Hindutva seems to be on an ever-increasing spiral under Modi’s watch. Bihar, West Bengal and Karnataka election scenes are squarely in the grip of sable talons of an extremist religious nationalism, which seeks nourishment from communal violence and external conflicts. Due to the nature of Indian polity and a continual electoral cycle, the need to keep the pot of hate boiling becomes a political imperative for RSS puritans as well as their BJP protégés. The denial of religious freedoms and visceral hatred for minorities, therefore, burnish the election credentials of BJP politicians, who ratchet up inter-faith tensions and stoke the fires of communal riots close to the election dates. In 2016, it was Pulwama, while in 2025, it was Pahalgam, neatly fitting into the method of Hindutva madness.
A dangerous mix of passions, agitated by the Hindutva-driven nationalism and hubris, had led to the Pahalgam incident where the casus belli for a war was manufactured through a terrorist incident, pushing a nuclearised sub-continent into the flames of a conflict which could have escalated to a nuclear level, had it not been for a robust conventional response by Pakistan and strong mediation by the USA. To keep the entire country in the grip of war hysteria, a jingoistic chorus of paid anchors and well-bribed social media influencers was inflicted on internal as well as external audiences. Though the standoff served the interests of Hindutva politics, its denouement on 10th May led to an anti-climax, unanticipated by the choreographers of the drama.
What led to that mad lunge at war, reminiscent of post-Weimar Republic Nazi madness, is the pearl of high price worth chasing to develop a full understanding of the mindset that spawned such a crisis? It was a mindset driven by misanthropy and expansionism and nourished by notions of racial superiority and a quest for domination based on mythical notions of an imagined past where Hindutva ruled the roost. It is the puritanical ideology of Hindutva at the back of that ideological pugnacity that aims at sanitising India of all non-Hindu faiths to clear the path for a Hindu Rashtra. Hanging a map of ancient India in the Indian parliament that includes independent countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka in its fold might appear a blatant violation of the UN Charter’s Article 2(4) to sane minds, but for Hindutva zealots, it is a future road map for the restoration of lost Hindu glory.
Hindutva is a Hindu way of life or culture that demands the erasure of all rival cultural and religious identities to be treated as citizens of the state
The emasculation of national institutions like the judiciary and the election commission through coercion, pecuniary inducements and rule changes has resulted in the weakening of the democratic culture that for a long time had remained the strongest centripetal force keeping the polyglot Indian ethnicities and cultures together. The apotheosis of this ethno-religious xenophobia, indubitably, was the illegal annexation of Indian Occupied State of Jammu & Kashmir in August 2019, which was followed by a slew of actions aimed at depriving Kashmiris of their political, social and economic rights. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC), Uniform Civil Code and the Waqf Amendment Act of 2025 are all measures to marginalise the minorities, especially the Muslims.
Hindutva is a Hindu way of life or culture that demands the erasure of all rival cultural and religious identities to be treated as citizens of the state. It panders to Manu’s laws and “Manusmriti” culture that divides human beings based on the accident of birth and demands a code of conduct strictly in accordance with divinely ordained social stratification. It is a code where women and minorities are sub-human entities only to serve the master race and gender.
The term Hindutva was coined by a Hindu ideologue, Savarkar, in one of his 1923 essays, i.e. Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?, in the following words: “To the Hindus, the independence of Hindustan could only be worth having if it ensured ‘their Hindutva, their religious, racial and cultural identity’. Swarajya to the Hindus must mean only that ‘Rajya’ in which their ‘Swatva’, their ‘Hindutva’ could assert itself without being overloaded by non-Hindu people.” The RSS ideologue Golwalkar, in his controversial 1966 book Bunch of Thoughts, subscribes to the concept of a “cultural nationalism” inspired by the original writings of Savarkar. The concept considered the Muslims and Christians as foreign invaders who have their holy places outside India and are therefore not welcome as sons of the soil.
The desecration of Muslim places of worship through a systematic campaign has resulted in the vandalisation of several historical mosques like the Babri Mosque, while others like the Gyanvapi Mosque, where, in February 2024, Hindu prayers were allowed, await their sad fate. The Archaeological Survey of India and local governments are working hand in hand to validate spurious claims of mosque sites as ancient Hindu temples. The renaming of places to remove the Muslim imprint under state patronage is evident in proposals to rename Allahabad, Lucknow, and Ahmedabad.
It is a global tragedy that a violent ideology is in complete control of a nuclear power that had acted irresponsibly by firing dual-use cruise missiles at another nuclear power a few months ago!
The communal poison has seeped into sports and the entertainment industry, too. The recent refusal to shake hands in the Asia Cup by the Indian cricket team is a symptom of a deeper pathology of hatred, cultivated sedulously by the Hindutva ideologues. The paranoia has not even spared the film industry, where the hate was promoted by the General Secretary of the “Chitrapat Sena”, the film wing of the Shiv Sena, which in the past had refused to permit the screening of films of popular Pakistani actors like Fawad and Mahira in the state of Maharashtra.
The reigning political party, i.e. BJP, uses the digital platforms, especially Facebook, to cultivate a cult following viscerally opposed to minorities, paving the way for anti-minority legislation. The BJP-led Hindutva groups on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are actively calling for the abolition of secularism and openly supporting the mob lynching of Muslims. The Facebook groups of BJP-led Hindutva adherents persuade the public that Hinduism is under attack from Muslim ideology. Mythological past and old grievances are being used as hate-cultivating weapons against marginalised social and political entities such as liberals, communists and minorities.
The scariest treatment by Hindutva extremists is reserved for women who marry outside the Hindu faith, especially with Muslims. The terminology of “Love Jihad” is being used to not only compel women to stop mingling with Muslim boys but also encourage Hindu men to target Muslim men and women at public places. A courageous journalist, Rahul Kotiyal, exposed an organised campaign named “Beti Bachao, Bahu Lao” by the Hindu zealots to convert Muslim women to Hinduism and was awarded for his intrepidity.
Hindutva media outlets are raising an alarm about the declining rate of population of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the bogey of an increasing Muslim birth rate in India. Women scholars like Arundhati Roy, who speak truth about the RSS and BJP fascism, and even Romila Thapar, who gives an unbiased version of history, are made soft targets of the Hindutva brigade. The RSS and BJP have developed an ability to disseminate propaganda quickly and widely, not only within India but also beyond the Indian borders, as is evident from the shocking exposure by the Brussels-based EU DisinfoLab about an Indian disinformation network comprising 265 fake media outlets in 65 countries spreading lies about Pakistan.
The poison of Hindutva has seeped into the Indian diaspora too. The past incidents of race riots and hate crimes by Hindu bigots in Leicestershire, UK, after a Pakistan-India cricket match point towards the extent and reach of the hate message, because of the active patronage of the hate creed by the Narendra Modi-led government. BJP and RSS are also exporting violence through their international chapters of Sangh Parivar, like Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), which promotes Hindu extremist narratives abroad that, in their worst form, lead to violent attacks on rival communities like Sikhs and Muslims. In February 2021, the people of the Sikh faith were attacked by Hindutva extremists like Vishal Jood in Sydney, who, after his deportation, was accorded a hero’s welcome in India. The same HSS and RAW-sponsored violence resulted in the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in June 2023, whose murder had soured diplomatic relations between Canada and India.
While the world’s attention is focused on non-state violent actors like Al Qaeda, ISKP, and TTP, the pernicious RSS ideology and concomitant violence are slowly but steadily growing into an implacable wave, threatening to drown the peace and security of South Asia as well as advanced industrial democracies, where the poisoned chalice of this hate creed is being given space. And it is a global tragedy that a violent ideology is in complete control of a nuclear power that had acted irresponsibly by firing dual-use cruise missiles at another nuclear power a few months ago! It is time the world stood up and took notice of this march of extremist folly before it is too late.