Secularism in Hindu Rashtra

Abstract

How is it that Veer Savarkar, the primary theorist of the Hindu State, was a self-described atheist? How is it that majoritarian Hindu positions are characterised as secular? How could it be that actions of the current Indian government incite communal hatred and do not fall within jurisprudence on religious discrimination? Using legislative debates and judicial decisions, our paper demonstrates how India has been transformed into Hindu Rashtra via constructions of territory, citizenship, and secularism. Much like any other modern state, India is not constructed as a theocracy. There is no occupied territory, or explicitly discriminatory citizenship, or prohibitions on freedom to practise one’s religion. We argue that the seeds of communal nationalism were planted during the Constituent Assembly Debates, accommodated in the text of the constitution, entrenched in judicial decisions over time, and finally mobilized by the current government. This has been made possible not through discriminatory speech or religious subjugation, but by the construction and continuity of the Indic as the core discursive foundation of the Indian state. The continuity of the Indic has been conflated with the personhood of Hindu mythological figures, and this combination has been appreciated as historical fact by the Indian Supreme Court. This is a realisation of Hindutva as a cultural and political project without – and we argue primarily because – there is no invocation of theological foundations. In contrast, explicit claims to protection and practice by minority religious groups are branded as simultaneously religious and anti-national.