Description

Hindu Extreme Right-Wing Groups Ideology & Consequences

An attempt to look at Hindutva’s fascist agenda as unfolding in the country today. ‘Using posters and videotapes of the Godhra massacre, and rhetoric that depicted Muslims as terrorists intent on destroying the Hindu community, the [BJP] party gained the most seats in areas affected by communal violence. The laboratory of Hindutva has remained impervious to criticism within India and has hidden under the mantle of the Union government in rejecting any criticism from abroad. The cauldron of Ayohdya continues to simmer, simultaneously provocative to the Muslims and unifying to the Hindu ‘vote bank’. However, it is a credit to the energy of secular-minded Indian commentators that they have not abandoned the issues arising from the growth and expansion of Hindutva, even if they have been powerless to stop its rise.

Why hindutva makes such a potent challenge, is explained by the ease in which all the problems of Indian society are placed either on the external ‘enemy’ (Pakistan, the epitome o(‘ the jihadi state according to L K Avani and others in the government) or the internal ‘enemy’, the Muslim community. It is a noxious concoction calculated to challenge the basis of an inclusive society enjoying with good intercultural relations. In acting as they do in vilifying the ‘other’, the proponents of hindutva misappropriate the name of Hinduism. For Hinduism has always stood for diversity, not cultural homogeneity.

Introduction to the Indian Edition of Ram Puniyani, Hindu Extreme Right-Wing Groups Professor Richard Bonney

Appendix

Hindu Extreme Right-Wing Groups: Ideology and Consequences Professor Ram Puniyani

Glossary of Terms

Hindu Extreme Right-Wing Groups: Exemplifying Ram Puniyani’s Interpretation An Abridged Version of the Introduction to the UK Edition Professor Richard Bonney

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