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Hindu nationalist statecraft, dog-whistle legislation, and the vigilante state in contemporary India
Nielsen, K.B. Nilsen, A.G.
Nielsen, K.B.
Nilsen, A.G.
Publication Date
2023
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© 2023 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Change in the text and images are not allowed. The content may not, in whole or in part, be used for any commercial purpose without written permission from the Editor-in-Chief.
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2023-10
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Abstract
The ideology and politics of Hindu nationalism has always been predicated on an
antagonistic discursive construction of ‘dangerous others,’ notably Muslims but also Christians.
This construct has served to define India as first and foremost a Hindu nation, thereby de facto
relegating religious minorities to the status of not properly belonging to the nation. However,
under the leadership of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has
acquired an unprecedented political force. A key consequence of this has been that the discursive
construction of dangerous others is now increasingly being written into law, through a process
of Hindu nationalist statecraft. The result is, we argue, not just a de facto but increasingly also a
de jure marginalization and stigmatization of religious minorities. We substantiate this argument
by analysing the intent and effect of recent pieces of legislation in two Indian states regulating,
among other things, religious conversions, inter-faith relationships, and population growth.
Conceiving of such laws as dog-whistle legislation, we argue that they are, in fact, geared towards
the legal consolidation of India as a Hindu state. We also analyse the intimate entanglement
between these laws and the collective violence of vigilante groups against those minorities that
Hindu nationalists frame as dangerous, anti-national others.
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Citation
Nielsen KB, Slevaraj MS and Nilsen AG (2023) Hindu nationalist statecraft, dog-whistle legislation, and the vigilante state in contemporary India. kritisk etnografi - Swedish Journal of Anthropology. 6(2): 19-37.
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