Progressive forces are legitimately concerned about the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) reshaping India’s political culture by deploying Hindutva (politicised Hinduism) and Rashtrawaad (nationalism), which has profound constitutional and institutional implications. Some have argued that the pran pratishtha ceremony marks the beginning of the Hindu Rashtra (or more precisely the ethno-nationalist state), while others have argued that it marks the end of a process that began in the 1980s. Either way, it will undoubtedly need concerted and creative efforts to restore the primacy of the constitutional idea of India and to reclaim hearts and minds. But little attention is being paid to how the BJP is extending its gleichshaltung (a process by which the Nazi Party established total control of the State in Germany) to religious and spiritual institutions. This religious gleichshaltung will irrevocably restructure Hinduism and have a sweeping socio-cultural impact on India.
Firstly, the BJP is leveraging the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra to effect a fundamental restructuring of Hinduism. Currently, Hinduism has no ecclesiastical order, absolutist establishment, governing organisation, or binding holy book. It has many sampradayas (traditions), which consist of monastic orders of the Vaishnava or Shaiva traditions, which have their own akharas, ashrams and mutts. Then there are countless temples and temple trusts, the most prominent being the chaar dhams (four ancient pilgrimage sites) and the 12 jyotirlingas (revered shrines dedicated to Bhagwan Shiva).
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The BJP, which infiltrated and misused many of these to further their politico-ideological goals, is now projecting the Ayodhya Temple as India’s Rashtriya (national) Temple. In this imagining, akharas, ashrams, and mutts will be reduced to franchises of BJP’s Hindu-Vatican. In doing this, the BJP has reduced the temple (indeed every temple) to a tourist site—New India’s Essel World—with all of India waiting in queue with tickets in hand. This is in stark contrast to the Dharmashatras, which describe a temple as a devalaya, devayatna, and devagriha—essentially a structure for divinity. But equally problematic is that this will severely undermine the temporal, financial, and administrative powers of existing religious and spiritual organisations. It is abundantly clear that the BJP (which once promised the elevation of status for Hindu religious leaders) has reduced them to props in their larger religio-political agenda. Given this, it will be interesting to see how the Shankaracharyas, the Gorakhnath muth (headed by chief minister Yogi Adiyanath), the Nirmohi akhara, Nirvani akhara and other smaller ashrams (like the Shri Ram Ashram in Ramkot, the Chandrahari temple at Ram ki Pauri, etc.) will react to this structural assault.
Secondly, the immediate consequence of this restructuring will be that it will constrict the socio-cultural malleability of Hinduism and alter the way it is practiced. Metaphysically, Hinduism was a synthesis of diverse spiritual and cultural traditions in the Indian subcontinent (that we popularly call India’s Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb). This has a normative basis that goes back to the Upanishad which says “Ayam bandhurayam neti gananā laghuchetasām, Udāracharitānām tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam” (only a narrow-minded person calls one his brother and not the other. For those who are large hearted, the entire world is a one big family). Similarly, the Isha Upanishad (that Mahatma Gandhi described as “the whole essence of Hinduism“) said “Ishavasyamid sarva yaktichh jagatya jagat” (all that we see in this universe is pervaded by God). Similarly, numerous verses in the Rigveda (9/13/8; 6/47/13; 4/1/4; 2/6/4 etc.), and the Samveda (134) go on to urge us to “destroy all malicious inclinations of hatred and enmity towards anyone”. The Atharveda (17/1/7) goes even further to urge us to “cultivate love, affection, empathy and good will for all creatures” (“yanscha paschyami yanscha na teshu ma sumati krudhi”).
Devotees attending Ram Temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22, 2023. Photo: X (Twitter)/BJP4India.
That malleability and synthesis are why India always embraced multiple paths to nirvana, which could be realised through a combination of dnyana (knowledge), bhakti (devotion), karma (action) and yoga (psychical control). Because of this plurality of paths, there have always been devaghars (home temples) and domestic rituals in every home (as detailed in the Grihya Sutras) which allowed for personal communion with the divine. This metaphysical diversity allowed people to be polytheistic, monistic, agnostic, pantheistic, monotheistic, atheistic or humanist. But all that will vanish when the BJP’s Hindu-Vatican reduces Hinduism to the performative and militant. Going forward, it is the BJP-controlled supreme body and pontiff that could well determine what it is to be a good and bad Hindu. Given what the far right in the Sangh parivar’s plethora of institutions have imposed onto India in the last nine years, it is very likely that rigid prescriptions will be imposed on food, clothing (women can’t wear jeans or go out at night) and modes of societal conduct (pray only to this God, speak only in Hindi, marry only in this creed and caste, say Bharat Mata ki Jai), etc.
Thirdly, Prime Minister Modi’s temple run in South India makes it abundantly clear that the BJP hopes to recreate what it did 40 years ago in the Hindi heartland. For its politico-ideological ends, the BJP will again seduce, infiltrate, and misuse southern temple trusts (and their affiliated institutions) to breach the Great Wall of the Vindhyas. The southern temples which are laying out the red carpet for the BJP don’t realise that like the Akharas in the North, they too will be used as a foothold for electoral benefits but eventually be cannibalised by the BJP’s machinery. They need to just look at how the Shankarcharyas and Akharas are being treated by the BJP.
Fourthly, this entire episode signals the capitulation of the Sangh parivar to the BJP. Although it plans to celebrate its centenary year in a grand way (2025 is when the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh turns 100), it will be an abject bystander to this commemoration. The RSS, which has never been a monolithic organisation, is currently undergoing a serious structural crisis, with its far-right and political wings colluding to programmatically actualise their core ideological projects. In doing this, they end up undermining the main organisation. Although the Sarsanghchalak and RSS’ top leadership are trying hard to be relevant, many in its own top rung have surrendered their primacy and agency to the BJP. Going forward, the BJP and the Sangh’s hardline will drive the Sangh’s social-cultural agenda.
Given this, the BJP and the Sangh’s hardline will keep the pot boiling by aggressively spearheading the demolition of mosques in Mathura-Varanasi, pushing the Citizenship Amendment Act-National Register for Citizens, the Uniform Civil Code, One Nation-One Election, Akhand Bharat, etc. It is these pinpricks on the body-polity that will herald in the Hindu Rashtra (rather than a formal declaration). This is a watershed moment for India. The panchajanya (the conch that Lord Krishna blew to announce the Kurukshetra war) for the battle for both Hinduism’s and India’s souls has been blown. The only question before us is whether we will fight this battle where it needs to be fought, and with the strategic and tactical prowess needed to breach this chakravyuha we find ourselves in.
Pushparaj Deshpande is the director of the Samruddha Bharat Foundation.
