Hegemony and Political Economy of Religious Majoritarianism in India

Hindutva, the brand of religious majoritarianism that rules India today, emerged during the independence struggle. It did not flourish then, defeated by another brand of populism-Gandhism. Hindutva remained dormant and was nurtured through organizational expansion. It has attained hegemonic status in this century, brazenly, since 2014. Socioeconomic distress caused by liberalization had created a conducive socio-psychic environment where, for large population segments, populism/majoritarianism appealed more than institutionalized representative democracy. On the other hand, fundamentalist governance was also more attractive than liberal-democratic governance to big capital at this juncture. Further, the demise of statism, which can be attributed both to the changing needs of big capital and also to cultural changes, removed the ground from beneath the Congress Party that had ruled the country for almost the entire period since independence. The resulting narrative deploys the concepts of hegemony, fetish, populism, majoritarianism, and nationalism.