Hindu Religious Populism Against Religious Minorities: Cases of Christians and Muslims Minorities in India

Abstract

Linking populism to religion helps populists/party to turn religion into a divisive instrument for consolidating power in societies in which religion already plays an important socio-political role such as India. In this context, the use of Hindu religious populism against religious minorities, under far-right Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached a new height consequently increasing the Hindu majority hostility towards Indian historical vendettas to take physical revenge against Muslims and Christians, whom they accuse of defiling pure Hindu culture and the nation and taking over India by populating and capturing the economic resources thus presenting an imminent threat to Hindu religion and cultural identity. Drawing on the theory of ‘Hindu nationalism’, ‘populism’, and ‘Ontological Insecurity’ and ‘secularism’ this paper investigates the under-researched topic of religious populism and its link with Hindu nationalism and its human rights impact on Christian and Muslim minorities in the north Indian district of Varanasi. This article tests and complements theoretical intuitions and analytical lenses that emerged during my fieldwork (2019/2022) in north India. How do ‘religion’ and ‘populism’ align and interact to inform the imaging and remaking of Hindu politics/nation and ‘othering’ religious minorities? This article addresses these questions by a) revisiting archival material and scholarship, b) conducting interviews with Christian and Muslim minorities and Hindu nationalists in the districts of Varanasi in north India. Insight from this research will contribute to theorising Hindu religious populism and its interconnectedness with Indian secularism in the protection of Christians and Muslim minorities.