whose families have long since become Christian. In at least some of these converted communities, celebrating Diwali, specifically Ram’s return, continues, though a rise in evangelical Christian activity in recent years has lessened those observances.

Still, Ram Navami marks the birth of a figure whose life and lionization continue to play a major role in the lives of hundreds of millions across the world. On Thursday (March 30), millions of homes around the world will mark the occasion with readings of the Ramayana or Ramcharitmanas, fasting and musical odes to the greatness of one of the most iconic figures in global lore.

(Murali Balaji is a journalist and a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include “Digital Hinduism” and “The Professor and the Pupil,” a political biography of W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.) 

India: Is the ruling BJP's 'Hindutva' approach a civilizational principle?

The difference between Hinduism as a religion and Hindutva as a political ideology has been a topic of heated debate in India for years.



Since the BJP was re-elected to power in 2019, tensions between Hindus and Muslims have escalated

Election season is underway in five Indian states, and the big question is whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janta Party's (BJP's) core Hindu nationalist agenda will continue to be well-received by the over 180 million eligible voters.

The defining credo of the BJP since 1989 has been "Hindutva," a political ideology that promotes the "values" of the Hindu religion as being the cornerstone of Indian society and culture.

The BJP's continuous reliance on an aggressive Hindutva plank has given it electoral success in the past. However, the BJP's political opponents say the party's ultra-nationalist rhetoric, based on Hindu nationalism, threatens to displace secularism as the foundation of India's constitution.

The politicization of the Hindu religion has also been combined by the BJP in recent years with more aggressive policies that India's Muslim community says treats them as second-class citizens.

Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, has emerged as a poster child for the Hindu right-wing.

He recently described the election in the northern Indian state as an "80% versus 20%" contest, which roughly corresponds to Uttar Pradesh's Hindu and Muslim population proportion.
Hindu-Muslim tension in India

Since the BJP was again elected into power in 2019, tensions between Hindus and Muslims have escalated.

Watch video 02:34Uttar Pradesh candidate pushes anti-Muslim message

A citizenship law passed in 2019 called the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) fast-tracks citizenship of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who arrived in India before 2015. However, critics say it excludes fast-tracking citizenship rights for Muslims.

In 2020, Muslim-majority neighborhoods in Delhi were the scene of violent riots that were set off by protests against the CAA. Mobs of mainly Hindu men targeted Muslim homes and businesses.

Two days of bloody violence left 53 dead, including both Hindus and Muslims, and more than 200 wounded.

More recently, a controversy over women wearing the Islamic headscarf "hijab" in schools and colleges has sparked tension and protest in southern India between Hindus and Muslims.

"The proliferation of anti-Muslim hate forms the architecture of Hindutva," rights activist Shabnam Hashmi told DW.

"Hate speech against Muslims in India has gained momentum, with several right-wing and Hindutva leaders calling for a Muslim 'genocide' with no response from the government," she said.

How intertwined are Hindutva and Hinduism?

Hindutva was first proposed as a political idea in 1928 in a pamphlet written by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar titled "Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?"

"Hinduism has many texts including the Vedas, the Puranas while Hindutva has one central political pamphlet," Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor wrote in a recent social media post.

The BJP says Hindutva is a vehicle for social development and governance.

UP Chief Minister Adityanath said at a recent BJP rally that "Hindutva and development are complementary to each other. Those who are opposing Hindutva are in fact opposing development and Indianness

Watch video 02:51 Controversy over hijab at India's educational institutions

Hindutva is 'not divisive'

However, Tom Vadakkan, a Christian member of the BJP from the southern Kerala state, said that there is room from pluralism in Hindutva, despite it being rooted in Hinduism as a religion.

"There should be no hair-splitting about Hinduism and Hindutva. They are conjoined, and a historical reality which is civilizational. We live in a pluralistic society and there is no attempt to impose the party's ideology on any denomination," he told DW.

"Hindutva does not mean divisive politics," he added.

Muslim BJP member Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a minister of minority rights in Modi's government, presented a different point of view, contending that Hindutva is not associated with religion but is rather a guiding civilizational principle.

"It is because of Hindutva that we talk about unity in diversity," said Naqvi during a heated television debate over Hindutva in December 2021.

Shazia Ilmi, a BJP spokesperson, told DW that Hindutva was being misinterpreted by the media and denied that the BJP discriminates against Muslims, adding that social development under the political ideology provides benefits for all of India's ethnic groups.

A major new Pew Research Center survey of religion across India, based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020, found that Indians of all religious backgrounds overwhelmingly say they are very free to practice their faiths.

K J Alphons, a BJP lawmaker and a former minister, told DW that sectarian strife in India should not be blamed on Hindutva politics.

"We are a huge country with nearly 1.4 billion people. Many of these incidents involving Muslims or Christians are economic in nature and not religious. These are isolated incidents and to see a conspiracy in such isolated incidents is unfair," he said.

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