The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism: Secular Claims, Communal Realities - Hardcover

"A courageous attempt to reset sights ... he has ably contested anti-secularist and subalternist indigenisms."--Romila Thapar"No country in the world has been the subject of such mystification as India, as much from within the country as from without. At once a contribution to the campaign against racism as an intervention in theories of politics and culture, Achin Vanaik's study is a powerful counter to essentialising adeologies. It provides a lucidly rational corrective to the layers of anti-modernism under which the subcontinent has too long been submerged."--Fred Halliday

This work is a rigorous analysis of the growing phenomenon of Hindu communalism which currently threatens to tear India apart. Placing the politics of Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim hatred in a global context, the author explains the specific nature and modernity of communalism, distinguishing it both from fascism and from merely religious extremism. In defending both the reality and the desirability of the secularization of Indian state and society, Vanaik engages in an examination of the relationship between religion and culture, critically appraising the contributions of Emile Durkheim, Charles Taylor and Anthony Giddens to questions of identity and modernity. Whilst rejecting simplistic readings of religion as nothing but ideology, Vanaik is scathing about the postmodernists and cultural essentialists who assert the inescapable centrality of religion to Indian culture and society. Moving beyond purely theoretical considerations, the book assesses India's political future, the possible obstacles to the development of communalism, and the forces that exist on the Left which might be brought into alliance to halt the march of chauvinism. Achin Vanaik is the author of "The Painful Transition: Bourgeois Democracy in India".