Email this article 
The Political Economy of Religion and Politics in India
Abstract
Abstract. The paper will examine the dramatic rise of the right-wing Hindu organisations in India, especially since the 1990s. Most prominent among these organisations are RSS, BJP, VHP, Bajang Dal and Shiv Sena. However, they all work together under the philosophy of Hindutva (i.e. Hindu-ness) and are rabidly anti-minority in their stance. They appear to need an ‘enemy’ in the form of a religious minority to unite Hindus and consolidate their support. This study is important because RSS is too politically significant to be ignored. Since the BJP (BhartiyaJanta Party) came to power in May 2014, its ministers and senior party leaders have been coming out in support of Hindutva. Attacks against Muslims have risen sharply. Cultural issues such as cow slaughter and the building of the Ram temple at Ayodhya have been raised again by the RSS as a means of dividing communities and keeping Muslims in a state of constant fear and insecurity. This study argues that the failure of India’s economic development to remove socio-economic constraints leading to slow and uneven development has intensified rivalry between castes and religious communities. Under such conditions, it became possible for extremist Hindu organisations to target people on the basis of religion.
Keywords. India, Hindus, Muslims, RSS, BJP, Hindutva, Communalism, and Violence.
JEL. N30, N35, N40.
Keywords
Full Text:
Zotero
MendeleyReferences
Ahmed, A. (2004). On Communalism and Globalisation – Offensive of the Far Right, pp. 117, New Delhi: Left Words.
Ambedkar, B R. (1990). Did the Hindus never eat beef?’ in The Untouchables: who were they and why they became untouchables? in B. R. Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, vol. 7, Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, pp. 323-328.
Anderson, W.A., & Shridhar, D. (1987). The brotherhood in saffron: the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu revivalism, Westview Press.
Bagchi, A.K. (2010). Colonialism and Indian Economy, New Delhi: Oxford University Press
Bhatt, C. (2001). Hindu Nationalism, Origin, Ideology, and Modern Myths, Berg: New York.
Casolari, M. (2000). Hindutva’s foreign Tie-up in the 1930s – Archival evidence, Economic and Political Weekly, 22 January, 218-228.
Chandra, B. (1984). Communalism in Modern India, New Delhi: Vani Educational Books.
Corbridge, S. & Harris, J. (2000). Reinventing India, Cambridge: Cambridge Polity Press.
Dube, S.C. (1965). The study of complex cultures, in Unnithan, T.K., Deva, I. and Singh, Y., Towards Sociology of Cultures in India, New Delhi: Prentice Hall.
Engineer, A.A. (2002). Gujarat riots in the light of the history of communal violence, Economic and Political Weekly, 14 December.
Engineer, A.A. (1995). Lifting the Veil: Communal Response and Communal Harmony in Contemporary India, New Delhi: South Asia Books
Girdner, E. J., & Siddiqui, K. (2008). Neoliberal globalization, poverty creation and environmental degradation in developing countries, International Journal of Environment and Development, 5(1), Jan.-June, pp. 1-27.
Girdner, E. J. & Siddiqui, K. (1990). Political economy of communalism in India, Asian Profile, 18(2), 56-89
Golwalkar, M.S. (1939). We, or our Nationhood Defined, New Delhi: Bharat Publication.
Gopal, S. (1991). Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid-Ramjanambhumi Issue, New Delhi: Viking.
Graham, B. (1990). Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origin of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Cambridge University Press.
Hasan, M. (1988). In search of identity and integration: Indian Muslims since independence, Third World Quarterly, 10(2), 818-842. doi. 10.1080/01436598808420084
Hasan, Z.K. (1982). Communalism and communal violence in India, Social Scientist, 10(2), 25-39. doi. 10.2307/3516974
Jaffrelot, C. (1996). The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, 1925 to the 1990s, London: Hurst and Co.
Kosambi, D.D. (1962). Myth and Reality, Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture, Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
Levkovsky, A.I. (1966). Capitalism in India: Basic Trends in its Development, Delhi: Peoples Publishing House.
Lokhande, S.B. (2015). Communal Violence, Forced Migration and the State: Gujarat since 20002, London: Cambridge University Press.
Mander, H. (2016). Terrorism and communal violence must carry same stigma and punishment, Hindustan Times, March 16, New Delhi.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/on-the-scales-of-justice-fix-the-error-of-judgement/story-FrvTPkceGG80M7PwuM7TDP.html
Noorani, A.G. (2015). India’s Sawdust Caesar, Frontline, December 9.
Noorani, A.G. (2014). Muslims and Police, Frontline, December 10.
Noorani, A.G. (2000). The RSS and BJP – A Division of Labour, New Delhi: Left Word Books
Oza, R. (2007). The Geography of Hindu Right Wing Violence in India, in D. Gregory and A. Pred (ed.) Violent Geographies, London: Rutledge.
Pande, B.N. (2006). Hindumandiraur Aurangzeb kefaramanin, New Delhi: Maulana Azad Academi.
Panikkar, K.N., Byres, T.J., & Patnaik, U. (2002). The Making of History: Essays Presented to Irfan Habib, New Delhi: Anthem Press.
Panikkar, K.N. (1997). Communal Threat Secular Challenge, Madras: Earthworm Book Ltd.
Sarkar, S. (2008). Nationalism and poverty: Discourses of development and culture in the 20th century India, Third World Quarterly, 29(3), 429-445. doi. 10.1080/01436590801931421
Sarkar, S. (1999). Conversions and politics of Hindu Right, Economic and Political Weekly, 26 June, 1691-1699.
Savarkar, V.D. (1989). Hindutva – Who is a Hindu?, sixth edition, New Delhi: Bhartiya Sahitya Sadan.
Sen, A. (2015). The Country of First Boys and Other Essays, London: Oxford University Press.
Sethi, M. (2013). Sinful Liberal and the War againstJehadi Terror, 9th May.
Sharma, R.S. (1990). Communalism and India’s past, Social Scientist, 18(1-2), 3-12. doi. 10.2307/3517323
Siddiqui, K. (2015a). Challenges for industrialisation in India: State versus market policies, Research in World Economy, 6(2), 85-98. doi. 10.5430/rwe.v6n2p85
Siddiqui, K. (2015b). Agrarian crisis and transformation in India, Journal of Economics and Political Economy, 2(1), 3-22.
Siddiqui, K. (2014a). Growth and crisis in India’s political economy from 1991 to 2013, International Journal of Social and Economic Research, 4(2), 84-99. doi.10.5958/2249-6270.2014.00487.5
Siddiqui, K. (2014b). Contradictions in development: Growth and crisis in Indian economy, Economic and Regional Studies, 7(3), 82-98.
Siddiqui, K. (2014c). Modernisation and displacement of rural communities in India, Journal of Social Business, 4(2-3), 3-27.
Siddiqui, K. (2013). A review of Pakistan’s political economy, Asian Profile, 41(1), 49-66.
Siddiqui, K. (2012). Developing countries experience with neoliberalism and globalisation, Research in Applied Economics, 4(4), 12-37. doi. 10.5296/rae.v4i4.2878
Siddiqui, K. (2009a). Politics and religion in modern India, Z-Net, 8th January.
Siddiqui, K. (2009b). Globalisation, Hindu extremists and violence in India, Klassekampen, 16, 10-11.
Siddiqui, K. (1999). New technology and process of differentiation: Two sugarcane cultivating villages in UP, India, Economic and Political Weekly, 34(52), 25th December, A39-A53.
Siddiqui, K. (1997). Credit and marketing of sugarcane: A field study of two villages in Western Utter Pradesh, Social Scientist, 25(1-2), 62-93. doi. 10.2307/3517760
Siddiqui, K. (1990). Historical roots of mass poverty in India, in C.A. Thayer et al. (eds.) Trends and Strains, pp.59-76, New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House.
Singh, P. (2015). Institutional communalism in India, Economic and Political Weekly, L(28), 48-56.
Singh, R. (1990). Communalism and struggle against communalism: A Marxist view, Social Scientist, October-September, 18(8-9), 4-21. doi. 10.2307/3517338
Srikrishna Commission. (1998). Damning Verdict: Report of the Inquiry into the Riots at Mumbai During December 1992-January 1993, Mumbai: Sabrang Communications
The Economist. (2015). Intolerable: The ugliness of Indian politics threatens to scupper Modi’s grand visions, 7th November, London, p.71.
The Guardian. (2015). Letter to the British Prime Minister Regarding Mr. Modi’s Visit to UK, date 12 November: London.
Tyabji, N. (2015). The politics of industry in Nehru’s India, Economic and Political Weekly, L(35), 97-103.
Thapar, R. (1989). Imagines religious communities? Ancient history and the modern search for Hindu identity, Modern Asian Studies, 23(2), 209-231. doi. 10.1017/S0026749X00001049
Vanaik, A. (2001). The new Indian Right, New Left Review, 9, May/June, 43-67
Vijayan, P.K., & Gabriel, K. (2015). Hindutva’s psychological warfare: The insidious agendas of GharWapsi, Economic and Political Weekly, L(11), 12 March, 22-24.
World Bank. 2015. World Development Indicator, Washington D.C.: The World Bank.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1453/jest.v3i1.666
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Journal of Economic and Social Thought - J. Econ. Soc. Thoug. - JEST - www.kspjournals.org
ISSN: 2149-0422
Editor: [email protected] Secretarial: [email protected] Istanbul - Turkey.
Copyright © KSP Library
