Minority Rights and Hindu Nationalism in India

Abstract

In this paper, I want to focus on some aspects of the political process in India that have an impact on the treatment of religious minorities. Much of the discussion on multicultural jurisdictions deals with differentiated citizenship rights that allow religious groups to maintain their normative universe. This literature shows the tensions surrounding individual and group rights. I want to approach the question of religious freedom from a rather different angle. I want to first focus on the protection of bare life in the face of religious violence and then examine the issue of conversion from one religion to another. The issues of human security and conversion are linked in India, since Hindu nationalists see Muslims as forcibly converted Hindus who should be reconverted. To highlight the importance of majoritarian nationalism rather than political systems in the treatment of religious minorities, I offer a brief comparison with China.

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“…Civilizational nationalism, which ‘selectively includes and excludes groups in society’, has now become the common sense in the juridical and political life of contemporary India. In this common-sense construction, Islam and Christianity are not part of the ‘nation’ or part of India’s ‘national civilization’ (van der Veer, 2021).…”

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“…The portrait of the authoritarianism of the Hindu majority towards the Muslim minority in India refers to arbitrary authoritarian treatment without regard to the human side of Muslim groups which must be respected (Van Der Veer, 2021). The authoritarian treatment carried out by Hindu-Indian authoritarianism is included in the social, political, and religious context.…”

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“…States and other powerful actors create propaganda narratives that reinforce deeply embedded beliefs and identities, while activists try to expose the lies of these narratives or replace them with alternatives. Sometimes the most politically consequential narratives come from sources outside the boundaries of institutional politics, from conspiracy theories (Cassam, 2019) to religious revivals (Abiri, 2021;Gorski & Perry, 2022;Holmes, 2001;Kyaw, 2021;Simandjuntak, 2021;Tonsakulrungruang, 2021;Van der Veer, 2021) to celebrity fandoms (Cramer, 2015;Majic et al, 2020). The growth of social media has further transformed the ways these narratives circulate (Adunbi, 2017; de Sa e Silva, 2022b; Khan & Aziz, Chapter 12 in this Handbook; Nyabola, 2018;Nyong'o, 2012;Wang & Liu, Chapter 9 in this Handbook).…”