India’s post-independence leaders believed that the country’s remarkable ethnic and religious diversity required a commitment to pluralism built on a foundation of secular nationalism. Quickly, though, both the federal government and various state governments co-opted Hinduism for political purposes. Today, proponents of Hindutva—a political ideology that seeks to transform India into an ethno-religious state—envision India not as a multicultural state but as a majoritarian one. The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, animated by Hindutva, crystallized a new phase of majoritarianism and exclusivism in Indian politics and society. The state’s rejection of pluralism through a variety of laws and policies has unleashed unprecedented levels of anti-minority extremism within society and has sown seeds of conflict well beyond the motherland. This policy brief by Nilay Saiya contends that if India can recapture the pluralist vision of its founders, it can potentially combat the forces of extremism that have been on the rise for the better part of the twenty-first century.
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