On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Executive power symbolically fused with Hindu religion — harking back to myths of Indian rulers as incarnations of Supreme Lord Vishnu — at the former site of the Babri Masjid mosque, demolished by self-styled “angry Hindus” in 1992.

Indian children celebrated the mythological Lord Ram. State-owned railways promised to transport more than 1,000 trainloads of pilgrims to Ayodhya, boosting tourism-related stock prices. Possibly a hundred private jets flew in tycoons and notables. This ecstatic moment capped an unyielding centurylong journey to a vision forged by the anarchist ideologue Vinayak Damodar (Veer) Savarkar.

In his 1923 booklet "Hindutva" — meaning “Hindu-ness” — Savarkar presented an audacious Hindu-centric Indian nationalism. Breaking from the Hindu religion’s message of transcendental equality, he divided the world into friends — those rooted in India through ancestry and devotion to the fatherland — and all others, who were deemed enemies. (A decade later, the German jurist and prominent Nazi Party member Carl Schmitt advocated the same friend-versus-enemy conception of politics.)

QOSHE - The slow death of India’s brief secular democracy - Ashoka Mody
menu_open
Columnists Actual . Favourites . Archive
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close
Aa Aa Aa
- A +

The slow death of India’s brief secular democracy

39 1
22.01.2024

On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Executive power symbolically fused with Hindu religion — harking back to myths of Indian rulers as incarnations of Supreme Lord Vishnu — at the former site of the Babri........

© The Japan Times


Get it on Google Play