Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics

Abstract

In an era increasingly defined by insecurity and populist politics, India has emerged as a forceful ontological security provider under the leadership of Marendra Modi. If ontological security is about finding a safe (imagined) haven, then ontological insecurity is about the lack of such a space in narrative terms. Drawing on Lacanian understandings of 'the imaginary' as something that can fill and naturalize this lack of space, the article is concerned with how memories, places and symbols of narrative identity constructions are used in populist discourse. More specifically, it attempts to understand the relationship between ontological insecurity and the imaginaries of populist politics in India. In so doing, it argues that the re-invention of 'nationhood', 'religion' and 'Hindu masculinity' along gendered lines has created a foundation for governing practices aimed at 'healing' a number of ontological insecurities manifest in Indian society. It specifically looks at how the Modi doctrine has formulated and expanded its foreign policy discourse into one that privileges populist narratives of nativism, nationalism and religion as forms of ontological security provision at home and abroad, but also how everyday practices can challenge such narratives, thus allowing different imaginaries of the Indian state.

Political extremism, conflict identities and the search for ontological security in contemporary established democracies

“…the effects of ontological insecurity on the political and social terrain of the current period (See Homolar & Scholz, 2019;Kinnvall, 2019;Steele & Homolar, 2019 for examples). As Fukuyama argues(2018), the assertion of identity, and through it the quest for ontological security, has increasingly has taken a central role in democratic politics in the recent past.…”

Sliding from majoritarianism toward fascism: Educating India under the Modi regime

“…unemployed whites in the US Mid-West, older working-class Brexiteers in the UK, upper-caste Hindus in India). The bitterness comes from disenfranchisement by global capitalism (Kinnvall, 2019) or by what they see as unfair advantages given to lower castes (or minorities) in the name of affirmative action (see Dudas, 2005). In a ‘cultural backlash’ traditional elites are also reacting to the progressive social changes (gender and racial equality, welfare policies) of the last few decades (Hunter and Power, 2019; Inglehart and Norris, 2016).…”

The ‘saffronisation’ of India and contemporary political ideology

“…This has included a controversial ban on beef, as part of gau raksha (‘cow protection’) – the cow is considered a sacred animal in Hinduism‐ emerging from political parties vying for rural, Hindu votes; the re‐creation of a Hindu Temple in Ayodhaya, believed to be the birthplace of Hindu deity Lord Ram, over disputed land where Hindu activists demolished a 16th century mosque; renaming public space and infrastructure with names of foreign origin, specifically Mughal etymology; attempts to Indianise the education curriculum; and even a soft power push towards Ayurvedic medicine and yoga. The emergent dominant Hindutva framework then begins to reveal the contentious debate surrounding religion and secularism in the context of relations between class, caste, religion and ethnicity, highlighting how ‘populists are never entirely divorced from their specific cultural and national contexts but are equally (and often unconsciously) tied up with the master signifiers of imagined objects, such as the nation or religion’ (Kinnvall, 2019, p. 286). These debates are illustrated in Extracts (1)–(4) which follow here:…”

“…Again, in this particular context, beyond just being part of a Hindu nationalist community, and based on his actions, Modi is ascribed the qualities of superman, one who is masculine, ferocious and pompous in his strength, a desh bhakt (‘patriot’), and Messiah . In this way, the narrative presents a positive presentation of Modi, conflating Hindutva with muscular nationalism to achieve a conceptualisation of reality within which the posturing of masculinity and manhood is activated not as much by ‘an effeminate other as by a fear of a hypermasculine enemy’ against which the sena (‘army’)’ has to defend the denigration of Hindu identity (Kinnvall, 2019, p. 294).…”