Kolkata: Citing the work of Wilhelm Reich, the Austrian psychoanalyst who wrote The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Ajay Gudvarthy, associate professor at the Center for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, said that authoritarian regimes mobilised people through a mixture of rebellious emotions and reactionary social ideas. 

Gudavarthy, the author of many books on Indian politics, who writes for the Indian Express and the Hindu, spoke last month at the Presidency College in Kolkata, explaining the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in the Haryana state election a month earlier by polarising marginalised castes against the dominant Jats in the state, and what it said about Hindutva, the Hindu majoritarian ideology at the core of the BJP, its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and its right-wing allies. 

While discussing his findings from a field visit in Haryana, Gudavarthy said he found that the non-Jats had little sympathy for the farmers protest, which they saw as an extension of their power and privilege, or the sexual harassment alleged by the women wrestlers from that community; their women faced worse, and it was rarely in the news. Contrary to popular perception and protests around the Centre’s Agnipath recruitment scheme, which gave jobs to young men and women in the armed forces for four years, it was a temporary respite from joblessness for marginalised castes. 

In a further discussion with Article 14 about placing the Haryana election in the context of the Reich’s observation of building a totalitarian state, Gudavarthy said, “I was citing this in terms of Haryana responding to wrestler's issues. They were rebellious towards Jat domination, but in the process, they were also sanctioning the sexual abuse of the wrestlers, saying they did not know or they were indifferent. They were saying their women go through it regularly.”

“Why should you guys sitting in Delhi make a big hue and cry when a Jat woman is ill-treated? They said this when I expressed anguish at what happened with the wrestlers,” he said. “Wilhelm's formulation fits so well in the Haryana context and explains BJP mobilisation in Haryana.”

The BJP’s third straight term with its biggest-ever tally in Haryana came months after a significant loss in the general election, where it lost five of the ten seats it won in the 2019 election. A month later, the BJP reversed its setback in the general election in Maharashtra, winning along with its alliance partners 235 out of 288 seats. It was a victory attributed to a welfare scheme for economically disadvantaged women and the consolidation of the other backward classes (OBCs) against the dominant Marathas demanding reservation. 

And herein lay Gudavarthy's point that while Islamophobia was a strain of the Hindutva, it would not sustain or drive the Hindutva.

The JNU professor argued that Hindutva would be driven by mobilising Hindu castes under a superficial call for Hindu unity, playing them against each other for political gain, and eventually neutralising powerful caste groups. In the end, they would all be subservient to a monolithic state. 

“In every state, they are mobilising the excluded communities against the domination of the most dominant caste community in that particular state,” said Gudavarthy. “By doing that, people feel they are getting immediate relief from the patronage networks of dominant communities. But the social vision of that is neither egalitarian nor progressive.”

In light of the BJP’s sweeping victories in Haryana and Maharashtra after its setback in the general election and the failure of the Congress Party and the rest of the opposition to sustain the momentum that confined the BJP to 246 seats in Parliament, we asked Gudavarthy what BJP’s electoral wins this year said about the future of Hindutva.

In other words, what does 2024 tell us about where Hindutva is going and the role of caste and Islamophobia? 

What happened after the 2024 general election? 

In that election, the social justice narrative kicked in terms of 400 plus seats, meaning changes in the Constitution and cancellation of reservations. People responded positively. But that was not a well-thought-out narrative or strategy by the Opposition. It was a freak success. I don't even know why they succeeded. But let’s not forget that the BJP won 246 seats. People want a cultural sense of belonging, social justice, and rights language—astha and nyaya. BJP doesn’t speak the constitutional rights language. Congress and Left parties do not talk about cultural sense of belonging. They don’t know how to negotiate the Hindu identity, which is more about a sense of belonging than exclusively Islamophobia.

What happened in Haryana? Given the protests, the Agnipath/Agniveer scheme was widely perceived as unpopular. 

This is a most interesting experiment. Those who protested were primarily Jat protesters. People say the Congress gave these Agniveer jobs to two and a half districts, mainly to Jats, through corruption. But when the BJP came, they started giving these jobs to non-Jats on a big scale. In the Ahirwal belt where I went, Yadavs said this was the first time these jobs were coming to us. They have spread, and they are mainly taking non-Jats. They are giving these jobs without corruption. A Dalit respondent told me his son took the exam, gave no money or commission, and was admitted. 

But they have made this job temporary. So, on the one hand, they are knocking off the dominant power of Jats, and they are making Dalits and Bahujans more inclusive by giving them jobs, but that inclusion comes with vulnerability because it is only four years. But as of now, the communities are happy because they are getting something immediately. If you take a snapshot of Haryana in 10 years, you will see Jats who have been contained and smaller communities that are vulnerable with a sense of inclusion. All communities, in the end, will begin to feel vulnerable.

What did 2024 tell us about Hindutva?

The point I’m making is not that Islamophobia is peripheral, but it is only one of the processes that is being triggered by the Hindu right. However, the entire rise of Hindutva politics cannot be explained through this argument of Islamophobia. This kind of blanket framing is what most urban secular scholars and so-called secular parties do. To say that the entire rise of Hindu parties is through Islamophobia is not sociological or historical. I don’t think there is that kind of a sharp social polarisation on the ground that can explain this meteoric rise. Therefore, I’m saying there are other corollary social processes, including caste reconfiguration and social reconfiguration of power at local sites. Those must be factored in to explain this kind of sustained rise and electoral outcomes. 

How is the BJP’s caste politics different from the caste politics of the past, practised by almost every regional and political party? Parties like the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal have been born out of caste-based social justice movements. 

The caste politics of SP and RJD was centred around one dominant caste among the OBCs. In this case, the Yadavs. BJP broke that stronghold and hegemony of one or two dominant sub-castes/jatis representing or standing in for the rest. BJP mobilises the smaller castes, even among the SCs and the STs. Another difference is that caste was seen as an antidote to religious mobilisation and confessional politics in earlier mobilisation. BJP has managed to draw an equivalence between caste identities and religious identities. The more the caste identities get entrenched, the more the Hindu identity becomes visible. In an ironical sense, it was Ambedkar who had said as long as Hinduism exists, castes will exist. BJP and RSS seem to have actualised Babasaheb`s understanding.

You made the point about not speaking in Hindu-Muslim binaries. Binaries means conceding a homogeneous Hindu identity. 

The Hindu-Muslim binary makes it look like Hindus are already a monolith. You concede to a project they are already trying to build. That’s politically unhelpful and sociologically untrue.  That is not what is happening on the ground. The right is struggling to sustain that hysteria. In Maharashtra, ‘batenge-katenge’ was one of the constituencies through which they are also consolidating. They are also creating welfare, women-oriented welfare policies, big development, and big infrastructure development in the imagination. Mostly, regional parties, Left parties and social activists have arrested the entire thing in terms of the rise of Islamophobia as an explanation for the rise of Hindutva, which I think is misplaced and misdirected.

It may not be the sole cause of the rise of Hindutva, but isn’t it a significant cause of the Hindu mobilisation? There is rampant and pervasive Islamophobia. Every day, you hear about some instances. People calling for violence, saying demeaning things, and calling for an economic boycott are routine now. 

There are incidents of that, but I can give you hundreds of other incidents where Hindus and Muslims sit next to each other and speak. Let’s not exaggerate it to the extent that everything around it collapses. There are places where people recede from that kind of imagination. In my writing, I refer to this as ‘contextual communalism’. There are places where it makes inroads, and there are places where it also recedes.

Phobia refers to some kind of hysteria. Can we say that the Indian Hindu public has already become hysterical? It is their core constituency of 10% to 15%, which is suffering from this kind of mass hysteria and mass hatred. Still, I refuse to believe that ordinary Hindus in smaller, semi-urban and peripheral places have fallen into a mass hysteria against Muslims. 

But there does seem to be mass hysteria beyond 10 to 15 per cent. Love Jihad, Thook Jihad, Land Jihad, economic boycott, everyday abuse—all this has become very, very pervasive. 

Have all Hindus fallen for this mass hysterical hatred? One should not confuse what they are trying to build and what is happening on the ground. Sometimes, there is an overlap. But there are spaces where this overlap does not occur. There are moments when they succeed. There are also moments when they recede. To explain entire electoral behaviour and social consent this way is exaggerated. This is also a social elite response to social complexities on the ground. You will find much more complexity once you get into the caste question happening simultaneously. Even to explain the anti-Muslim sentiment, it has to be located within social reconfiguration, which is happening around caste lines. Social reconfiguration is also opening up and closing spaces for anti-Muslim mobilisation. 

Could you give some examples of where receding from Islamophobia has occurred and the closing spaces for anti-Muslim mobilisation? 

There can be no better example of this than the electoral outcome in Ayodhya. The entire movement for the temple was pitched around correcting a historical injury to the Hindus. BJP lost in the Faizabad constituency. Similarly, the BJP had lost in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections soon after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992. Further, Mr Modi won in Varanasi, another site of Hindu revivalism and resurgence, with a reduced margin, and he was trailing at some point. BJP is making roads in the South around welfare and governance, not a Hindu-Muslim pitch. Let us also not forget that the BJP repeatedly appeals to Pasmanda Muslims within the Muslims. As they target dominant castes in Hindus just the way they target the Muslims, they approach the weaker castes in Muslims just the way they are consolidating support among the lower castes of Hindus.

When you are talking about caste configuration, do you mean they are looking to neutralise some of the most dominant caste groups and unite them under a larger Hindu identity?

They are doing it in the name of a larger Hindu identity, but I don’t think they are trying to achieve any kind of unity. I think they are trying to bring these groups into submission. More than unity, it is a question of submission. This is something else that is happening in the name of unity. 

But isn’t uniting under a Hindu umbrella the whole point of pursuing a Hindu Rashtra? 

They want a Hindu Rashtra that brings a monolithic state power into existence. But it is not about Hindu unity but about submission. Unity suggests cohabitation and bonhomie between communities. Are they trying to bring in that kind of unity and equivalence between differentiated caste groups? Are they resisting modes of discrimination within different caste groups within and between various communities? You don’t find that. Ideally, it should have taken that form if they were serious about this idea of unity. You will never see right-wing demonstrations in places where Dalits claim being discriminated against or violence against them. Have you ever seen this kind of resistance? Theirs is a mythical idea of Hindu unity. 

Is it homogeneity? 

They want to bring about some kind of social order. I call it commonality without solidarity. They are not looking for a sense of solidarity between communities. They are looking for commonality of cultural practices. Everybody abides by that, which brings about social order, but that order is not about solidarity. Therefore, we cannot refer to it as Hindu unity. 

This commonality would mean a loss of cultural diversity. 

All non-dominant forms of culture would be suppressed. 

For instance, Hinduism in Bengal is distinct from what is practised in north India. 

Currently, they are trying this new method of tying up the local deities and culture to an overall pan-Indian Hindu form. They are evolving this pan-Indian Hindu form. They will tell people in tribal areas that the local deities are another form of Vishnu. Is this colonisation or integration? It is a big question. Is it assimilation, or is it a new mode of integrative diversity? These are complicated questions. I don’t think we can have shorthand explanations. In most areas, I found that people as of now may not feel this is the colonisation of their life forms. They may feel they are being tied to larger pan-Indian symbols. Is it merely being tied to larger pan-Indian symbols assimilation or submission? The RSS might want to do that, but it differs from how people perceive it and what it might lead to. 

Why has the opposition, the liberal, the “liberal elites”, the Left, failed to counter BJP and the Hindu right as they have gone from strength to strength in 15 years? 

The counter-narratives are misdirected. They cannot capture the essence of what Hindutva is doing—the kind of symbolism that Hindutva is projecting and how it is being perceived on the ground. How people receive this project now is different from the ideological imperatives and proclivities of Hindutva. I think we need to make that distinction to understand the process. We quickly collapse the two, and that is one reason parties cannot pose sufficient counternarratives to this project. 

You mentioned in your lecture that one needs to marry secular values to local cultural sensitivities to counter Hindutva. 

Local cultures, local culture idioms. We’ll have to work through those cultural idioms to make people see what a secular prism means. The mere exclusive use of Constitutional legal language is unhelpful. As of now, people are perceiving it as another elitist intervention. What the right is doing becomes closer to their life and work. That is why people can respond so spontaneously. Part of the consent for Hindutva comes from a deep sense of cultural belonging, which is not immediately equated with Islamophobia. That is also another conceptual mistake that many make. A celebration of your own religiosity and religious symbol is not necessarily anti-Islam. RSS is conscious of this. They use religious symbols and local cultural idioms that give a deep sense of belonging to people. And therefore, it becomes very organic.

But there is no question that things are awful for Muslims. They risk getting beaten up if they carry meat, they are afraid to give their real names while booking a cab, and the slightest encounter could become violent, dangerous and life-threatening. That didn’t happen before 2014. 

That’s true. But most of those incidents—as Paul Brass has argued in Forms of Collective Violence (Riots, Pogroms and Genocide In Modern India)—are organised incidents by vigilante groups of Hindutva. That has driven a fear psychosis in Muslims, but that is a different aspect. But I don’t see spontaneous hatred. To read this as blanket Islamophobia everywhere—it is not determining the electoral and social behaviour. 

Organised riots are different. Contextual communalism does exist—if you create rumours of ‘love jihad’. Look at the amount of trash circulating on YouTube and social media. They have not even spared children. My seven-year-old niece suddenly came to me and said that  ‘Muslims are very bad’. While she is watching this cartoon, a one-minute cartoon pops up where they are showing Muslims on horses coming and destroying Hindu temples. In that one-minute video, they could very clearly communicate with a seven-year-old. 

But I think we need to have conceptual discussions about how people respond. If you look at anthropological accounts of the Delhi riots, Hindus saved Muslims, and Muslims saved Hindus. Very rarely do neighbours attack neighbours. It is mostly organised groups coming from outside. We are confusing this with mass hatred. I don’t think this is sociologically correct or politically informed. They are building a project that is not succeeding—repeatedly, things recede. Unlike Germany, they are not able to institutionalise that hatred. Therefore, they go for economic dispossession, snatching away their lands. They have to keep trying repeatedly. There might be moments when hysteria builds, but people recede. 

What does Hindutva mean? 

I think it is a particular imagination of power relations that is not restricted to religious minorities alone. It reconfigures social power, OBCs, religious minorities, and tribals. It is a different social vision born from an idea of hierarchical order—society has to be organised, and hierarchies are natural to human civilisation. There is an inevitable process of naturalising differences. As part of that, there is rehauling and reordering of all social identities, including religious minorities. 

What about the Hindu supremacy part?

Yes, but who is this Hindu? It boils down to caste Hindus. For rhetorical purposes, there is an emulation of an Abrahamic religion, converting it into any organised religion around a single book of Bhagwad Gita. These are some of the rhetorical points that don’t make sense. I don’t think even they have clarity. Therefore, they are reviving histories; they need an enemy continuously. The strategies they have developed in terms of othering Muslims, they are also using in some constituencies against Hindus. Jats told me they need an imaginary enemy, and in Haryana, they have caught hold of us and created so many narratives against us. They will do it against every community with relative power and capacity to resist and be independent. In this, what is Hindu? 

What about the slogans ‘ek hain toh safe hain’ and katenge to batenge’’? 

All that is in response to the caste census that Rahul Gandhi has been raising rather than the communal context. Maharashtra, this time, there was no communal polarisation or communal mobilisation. If you followed the Karnataka election, they mobilised for four years against burqa-clad women entering schools, but when it came to elections, the former chief minister said the election was not about halal and burqa because beyond a point those issues were not resonating for them. There is a limit to Islamophobia that is very clear. It cannot be sustained. 

In Germany, once the hatred for Jews was mobilised, it sustained for ten years. There was no going back. You don’t see that in the Indian case.  We have to step back and see what this project is instead of saying it is blanket Islamophobia. They have already understood that this anti-Muslim program does not work beyond a point. So what do they do? They trigger internal conflicts within Hindu society against Jats and Marathas. You tell me what the Hindu unity agenda is here. They disempower powerful Hindu social groups in the same manner as they disempower Muslims.

So what does it mean—ek hain toh safe hain? 

It is a figurative idea of Hindu unity in the abstract, which is more loyalty to the state and the nation. If you break it open, this unity has very little social sense. Those slogans work more for their consolidated 15% base, which they have made very toxic and violent. 

Is the Hindutva project more political than ideological at the moment? 

I don’t know what you mean by this distinction. What they have is using cultural politics to construct a modern supra-state with complete suppression of all social groups, with no exception. All social groups have to submit to a single monolithic power. That is how I see the concept of Hindu Rashtra. The fear and physical attacks are of a different degree than Muslims, but tell me how much fear Hindus are living in. Most Hindus can’t open their mouths. I know people in my colony who disagree with this kind of campaign, but they only tell you in very hushed-up voices. Where is the empowered Hindu in the Hindu Rashtra they are bringing in the name of the Hindus? Again, that small constituency gives (sound) bites, go and shout slogans, but ordinary Hindus are as scared to speak out. You can see that people in academic institutions, journalists, and residential colonies are afraid. An intelligent opposition should have mobilised on all these issues.

I think we differ on how pervasive Islamophobia is. I have a friend whose sons have been called Pakistani in school. People used to hide their bigotry earlier. Now, it is out in the open. Ten years of radicalisation and at least five more is a tremendous amount of time. Children who have grown up in this time would now be young adults with no idea about the other idea of India. And they are the future. I think it goes way beyond this 10% to 15% 

Go to Haryana, go beyond Rohtak. When you sit under a tree with Jats, you will have a Muslim sitting somewhere. And that Muslim will openly speak against Modi. 

In India, something that is true, the opposite of it is also true. 

Exactly. I’m not denying what you are saying. But let’s see the other side of the story, too. The urban centres and the urban middle class are entirely a lost cause. Our relatives and social media groups have become toxic. 

In the Kolkata talk, I spoke about the culturalisation of caste dynamics. Today, a Brahmin is not hesitant about flashing his identity, which he was ten years ago. You felt conscious that you could not unabashedly claim Brahmin identity, but now they are doing it. Relatives are becoming part of WhatsApp groups like how Brahmin culture should be saved, and Brahmins are the only protectors of Sanatan Dharma.

It is not even within closed family groups or private WhatsApp groups. There are people on social media platforms openly celebrating Brahminism. 

That is the process I call the culturalisation of caste. Caste is no longer about hierarchy or discrimination, but they have successfully converted it into the culturalisation of caste. They are asking every caste to celebrate their caste identity, which also means celebrating their caste occupation. It is not all about modern education. The PM Vishwakarma scheme is all about funding caste occupations. If you are a painter, goldsmith, blacksmith, or potter, please claim those identities. They say each caste has a glorious history, but that also means going back to caste professions and not going back to upward mobility and higher education. This is another dimension that is being pushed all over India.

To go back to your point about the relatively less Islamophobia open bigotry in rural areas. This relative calm is predicated on entrenched bigotry, defined social roles and economic interdependence. A Muslim may speak against Modi, but he is not equal to a Jat in the village. Living areas are divided along caste and religious lines. This superficial bonhomie is not between equals, even if they are sitting under the same tree. 

But there is nothing new about this. This is how our society has been for thousands of years. There is no intermarriage. There is no inter dining. Prejudice is integral to recognition. When you claim your identity, you are differentiating from other communities. If a Jat marries a Brahmin, even the Jats are not happy. Prejudice is integral to all castes from top to bottom. That is not what Hindutva created, but Hindutva deepens your prejudices. What we call culture is everyday prejudices. So, no one is claiming deep solidarity or bonhomie, but at the same time, it does not mean that they are all prone to hysteria.

What is the role of the BJP? 

To consolidate all the prejudices that have been lying dormant for years, To weaponise every last drop of prejudice in society. Each community will end up fragmented and in confrontation with the other community. This Hindu unity will only be political unity in the end. Culturally and socially, communities will enter deeper and deeper social strife as and when they need whatever social configuration. This is about the submission of all independent constituencies and voices—whether they are independent in economic terms like Jats owning land, whether you have independent social and cultural capital, linguistics, or regionalism. 

To achieve this, political power is imperative. That makes 2014 crucial.

Absolutely. They would want to be in political power, and the only way they would continue is not just by talking about Hindu Muslims but by micro-engineering each community against the other by taking up anxieties and prejudices that lie dormant and trying to show that each community is a potential enemy of another community. OBCs are being mobilised against Dalits, and Dalits are being mobilised against Muslims. Dalits and OBCs are being mobilised against Jats. But the RSS will impose on this political dynamic a social rhetoric—sabka saath, sabka vikas, sab Hindu, sab santani. That is all to legitimise political power as a symbol of Hindu unity. The social engineering is all a conflictual mobilisation. They are not mobilising in solidarity. This doesn’t begin with a Hindu-Muslim or end there.

(Betwa Sharma is the managing editor of Article 14.)

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