The Politics of Hindutva: Indian Democracy at the Crossroads

Since the massive victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 parliamentary elections, India has seen an entrenchment of the politics of Hindutva, a political-cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and of Hindu hegemony within India. Society and politics in India are experiencing unprecedented transformation under the forces unleashed by Hindu nationalism. The vision that framed the Constitution and the making of the modern Indian nation-state and parliamentary democracy are under challenge. This article discusses three books that assess this trend: Thomas Blom Hansen (2021), The Law of Force: The Violent Heart of Indian Politics, Debasish Roy Chowdhury and John Keane (2021), To Kill a Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism, and Badri Narayan (2021), Republic of Hindutva: How the Sangh Is Reshaping Indian Democracy. This article seeks to shed some light on these processes of transformation in Indian society and politics and mull the prospects for Indian democracy. These books, through taking different analytical frameworks and with varying emphases, provide invaluable insights into the social and political dynamics of contemporary India.