Hindutva is predicated on an undying hostility towards non-Hindus, particularly Muslims and Christians. At the same time, and this, for obvious reasons, is not generally talked about, Hindutva is also directed against the Dalits and Tribals, who, although ‘Hindus’ by law, are, for all practical purposes, outside the Hindu caste order or at least at the very bottom of it. Opposition to Hindutva fascism has generally taken the form of appeals for ‘Hindu’-‘Muslim’ unity. While this approach is not wholly without its merits, it obscures the fact of the immense threat that Hindutva, Brahminism in its modern guise, poses to the Dalits, who form almost a fifth of India’s population.
This book is a pioneering attempt to critique Hindutva from a distinctly Dalit perspective. In this attempt the book excels, containing contributions by leading Dalit thinkers and social activists, who bring fresh and hitherto little-known perspectives on the burning question of the actual character of Hindutva fascism. Although the essays looks at the implications of Hindutva for the Dalits from different angles there is a certain common underlying thread that weaves them together: the insistence that Hindutva, as the ideology of ‘upper’ caste chauvinism and allied to global imperialism, is inimically opposed to the interests of the Dalits and other oppressed castes who, for political purposes, are generally subsumed within the amorphous ‘Hindu’ fold.
The book is divided into two broad sections. The first section looks at the issue of Dalits and Hindutva from a theoretical perspective. Shamsul Islam’s essay sets the tone for the book by describing, in depth, the fact that Hindutva aims at the preservation and promotion of ‘upper’ caste Hindu hegemony. This he does with copious quotations from the writings of Hindutva ideologues, who not only deny the reality of caste oppression but go on to glorify caste hierarchy as a divinely-established institution.
In their essays Prakash Louis, Gopal Guru and Anand Teltumbde take the discussion forward to look at how Hindutva has actually played itself out in practice and what this has meant for the Dalits themselves. They argue that the rise of Hindutva groups must be seen in the context of growing Dalit assertion, which Hindutva groups seek to contain and combat by Hindising the Dalits. The Hindu monolith that Hindutva seeks to represent is thus a means to protect ‘upper’ caste/class interests.
It is thus no wonder, they tell us, that not only have Hindutva groups never joined any struggles for Dalit rights, including against caste oppression or for land reform, but, in many cases, have actively opposed Dalit demands that would threaten ‘upper’ caste hegemony. The essays, in particular Teltumbde’s piece, also link Hindutva to global capitalism and imperialism, showing how inextricably interlinked these structures of exploitation and oppression are.
If Hindutva is so vociferously opposed to Dalit rights, how is it that Hindutva groups have made deep inroads into Dalit communities in different parts of the country? The second section of the book examines this question, with inputs from different regions. Ram Puniyani’s essay on Gujarat tells us that Hindutva groups there have been active in seeking to Hinduise the Dalits, destroying their Dalit religious identities and absorbing them into the Hindu fold. Hinduisation offers these Dalits the illusion of upward social mobility for which they so desperately crave. In the absence of a strong Ambedkarite Dalit movement in the state, many Gujarati Dalits have been co-opted by Hindutva groups, who used them as foot-soldiers in the recent genocidal attacks on Muslims. In this way, the Hindutva organizations have succeeded in setting Muslims and Dalits, both victims of the Brahminical social order, against themselves, thereby further strengthening the structures and ideology of ‘upper’ caste hegemony.
Crucial to understanding the cooptation of Dalits by Hindutva groups are the dilemmas that parliamentary politics pose for the Dalits. While, given their numbers, electoral politics help Dalits mobilize to press their demands, the fact that almost all parties are ‘upper’ caste controlled limits the gains that Dalits can expect from this sort of mobilisation. By offering small sops to aspiring Dalit leaders, ‘upper’ caste, including Hindutva, parties can easily buy them over. In their essays on Dalit politics in Maharashtra, Ramesh Kamble and Suhas Plashikar show how this project has succeeded, to some extent, because of the fractured Dalit political leadership in the state, with different ‘upper’ caste controlled parties seeking to win over Dalit leaders to secure Dalit votes.
The collapse of the radical Dalit Panthers movement has led to a de-ideologisation of Dalit politics, which has led to the notoriously anti-Dalit Shiv Sena to enter into an alliance with certain hitherto radical Dalit leaders. This process has received a tremendous boost with the re-writing of Dalit histories from a distinctly Hindutva perspective as Hindutva ideologues seek to absorb the Dalits into the Hindu fold and to use them against Muslims. Most strikingly, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has now adopted Ambedkar as an icon, presenting him as a ‘Hindu’ hero, rather than as a rebel against Hinduism.
Another reason for the increasing success that Hindutva groups have registered in recent years among Dalits is the mounting unemployment and poverty and consequent alienation among Dalits as a result of crass capitalism, which can easily be mobilized by Hindutva groups for their own fascist project. Linked to this are the complex caste equations between Dalits and Backward Castes that allow for Hindutva groups to play on their differences. Subhash Gatade discusses this question in the context of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh, while V.Geetha’s essay examines the case of Tamil Nadu. Making somewhat the same arguments are the essays on the Dalit movement and Hindutva in Kerala, by T.K.Ramachandran and P.T.John, on Andhra Pradesh by K.S.Chalam, on Karnataka by Shivasundar and on Punjab by Navprit Kaur.
Few recent books on Indian politics can be said to have made any major theoretical contributions, and this book must certainly be ranked among them. It highlights the generally ignored point that Hindutva fascism is a menacing threat to the Dalits, whom the ‘upper’ castes reluctantly claim as ‘Hindus’ in order to bolster ‘upper’ caste hegemony in the name of protecting ‘Hindu’ interests. Hindutva, this book tells us, cannot be countered with simple appeals to Hindu - Muslim amity.
Indeed, that approach may even be counter-productive as it only solidifies, rather than weakens, the notion of Hindus and Muslims as monoliths and helps further legitimize the hegemony of ‘upper’ caste Hindu and Muslim elites. From the Dalit point of view, this approach is positively harmful because it leaves the Dalits completely out of the picture and subsumes them in the Hindu fold, at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. It does the same to the Muslim Dalits, whose very existence ‘upper’ caste Muslim elites vehemently deny in the name of an imaginary Muslim ummah that brooks no internal differences.
In other words, as the contributors to this volume stress, since Hindutva and Brahminical Hinduism are inimical to Dalit interests, they need to be countered by the Dalits themselves, by a new form of politics that seeks to challenge both caste- as well as class-based oppression. No one concerned with contemporary Indian politics can afford to ignore this most engaging and thought-provoking book. In order to reach a broader audience it urgently requires to be summarized and translated into various regional and local languages and made available at a more affordable price.
