Neo-Hindutva: Evolving Forms, Spaces, and Expressions of Hindu Nationalism

Neo-Hindutva explores the recent proliferation and evolution of Hindu nationalism – the assertive, majoritarian, right-wing ideology that is transforming contemporary India.

This volume develops and expands on the idea of ‘neo-Hindutva’ – Hindu nationalist ideology which is evolving and shifting in new, surprising, and significant ways, requiring a reassessment and reframing of prevailing understandings. The contributors identify and explain the ways in which Hindu nationalism increasingly permeates into new spaces: organisational, territorial, conceptual, rhetorical. The scope of the chapters reflects the diversity of contemporary Hindutva – both in India and beyond – which appears simultaneously brazen but concealed, nebulous, and mainstreamed, militant yet normalised. They cover a wide range of topics and places in which one can locate new forms of Hindunationalism: courts of law, the Northeast, the diaspora, Adivasi (tribal) communities, a powerful yoga guru, and the Internet. The volume also includes an in-depth interview with Christophe Jaffrelot and a postscript by Deepa Reddy.