Secular Longing: Memory, Identity, and the Politics of Nostalgia in Contemporary India

Abstract

This paper explores transgenerational expressions of nostalgia for secularism among particular groups of Hindu Indians. The establishment of a Hindu nationalist regime in India since 2014 has been lauded by many Hindus as a return to “real” Indian culture and identity. However, there are others who lament this political moment as a deviation from the secular values that defined their own upbringings. Their disbelief of escalating violence against minority groups is contrasted against memories of a more tolerant time when religious groups coexisted peacefully. Interestingly, this nostalgia is inhabited with equal conviction by Indians from different generations – from those who grew up in the 60s to those raised in the early 2000s. Nostalgia for secularism is also expressed by those whose family members (including those from the same generation) hold different and often contradictory memories of the past. We know that historical facts trouble any easy assertion of a secular Indian past. However, there is a persistent assertion among those nostalgic for secularism that the broader national culture in previous decades tended more towards religious harmony while rejecting the communal attitudes that have become so commonplace today. How can we make sense of this nostalgia? How is it expressed and defended? How does it intersect with class and caste? This paper will attempt to address these questions by drawing on personal interviews with Hindu Indians across generational lines.