An Approach to Hindutva in India

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This book is the outcome of my doctoral study that I conducted at the University of Coimbra from 2017-2023. It analyses an Indian case study that explores how Hindu nationalists challenge the established discourse of human rights and secularism during a film controversy in the north Indian district of Varanasi in 2000. This film controversy is also analyzed in a broader national political context in line with the rising tide of Hindutva politics since 2014. This book is an attempt to analyse the complexities of modern theories and their implications in a non- Western society. The book concludes that Indian secularism offers theoretical and practical tools to address real contemporary conflicts of a religious nature. However, it cannot eliminate the conflicts between Hindu nationalism and freedom of expression and dissent; it has failed to prevent the communalization of public space, the rise and dominance of Hindutva and the suppression of dissent. This book is presented in a research format in order to provide a comprehensive understanding about the research processes and scientific method adopted in this study. This book will be helpful for researcher, political scientists and politicians.

Amit Singh obtained a PhD in Human Rights in Contemporary Studies (passed with Summa Cum Laude) from the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. He is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Coimbra. Amit has done MSc. from the University of South-Eastern Norway, M.A. from Mahidol University, Thailand and M.A. from Pondicherry University, India. He was a holder of Fritt Ord scholarship (Norway), SUPRA NORDIC scholarship (Denmark), Slovakian national scholarship and a fellow at Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, Japan. He was a visiting researcher at Lund University (Sweden), and Comenius University (Slovakia). Amit is the author of 'The Conflict of Freedom of Expression and Religion- A Case Study from India (People's Literature Publication, 2018). His research interests are Hindu Nationalism, right-wing politics, religious populism, and freedom of expression. Amit's research articles have been published in Social Sciences, Brill's Secular Studies, Anthropologia Portuguesa, Journal of the Indian Sociological Society, and Journal of Southeast Asian Human Rights. He has contributed opinion pieces/blogs to the London School of Economics, The European Consortium for Political Research and have been interviewed by various national and international media.

India gained independence from British rule on August 15, 1947. India inherited and readily adopted a constitution that was Western in its core. Thus, ideas such as democracy, secularism, women's rights, freedom of opinion and expression, and equality of religions became legal norms in a society gripped by communal strife, religious fanaticism, feudalism, and caste hierarchy. Low literacy, extreme inequality, and poverty among the masses after two hundred years of British colonial rule hampered the path for the modern developmental progress sought by Jawahar Lal Nehru, India's first prime minister. The Indian Constitution affirmed (as legal norms) freedom of expression, women's rights, and minority rights, and considered secularism essential to Indian democracy. However, the process of secularization of religious communities, especially Hindus and Muslims, brought their faith into direct confrontation with Western secular values. It is important to note, secular ideals, have been challenged by a history of religious and ethnic unrest that first peaked with the partition of British India (1947) and later dominated the political scene in the 1980s, 1990s, and again in 2000s (Pardesi & Oetken, 2008:23). Religious communities, especially fundamentalist elements within Hindu orthodoxy, were troubled by the secular idea of religious equality, which gave equal constitutional rights to Muslim religious minorities in particular. The influential Hindu orthodoxy (Hindu nationalists/Hindutva) had barely accepted the Indian constitution and flag and rejected the idea of secularism, religious equality, women's rights, and human rights (Tharoor, 2020). This has led to conflicts between secular/liberal Hindus and religious orthodoxy on various occasions, which have had a profound impact on Indian politics in the contemporary era.

This research is a case study of one such socio-political phenomenon, focusing on the conflict between Hindu religious orthodoxy and its reaction to the liberal values of freedom of expression, secularism, and women's rights that manifested in the violent protests against the shooting of the film 'Water' in Varanasi in northern India in 2000. The film 'Water' depicts the wretched condition of Hindu Indian widows in the 1930s in the widow's home in Varanasi, with one of the heroines forced into prostitution by the need to survive. The film's title and setting allude to the sacred waters of the Ganga as a symbol of Hindu Brahmanism, which lies behind the extremely low social status of widows. The film sparked strong reactions from the beginning when Deepa Mehta, the director, received threatening phone calls, including death threats from Hindu fundamentalists. Shooting was forcibly halted because the film considered hurting the religious sentiments of the Hindu community and portrayed Hindu culture in a bad light to an international audience. The film set was destroyed on January 30, 2000. The Kashi Sanskriti Raksha Sangharash Samiti' (KSRSS), an organization that includes members of Hindu nationalist organizations such as RSS and Shiv Sena, led the attack. At the same time, a resistance group supported the shooting in the name of defending freedom of expression and women's rights.