Hindu nationalist movement and Indian politics, 1925 to 1990s
- New Delhi Penguin Books 1996
- 596p.
In a historically rich, detailed account of the Hindu nationalist movement in India since the 1920s, Jaffrelot explores how rapid changes in the political, social, and economic climate have made India fertile soil for the growth of the primary arm of Hindu nationalism, a paramilitary-style group known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), together with its political offshoots. He argues that political uneasiness, created by real and imagined threats of colonialism and the presence of minority groups, paved the way for militant Hinduism on the Indian subcontinent. He shows how the Hindu movement uses religion to enter the political sphere, and argues the ideology they speak for has less to do with Hindu philosophy than with ethnic nationalism, borrowing form modern European models.