India’s religious nationalism

During his recent campaign for reelection, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, attacked Islam, which includes about 15 percent of India’s population or over 200 million people. Election results show Modi was reelected but his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unexpectedly lost its single party parliamentary majority, implying his religious attacks failed to work as he intended.

Christians in India, who likely number over 30 million people, are also disturbed by Modi’s Hindu triumphalism. And Christians in America also should be concerned and reflect on the example. Modi’s religious nationalism that conflates nationhood with religion is dangerous. Minorities of all sorts are endangered.

Earlier this year, Modi dedicated a new Hindu temple in northern India, built where a mosque was destroyed by a Hindu mob over 30 years ago. In 1993, riots across India followed, killing hundreds of people, mostly Muslims. In 2002, when Modi was regional chief minister, he was accused of not protecting hundreds of Muslims who were killed in Hindu-Muslim riots related to the mosque/temple controversy.

Modi has ominously hinted that the opposition Congress Party would redirect state funds towards Muslims, cited as “infiltrators” and “those who have too many children.” BJP videos have amplified these warnings by recalling the ancient Muslim conquest of India, portraying Muslims as thieves.

In January, after eleven days of visiting other Hindu temples in ritualistic preparation, Modi led the grand opening of the new $217 million Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Ram, amid chants from Hindu priests. A military helicopter dropped flower pedals over the celebratory crowd. Many government offices closed as the dedication was broadcast nationally. After the dedication, Modi declared: “Our Lord Ram has arrived after centuries of wait.” Indian Hindu nationalists portray Hindus, although the overwhelming majority in the 1.4-billion-person nation, as the historic victim of Muslim invaders and Western colonialists. The new temple, Modi said, evinces “breaking the shackles of slave mentality” and opens a “new era.”

But a “new era” to what? Critics fear Modi wants to end secular government in India—which offers equal citizenship to all—in favor of a de facto confessional state privileging Hindus over Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and others. An impartial secular state was the dream and creation of modern India’s founders, including Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated by a Hindu militant. After ten years in power, Modi and the BJP had hoped for, but failed to attain, a parliamentary super majority, which would have empowered them to make constitutional changes.

About a dozen states in India, most under the BJP, have enacted anti-conversion laws.

Hindu nationalism under Modi mostly targets Muslims as the nation’s largest minority. But Christians are also marginalized and disdained. Although numbering maybe less than 3 percent of the population (data may undercount their numbers), in Hindu nationalist mythology Christians are seen as agents of Western imperialism, funded by Western dollars, deployed to convert vulnerable Hindus.