FRENCH, ANGLO, ISRAELI OR SALAFI?

The idea that some form of Hinduism should be recognized in some way by the Indian state resonates among both the cosmopolitans and the dispossessed. What is at issue is how it should be recognized. The BJP is the main political party addressing this concern. Prominent leaders in the party and its parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have offered four proposals, all of which raise the crucial questions not just of what place non-Hindus should have in India's political system, but also of who counts as a Hindu, and what counts as legitimate Hinduism. The label "Hindu" encompasses a great range of communities, beliefs, practices, and languages. If Hinduism is to be recognized by the state, whose Hinduism should it be?

The first argument on offer holds that the Indian state should recognize Hinduism as at least symbolically pre-eminent, while guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens, including those from religious minorities. This first-among-equals view calls for India to recognize Hindus in a way that is roughly comparable to the way in which the United States recognizes Christians, for example: by privileging Christmas as a national and official holiday while not privileging the rights of Christians as a religious group. 

This soft pro-Hindu view, often found among those who have joined the BJP directly (that is, not by way of the RSS or its affiliated organizations), challenges the Nehruvian idea of a state equidistant from all religions. That idea is currently enshrined in law: the Indian state does not privilege Hindu religious holidays. Government offices close for the holidays of all major religious groups.

If the first-among-equals view were to become law, it would not necessarily entail inequality in legal or material rights and entitlements, but it would leave non-Hindus lesser owners of their country in a symbolic sense. In addition, it would place those Hindus who do not follow whichever branch of the religion the state ended up recognizing in the same position. If the state is going to mark Hindu holidays, for instance, it would have to decide whether to privilege Diwali (the biggest festival of the year for many north Indian Hindus), Durga Puja (the major festival of Hindus in West Bengal), Ganesh Chaturthi (for those in the west of India), or Onam (the major Hindu festival in Kerala). The pluralist idea of India avoided this problem entirely.

The second argument--call it majoritarianism--goes further. India, it holds, should adopt laws that privilege its Hindu majority while giving non-Hindus diminished legal status. This is the standard position the BJP and many of its leaders have articulated over the last two decades. If majoritarianism were to prevail, India's non-Hindu minorities would become second-class citizens. Many Hindus might become second-class citizens, as well. 

To see this, consider the BJP's position that the Indian state should ban the slaughter of cows because the cow is sacred to Hindus. This idea has assumed a new urgency following a recent spate of lynchings of those, often Muslims, accused of killing cows. Some senior BJP leaders have openly backed the killings. But as with most beliefs associated with Hinduism, some Hindus hold cows sacred and others don't. There are many perfectly traditional beef-eating Hindus, especially in southern and northeastern India. It should be no surprise that many of those lynched for cow slaughter have been Hindus. A rough count conducted by the Hindustan Times of 50 cases of "cow-terrorism attacks" since 2010 in which the identity of victims was discernible found that in at least one out of every four cases, the victim was Hindu, including Dalits (mostly Hindu groups who were once treated as untouchable). There are also many non-traditional atheist Hindus who do not hold the cow sacred. A ban on cow slaughter would discriminate against these Hindus and non-Hindus alike. 

According to the third argument, Hindus constitute not only a religious majority but also a nation in themselves. This nationalist view has long been the position of the RSS and of RSS traditionalists within the BJP. It is also the position reflected in the Citizenship Amendment bill, a proposed law introduced by the BJP in 2016 and now under consideration by parliament, which seeks to covertly privilege Hinduism through amendments to India's citizenship laws. This position would demand the assimilation of India's non-Hindu minorities and has already been by used by the RSS and its affiliates to justify forcing Muslims to convert to Hinduism, a process euphemistically termed "ghar wapsi" or "homecoming." It would require the assimilation of many Hindus, too, into whatever interpretation of Hinduism the state espouses.  

The fourth argument is the most extreme. Its proponents believe that not only should Hinduism form the basis of the nation but India should be a theocratic state with a religious leadership. The BJP and the RSS are not sympathetic to this view. But in 1964, as part of an effort to mobilize the Hindu majority, the RSS created the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or "World Hindu Council," whose professed goal is to unite the Hindu clergy on a single ecclesiastical platform. Although this is not part of the official platform, many in the VHP espouse a theocratic idea of the Hindu nation and have now developed an independent popular base. Last year, Modi appointed the religious leader and VHP member Mahant Avaidyanath to be the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. The selection demonstrated the degree of pressure that this theocratic tendency and its constituency exert on the RSS and BJP.

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