Rise of the Political Right in India: Hindutva-Development Mix, Modi Myth, and Dualities

We are witnessing a global phenomenon of the rise of right-wing leaders who combine nationalist rhetoric with a claim to challenge the pernicious effects of neoliberalism. But, upon achieving power, they do not oppose the business elite, instead, while paying lip service to the victims of economic processes, they direct the blame for those structural problems upon the minorities and ‘Others’ within the rightwing nationalist imagination. In the Indian context, this is typified by the rise of Narendra Modi. Modi-led BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its coming to power in 2014 has similarities with Trump, and is also different from the earlier incarnations of the BJP. In the first part of this paper, I explain the innovative nature of the specific Modi-mix of Hindutva and Development, and outline the toxic impact his right-wing populist givernment has had on a broad spectrum of Indian society and polity. However, in spite of the visible increase in real and symbolic violence across the country, Modi continues to remain popular and wield great influence. The second part of the paper answers this apparent puzzle by providing an account of the work of the ‘Modi myth’ that projects him as an ascetic, paternal and decisive ruler. This political myth is constantly reinforced through medium, speech, and performance. Further, given the many disparate constituencies with differing concerns that Modi-led BJP addresses itself to, the policy inconsistencies are reconciled by a strategic and systematic use of ‘forked tongue’ speech that presents the different interests as being uniform. A populist right-wing politics is constructed out of keeping these dualities in motion by speaking to the different constituencies with a forked tongue. I conclude by giving three examples of management of such dual domains: corporate/grassroots, national/international, India/Bharat

The Gujarat Pogrom

This chapter talks about how middle-class Ahmedabadis either simply denied the massacres at Gulbarg Society and Naroda Patiya, or they explained everything by the reciprocal logic of anger (krodh), riot (tofan), and reaction (pratikriya). Most middle-class residents of the city speak pejoratively about the quality of life in the mill areas of east Ahmedabad, and they invoked these notions when accounting for the violence there. They routinely refer to a lack of economic discipline and ethic cultivation as explanations for social neglect and destitution. People also frequently used ambiguous expressions, such as je thayu te joyu (what has happened, that I have seen), in their depictions. In contrast to this ambiguity, there was often clarity of details narrated in an air of unself-conscious fascination, which leads to the conclusion that most of the details were from secondhand accounts and not personally witnessed.</p

The city threshold: Mushroom temples and magic remains in Ahmedabad

This article describes quotidian practices that make use of urban flows in the city of Ahmedabad: erecting roadside structures such as temples and performing urban expiation rituals at crossroads. Both are exemplary for how intimate division relates to vernacular spatial configuration, the former by inscribing religious markers into areas, the latter by expulsion of individual misfortune. While roadside structures become sites of communal identification, conversion, and violent incorporation, expiatory practices displace an unwanted element onto an anonymous resident who carries it away. </jats:p

Heterogeneity and the Nation

This chapter analyzes how Muslims in Gujarat form no political or cultural unity, with no single voice that can speak in their name. Hence the solution of the pogrom: what cannot be reconverted or expulsed and resists leaving can be killed, ritually undone by violence. The way Muslims were killed neither expresses underlying cultural incommensurables, nor were they motivated by religious antagonisms. Rather, the motivation to eliminate expresses an instability in which Muslim neighbors who fail to be all that different nonetheless can no longer be recognized. The internal heterogeneity of communities labeled “Muslim” escapes the dominant understanding of Indian national cultural integration. In Gujarat, Muslims are already internal. In this way, Muslims have become strange in their familiarity.</p

Word and Image

This chapter illustrates how a paradigmatic structure emerged in the news coverage of February 28, 2002 and the following days, in which the depth of a story is constructed not through certainty of fact or evidence but through allusion and accumulated suggestion. One person's suggestion is supplemented by another person's insinuation that, in turn, results in a tale without closure told repeatedly. The word imagery throughout Sandesh is generally one of sacrifice, blood, revenge, and martyrdom. While pretending to describe violence, the paper is actually mobilizing for it through word suggestions and evocations. The chapter looks at the overlapping of three discrete themes: the fear of terrorism (the ISI, or Pakistani intelligence services), traditional ritual practices and butchering, and the register of the supernatural.</p