Is Hindu + nationalist = Hindu nationalist?

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Narendra Modi after having been declared as the PM candidate for the BJP —AP

The elevation of Narendra Modi to the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party has finally happened. This was long discussed, and expected. For the moment, it only means a more energised BJP and an election campaign that will be high in rhetoric and drama.

The political map of India has not changed, and within its constitutional provisions, cannot easily change. Voters in each constituency will elect a candidate locally, in state after state, in many of which the BJP has little presence. Given this, an outright BJP victory remains unlikely. A politician as shrewd as Mr Modi must be painfully aware of this fact. The political games have therefore only just begun.
The BJP’s weakness under Mr Modi will be its inability to win allies. It lost one, the Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar, at the mere prospect of his elevation. Mr Modi and his team are well aware of this too. They expect people and parties to come around to supporting him when he garners sufficient momentum, because a lot of people don’t hold on to principles, and tend to side with the winning team no matter what team is winning.
This will not be possible without gains in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which is why the recent riots in Uttar Pradesh and the responses to them are interesting. Mulayam Singh Yadav is arguably second in the list of most cunning Indian politicians (Sharad Pawar is first). What is he up to?
This and other related questions will clear up in the next few months. As they do, it will be more evident what the BJP under Mr Modi really means for India. Will it be a standard right of the Centre party like the Republicans in the US? Or will it be the party of Hindutva that was in power in Gujarat in 2002 when the riots happened?
Mr Modi has attempted to project the former. However, there are genuine concerns that he cannot, and will not, change his spots. This is the view of many, including his biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. This means he is potentially the first fascist to lead India. The word fascist tends to be used very loosely. Here, I mean fascism in its textbook meaning, which is, “An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organisation”.
There is no doubt that Mr Modi is authoritarian, nationalist, and right-wing. He said in an interview that he was Hindu and nationalist, and that made him a Hindu nationalist. This is a very clever answer, but it makes a connection where there is none.
Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhas Bose were also Hindu and nationalist, far more than Mr Modi has ever been. Jawaharlal Nehru was less Hindu than Gandhi and less militantly nationalist than Bose, but he was also both Hindu and nationalist. Clearly, being Hindu and nationalist does not make anyone a
Hindu nationalist. Yet, this is what Mr Modi would like to have every Hindu believe.
He and his party have traditionally occupied the Hindu right-wing political space. They never came anywhere near power until their charges of minority appeasement began to resonate with the Hindu middle classes in the late 1980s. This was the time Mandal politics was rising. There was no one else except the BJP who seemed to care about the majority.
Since then, the politics of Mandal and “kamandal” have both done very well, and grown. All parties have indulged in either caste, religious or linguistic identity politics. The Congress, which was the party of all Indians that led India to freedom, has meanwhile lost its nationalist credentials. As a result, the nationalist political space has been left vacant for the BJP.
There is now no ideological challenge to Mr Modi’s claim that being Hindu and nationalist makes one a Hindu nationalist. If this notion is not challenged, it will probably lead Mr Modi to victory after victory. In the long run, it will lead to India becoming a Hindu Pakistan.
The only ideological alternative to Hindu nationalist politics is secular nationalist politics. That will allow Hindus who care about their country to choose whether they want to be Hindu nationalists, or nationalist Hindus. There is a great difference between the two: a nationalist Hindu is someone who is Indian first, and Hindu after. Secular nationalism will also allow all Indians, regardless of their faith, caste or language, to embrace the larger Indian identity of which they are all, equally, a part. This is as it should be. What happens to this country
affects the lives of all of us who live here. We are in this together, as Indians.