Introduction and argument

A consolidation of majoritarian nationalism is under way across the world. The election of majoritarians in the United States (Donald Trump), India (Narendra Modi), Turkey (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan), the Philippines (Rodrigo Duterte), and Brazil (Jair Bolsonaro) has renewed the attention of scholars on this resurgence. Using evidence from a crucial test case—the consolidation of Hindu nationalism in India—we put forward some new data about the variety of popular support for a Hindutva project and a new framework that proposes an interactive theory of social identity. This framework helps us to understand the social and religious distance revealed through numerous public opinion surveys and the distinction between civic nationalism, wherein citizenship and rights are accorded to all born or living inside a country, and ethnic nationalism, where an ethnic, religious, or racial group, usually the majority, defines the boundaries of the nation (Varshney Reference Varshney2018).Footnote ²

Many argue that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s [BJP] 2014 and 2019 electoral victories have consolidated the rise of Hindu-centric nationalism (Varshney Reference Varshney2018; Jaffrelot Reference Jaffrelot2017, Reference Jaffrelot, Chatterji, Hansen, Christophe and London:2019, Reference Jaffrelot2021; Chhibber and Verma Reference Chhibber and Verma2019; Adeney Reference Adeney2015; Rehman Reference Rehman2018; Wallace Reference Wallace2020).Footnote ³ According to survey data and scholarly assessments, India’s median voter has accepted the core agendas of the Hindutva project.Footnote ⁴ The views of many voters now correspond to the ideas of nationalism and ‘religious conservation’ of the ruling party which has led to the ideological hegemony of those ideas and dispositions (Kumar and Gupta Reference Kumar and Gupta2020, 205; Palshikar Reference Palshikar2020; Chhiber and Verma Reference Chhibber and Verma2019; Palshikar Reference Palshikar2015a).Footnote ⁵ Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Dalits also reveal bias and prejudice against Muslims expressed as opposition to reservations for Muslims (Chhibber and Verma Reference Chhibber and Verma2018, 100–01).Footnote ⁶ At the electoral level these trends are evident in Hindu consolidation behind the BJP, which does not mean that most Hindus support the BJP, but rather that a majority of those who vote for the BJP are Hindus (Sardesai and Attri Reference Sardesai and Attri2019; Heath Reference Heath2020).Footnote ⁷ Simultaneously, a dramatic rise in ‘social hostilities’ has also been observed, with India occupying a score of 9.7 on a scale out of 10 on the Social Hostilities Index calculated by the Pew Research Center (Majumdar and Villa Reference Majumdar and Villa2021; Majumdar Reference Majumdar2018).Footnote ⁸ Public opinion surveys by different organizations—CSDS-Lokniti, CSDS-APU, and the Pew Research Center—conducted in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021 all found that support for Hindu nationalism is much broader than initially supposed and that a high degree of social hostility and distance, especially between Hindus and Muslims, has become a feature of Indian life (CSDS-Lokniti 2015; CSDS-APU 2017, 2018, 2019; Pew Research Center 2021).

While a variety of public opinion data point in the direction of a consolidating Hindutva identity, scholars have not yet explored the variety of belief systems underlying these attitudes and the processes through which social attitudes congeal and coalesce. Despite an emerging recognition that Hindu nationalism is seeding into society, the micro-foundations of these changes remain a puzzle to which we need answers: how did some family members, friends, neighbours, and co-workers become willing participants in a Hindu-centric political discourse and sensibility? How do ordinary members of society frame, interpret, and transform their identities in a majoritarian direction? Attempting to answer these questions about micro-level attitudes—how people think—and societal changes also helps us to focus not only on the important question of why parties try to create a Hindu bloc but also, as Kalin and Sambanis ask: ‘…why the manipulation of such emotions resonates with an audience in the first place’ (Kalin and Sambanis Reference Kalin and Sambanis2018, 241), or how ‘individuals understand and practice national belonging’ (Mylonas and Tudor Reference Mylonas and Tudor2021, 119).Footnote ⁹

We assert that Hindu nationalism in India could be fruitfully analysed by focusing on the processes through which ideas of exclusive nationalism spread among the ordinary middle classes and are expressed in micro-level changes at the individual level. We use detailed interviews with middle-class voters to unpack some of those processes and offer a typology of varieties of support for Hindu nationalism that helps us to go deeper into the demand side of Hindu nationalism. The consolidation of Hindu nationalism in India is being authored not only by parties or the state, but also by societal actors, specifically, ordinary middle-class Indians.Footnote ¹⁰ Contrary to the dominant theorizing on Hindu nationalism, this is not only a top-down project, and ordinary middle-class Indians are not passive objects of this emergence. Hindu nationalism has been spreading in micro-public spheres in a time of apparent peace, between elections, and with the participation of willing supporters, bystanders, and hardliners, a typology that we offer. Anti-Muslim sentiments and a resurgence of Hindu primacy persist even in the absence of riots and pogroms. This tripartite typology is partially drawn from our fieldwork where we noticed a variety of beliefs, as well as theories and research in history, sociology, and psychology.

This article, thus, describes a research agenda for how scholars and journalists can begin to conceptualize the demand side of Hindu nationalism by focusing on individual level attitudes, the diffusedly structured support for Hindutva, and the two-way dynamics of identity politics rather than assume an exclusive top-down effect. In our view, Hindu nationalism is a dynamic and circular process involving both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms. India’s ‘ethnic democracy’ (Jaffrelot Reference Jaffrelot2017) or majoritarianism is the joint product of state-party actions but is also socially produced through multiple micro-level changes in Indian society and urban demographics, which have psychological effects of ethnic attachment, resentment,Footnote ¹¹ and othering.Footnote ¹² Our conversations and fieldwork have also helped us to identify different individual profiles, which we categorize as willing ethnic-nationalists, hardliners, bystanders, and moderates.

While the hardliners constitute the core support base of the BJP, the expansion of the BJP’s validation among the ordinary middle classes also points towards a growing support from what we call ‘willing’ ethnic-nationalists and the silencing of the moderates. Willing ethnic-nationalists may not be party workers or rioters but are ordinary members supporting a Hindu-centric view and their numbers may have grown exponentially in the past decade or so.Footnote ¹³ We call them ‘willing ethnic-nationalists’ to denote the need to look at them, not as passive recipients of a Hindu specific version of nationalism, but rather as active participants of a majoritarian and exclusive vision of nationalism. Bystanders are ordinary people who may be more neutral or passive recipients of a Hindu-centric world view, but one of the striking developments has been the transformation of many bystanders into willing supporters. So, some of the willing supporters started as bystanders in that they were more agnostic about a majoritarian belief system but they became more committed supporters over time (Staub Reference Staub1989a).Footnote ¹⁴ Moderate voices are not absent but are rendered impotent in the face of such a resonating consensus, as people opposed to this Hindu-centric, anti-Muslim world view become reluctant prisoners of a social sensibility around them. Attention to micro-level elements of Hindu identity must, thus, attend to important variations in the belief systems and internal dispositions of people within a community. We also relate the micro-foundations of individual-level feelings and beliefs to mechanisms adopted by parties, organizations, and states, leading to a two-way understanding of social identity.

Many have examined Hindu nationalism through an analysis of ‘critical realignment’ in party politics, leading to a new hegemony and ‘rupture’ in India’s democratic life that has resulted in a new republic and an ‘ethnic democracy’ (Heath Reference Heath2015; Vaishnav and Hintson Reference Vaishnav and Hintson2019; Palshikar Reference Palshikar, Chatterji, Hansen and Jaffrelot2019; Adeney Reference Adeney2020; Jaffrelot Reference Jaffrelot, Chatterji, Hansen, Christophe and London:2019, Reference Jaffrelot2021; Yadav Reference Yadav2020; Jaffrelot and Verniers Reference Jaffrelot and Verniers2020; Chhiber and Verma Reference Chhibber and Verma2019). Political scientists of India have focused on the parties benefitting from religious violence—the ‘well-organized Hindu nationalists’ (Jaffrelot Reference Jaffrelot2017, 52), ‘riot producers’ (Brass Reference Brass2004, 4845), and organizations (Andersen and Damle Reference Andersen and Damle1987, Reference Andersen and Damle2019; Narayan Reference Narayan2021)—as well as the institutions of the party system and the state (Basu Reference Basu2015; Ruparelia Reference Ruparelia2006). We know about parties and perpetuators of Hindu nationalism through an analysis of electoral results (Heath Reference Heath2020; Sardesai Reference Sardesai2019; Jaffrelot and Verniers Reference Jaffrelot and Verniers2020), inter-ethnic civic networks, and ‘institutionalized peace systems’ (Varshney Reference Varshney2002), social service strategies of the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (Thachil Reference Thachil2016), and especially the scholarship on religious riots (Brass Reference Brass1996, Reference Brass1997, Reference Brass2003, Reference Brass2004; Varshney Reference Varshney2002; Wilkinson Reference Wilkinson2004; Basu Reference Basu2015; Shani Reference Shani2007; Tambiah Reference Tambiah1996).

This article urges us to go beyond the organizational forms of Hindu nationalism—the ‘elite planners’ (Chappel and Stammers Reference Chappel and Stammers2017) and ‘producers’ (Brass Reference Brass2004)—to conduct more research into why ordinary people, who may or may not belong to parties and organizations, support the world view of exclusive or ethnic nationalism without being active perpetuators of riots or violence (Ghassem-Fachandi Reference Ghassem-Fachandi2012, Berenschot Reference Berenschot2011, Brass Reference Brass2003, Valiani Reference Valiani2011, Das Reference Das2007).Footnote ¹⁵ This argument leads us to go beyond an exclusive focus on the electoral realm or party politics to look at the societal and psychological facets that are sustaining Hindu nationalism in India as well as the horizontal processes of diffusion and mobilization through which willing ethnic-nationalists are created and hardened.

So, in addition to identifying varieties and profiles of individual supporters, we suggest the need to focus on inter-linked micro-level mechanisms such as diffusion and emulation of Hindu-centric beliefs and ideas, mobilization by hardliners and organizations, and impunity accorded by state agencies. Footnote ¹⁶ We argue that studying Hindu nationalism by disaggregating the mechanisms of diffusion and mobilization is valuable in highlighting the processes underlying public attitudes gleaned through public opinion surveys and how parties and organizations inculcate social change. These ideas together lead us to create a framework that focuses both on the incentives and political strategies of parties as well as the varieties of bottom-up support and popular consciousness. This framework also makes a contribution by connecting top and bottom levels of analysis and offering a social theory of politics. While we lack the evidence to determine the exact timing and origins of these sensibilities, these arguments are confirmed by a unique survey of popular attitudes across 23 states conducted by CSDS-Lokniti and Azim Premji University (APU) titled ‘Society and Politics between Elections’, the writings based on those surveys (Swaminathan and Palshikar Reference Swaminathan and Palshikar2021; Varshney et al. Reference Varshney, Ayyangar and Swaminathan2021; Kumar and Gupta Reference Kumar and Gupta2020; Swaminathan and Shastri Reference Swaminathan and Shastri2020; Venugopalan Reference Venugopalan2020), and the Pew survey ‘Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation’ (Pew Research Center 2021).

Figuring out the dispositions of people and their deeper attitudes and psychological aspects is very difficult to do in large-scale surveys but was possible in our interviews. We find that ordinary people from the Indian middle classes and professionals have become the agents of and participants in Hindu nationalism.Footnote ¹⁷ Many ordinary middle-class Indians have come to think that ‘Muslims’ are a problem not because they were manipulated to do so but because they have developed passionate beliefs regarding Hindus, Muslims, and terrorism. Many people also believe that Hindus are besieged and the social context around them is ‘hindu-phobic’, even as these perceptions are not based on facts.Footnote ¹⁸ Not all is negative about ordinary Indians, who may believe in religious or even civic nationalism and so we also have to respect and recover the sense of civic and inclusive nationalism that is pervasive among ordinary middle-class Indians (Yadav Reference Yadav2020; Singh Reference Singh2020). But, the conviction and commitment of ordinary willing ethnic-nationalists have acquired an agency of their own and need independent analysis that goes beyond the electoral strategies of parties. This focus on a people-centred view of nationalism and a two-way theory of social identity allow us to go beyond the idea that individuals are manipulated by elites and parties or have been ‘led astray by power hungry politicians’ (Berenschot Reference Berenschot2009, 415): rather, committed supporters have mushroomed across middle-class society through a process of diffusion, mobilization, and impunity. We are faced with a social contagion that spreads through insular but powerful social networks in our societies and all political parties—including opposition and regional parties—have to adjust to this new landscape. Our goal is to distil these insights into a more empirically cogent model of Hindu nationalism while also contributing a new conceptual framework for future research into varieties of bottom-up popular support for a Hindutva project.

A wide range of writings are beginning to hint at new ways of thinking about Hindu nationalism, labelled as BJP’s ideological hegemony and saffronization (Kumar and Gupta Reference Kumar and Gupta2020; Palshikar Reference Palshikar, Chatterji, Hansen and Jaffrelot2019; Chhiber and Verma Reference Chhibber and Verma2019), hard and soft Hindutva (Anderson Reference Anderson2015), ‘institutionalized everyday communalism’ led by parties and local organizations (Pai and Kumar Reference Pai and Kumar2018; Narayan Reference Narayan2014),Footnote ¹⁹ the working of latent Hindu nationalism (Zavos Reference Zavos2010), in new public spaces and regions (Anderson and Jaffrelot Reference Anderson and Jaffrelot2018; Anderson and Longkumer Reference Anderson and Longkumer2018, 372; Longkumer Reference Longkumer2021), ‘vernacular Hindutva’ (Reddy Reference Reddy2011, Reference Reddy2018; Hansen Reference Hansen1996), ‘banalization of Hindutva’ (Jaffrelot Reference Jaffrelot2013, 82), and ‘neo-Hindutva’ (Reddy Reference Reddy2011; Anderson Reference Anderson2015; Palshikar Reference Palshikar2015b).Footnote ²⁰ Scholars have urged a focus on the appearance of Hindu–Muslim conflict as ‘mundane everyday ethnic conflict’ (Mehta Reference Mehta2010, 15), in ‘quieter times’ (Brass Reference Brass2003, 9), and on ‘quotidian violence going beyond large scale violence’ (Basu Reference Basu2015, 8).Footnote ²¹ Despite attempts by scholars to identify these new terms and frames, we have limited information and concepts about how people think and become willing supporters of a Hindu-centric project. Only a few of these studies explore the views and sensibilities of ordinary men and women, and most of them focus on parties and organizations even as they speak of new forms of politics. These ideas, thus, need a more grounded theory of how everyday communalism becomes rooted among ordinary people going beyond parties, institutions, and the supply side of politics. We also need more analysis of the linkages that connect local and national issues as well as the processes and mechanisms that link the macro phenomena with micro processes.Footnote ²² So, this recent scholarship can better be understood within a new interactive framework that focuses on a people-centred basis of India’s Hindu nationalism, and directs attention at how macro and micro mechanisms interact (see section below: ‘A two-way theory of social identity’).

Methods and timing

How did we gather our information? We relied on social attitudes surveys conducted by CSDS-APU and social media posts (see Appendix 2 for images). We also conducted interviews among professional and educated middle-class citizens across two Indian cities—Bangalore and Delhi. A total of around 40 open-ended interviews were conducted between 2017 and 2020 (see Appendix 1 for the interview method). Delhi and Bangalore were chosen because they are two large cities spanning the North–South divide and had identifiable middle-class neighbourhoods. We recognize that other cities may throw up different findings which deserve further research. We went into communities of middle-class voters to understand their ‘reasons’ and the way they thought about politics.Footnote ²³ While this phenomenon of exclusive Hindu nationalism among ordinary men and women may go beyond the middle classes, for the purposes of a first-cut analysis it may be important to assess its contours in one section of society (the middle classes)—one that plays a crucial role in shaping discourse and populates institutions of the state such as the civil service, judiciary, and the police. The CSDS-APU surveys allow us to assess if similar attitudes can be found across India and across classes (see the section ‘Additional survey evidence’ below).

Interviews were held in Bangalore by one of the co-authors and then in Delhi by both co-authors, and with the support of a research assistant: (a) in Summer 2018 and September–October 2018, one of the co-authors interviewed well-to-do, educated professionals, mostly Kannadiga, in the urban locality of Jayanagar, Banashankari, and Indira Nagar in Bangalore; (b) interviews and focused group discussions with technology sector youth were held in June 2019 in Bangalore; and (c) in Delhi, interviews were conducted during the eruption of the JNU controversy in 2017, the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic between March and June 2020, and after the rioting that took place in Delhi in early Spring 2020. In addition, ethnographic research was undertaken at other times.Footnote ²⁴ While we could not conduct interviews across southern states (Kerala and Tamil Nadu might throw up important variations) or across rural areasFootnote ²⁵ and all sections of society, the pervasiveness of our findings among middle-class Indians in northern, western, and some parts of southern India (Karnataka) is confirmed by national social attitudes surveys conducted by CSDS and APU, and implies that a deeper analysis of ordinary people as agents of Hindu nationalism is warranted.

The question of timing

Arguably, a majoritarian sensibility may have started to coalesce before 2014, but we cannot be sure of its origins. Palshikar (Reference Palshikar2004, 5430) argued, as early as 2004, that even when the BJP was defeated, Hindutva forces had ‘secured’ the Hindu mind and majoritarians are to be found across parties such as the Congress and the BJP. In a similar vein, Nandy noted in 2008 after a Gujarat election: ‘The [middle] class has found in militant nationalism a new self-respect and a new virtual identity as a martial community…’ (Nandy Reference Nandy2008). Despite these intriguing observations about the origins of a Hindu-centric project, social science lacks the time-sensitive survey data required to assess when these ideas and sensibilities began to emerge. Our interviews took place after 2017. The surveys conducted by CSDS-APU only start from 2017 and are not time-series. Panel data, which analyse the same set of people over time, are not available.Footnote ²⁶ The question that Palshikar relies on to assess a majoritarian sensibility is not conclusive evidence of an ethno-nationalist world view.Footnote ²⁷ So, we are unable to assess through interviews or survey data when willing ethnic-nationalists begin to emerge. The only qualified claim we can make is that if Palshikar’s assessment of the BJP cornering the broader Hindu vote in 2004 is correct, then that could explain the bottom-up support we found, and give further impetus to analysing ordinary Indians’ beliefs and ideas.Footnote ²⁸ In essence, if majoritarian sensibilities had shifted the ‘middle ground of politics’ (Palshikar Reference Palshikar2004, 5427) as early as the 2000s, popular consciousness has been driving the BJP’s victory to some degree or increasing its vote share even when it does not win.Footnote ²⁹ Yet, irrespective of when support for Hindutva spread, or even if the BJP’s national victory in 2014 and 2019 has galvanized Hindu popular consciousness, scholarship on Hindutva must expand beyond its exclusive focus on parties and organizations to move to an analysis of ordinary people.

A two-way theory of social identity

A process of redefining India’s national identity is under way. What is an identity? Shayo (Reference Shayo2009, 147) notes: an individual identifies with group J ‘…if (1) he or she cares about the status of group J; and (2) he or she wants to resemble the members of group J’. Building on this definition of identity we make two conceptual advances in this article: first, we suggest that identity should be conceptualized as an overlap between identity, as belonging to a group, and perceptions.Footnote ³⁰ For example, identity refers to feelings of belonging and may arise from your participation in a larger community of believers (of being a Hindu, for example (Chhibber Reference Chhibber2014)). Perceptions refer to how people perceive the issues and conflicts of the day and may change over time. A person may belong to a specific ethnic or religious group but their perceptions about the salience of that identity or notions about who gets what, and how, as well as ideas about the ‘out-group’, may change over time. Perceptions of threat, even if false, may also make the identity more salient or exclusive, consolidating ‘we’ and ‘they’ feelings and identities.Footnote ³¹ Thus, perceptions play a major role in making an identity salient, relevant, and more or less intense—a process of dynamic reinvention, a shift in identities or group formation (Chandra Reference Chandra2012; Appadurai Reference Appadurai2006; Shani Reference Shani2007).Footnote ³² Together, identity and perceptions create an ‘us versus them’ mentality and a psychological state that views other communities as outsiders or a threat.Footnote ³³ Some evidence suggests that it is not that middle-class people in India have become more religious (Chhibber Reference Chhibber2014) but that their perceptions regarding other communities and their own sense of being a besieged majority has changed. As an interviewee said: ‘… then came this particular [corona] virus and so suddenly, a community became the target… It was an anti-Muslim perception.’Footnote ³⁴ Figure 1 outlines a dynamic model of social identity which discomposes identity into two components, but also includes the mechanisms of diffusion, mobilization, and impunity. This may translate perceptions into a ‘collective “we” identity’, and thereby hardening against the ‘other’.

Source: Authors’ Theoretical Framework.

Figure 1. Overlapping and changing Hindu identity.

Second, our theories of identity-in-formation in India rely on elite-centric and strategic models, focusing on party strategy and electoral politics, or on accounts that centre on the ‘institutionalized riot systems’ (Brass Reference Brass2004) and social capital (Varshney Reference Varshney2002). Basu’s work (Reference Basu2015) linked riots and violent events to a variation in the party-movement nexus across Indian states. Theories of both electoral results, and of riots and pogroms, focus on the rational—political—benefits and incentives of leaders and parties, and do not address the attitudes and perceptions that go beyond violence. A few scholars have conducted bottom-up analysis of the participants in and perpetuators of the Gujarat 2002 riots, examining the notion of sacrifice and ethnic cleansing (Ghassem-Fachandi Reference Ghassem-Fachandi2012) and micro-connections with local patronage politics (Berenschot Reference Berenschot2011; Shani Reference Shani2007). Building on these insights, we argue that movement and party politics need to be understood in terms of how they have changed the psychology of ordinary people on the street (and at home) through diffusion, by increasing salience but also by creating more societal space for bottom-up Hindutva across India. These ordinary individuals consume, and then, demand a more aggressive Hindu-centric discourse and policies.

In order to understand this phenomenon, we need a two-way theory of identity formation that thinks about how parties behave but also how ideas of social movements and parties circulate and disseminate at the societal level and ricochet back. The model in Figure 2 highlights that even when the government takes pre-emptive action, endorsement by local level leaders and finding resonance among ordinary people make the campaign stronger and more durable, and reinforces perceptions in society. This may, even, create a new language and norms that reinforce social hostilities (the phrases ‘Jai shri Ram’ [Glory to Lord Ram] or ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai [Long Live Mother India]’). As an important complement, our ethnographic research and literature from psychology help us to create a profile of different types of supporters. Some of them—hardliners and willing nationalists—become intermediaries between parties and grassroots voters. This intermediation role allows the two-way dynamic to become enduring and sustain itself. In a similar vein Tambiah (Reference Tambiah1996, 257) identifies two types of processes—‘focalization and transvaluation’—as well as ‘nationalization and parochialization’ to identify how small incidents become bigger and centre–periphery processes take place, thereby creating a chain-like, cumulative effect.Footnote ³⁵ Importantly, while we recognize that impunity and mobilization harden the bystanders and willing nationalists, these processes are taking root in a fertile ground of ‘resentful hearts’ (Mehta Reference Mehta2019). These twin ideas—accounting for the role of perceptions and identity—and conceptualizing Hindu nationalism in terms of an interactive dynamic of elite-driven and bottom-up processes helps us to account for the specific form of ethno-nationalism witnessed in India today and explains the sensibilities of the median voter revealed through public opinion surveys in a new way.

Source: Authors’ Theoretical Framework.

Figure 2. An interactive theory of social identity.

Profiles of support for a Hindu-centric world view: hardliners, willing ethnic-nationalists, bystanders, and the silencing of moderate liberals

An implication of the dominant models of violence and electoral strategy is that ordinary people are pliable and can be easily manipulated by leaders and parties who flood them with negative messages. While leaders are assumed to be utility maximizers and, therefore, rational and materialistic, voters and citizens are seen as innocent cognitive vassals to receive those ideas. Our conversations have shown us that ordinary voices may affect parties’ strategies from the ground up. We use our fieldwork and readings from political psychology to create individual-level profiles of different kinds of support for Hindutva: bystanders, willing ethnic-nationalists, moderates, and hardliners, which form a continuum of belief systems, ideas, and speech acts.

Apart from hardliners, who may belong to the RSS or the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) or local organizations such as the Bajrang Dal and Hindu Yuva Vahini, there is a group of people who can be characterized as ‘…“semi-active participants,” if not in the perpetration of genocide, at least in the system…’ (Staub Reference Staub1989a, 42). We label these people as ‘willing ethnic-nationalists’; their numbers may have increased dramatically in the last few years, although we cannot be sure when this started. A bystander is an individual who is ‘neither a perpetuator or victim’ (Staub Reference Staub1989a, 42) nor strongly committed to a Hindu-centric view. Hardliners show their commitment to the Hindu-centric view by participating in organizations related to the Hindutva project, while moderates are against the Hinduization of Indian society.

Dinesh Paril, the district head of the Bajrang Dal group in Maharashtra stated: ‘Everyone in this world is born Hindu. They are turned into Muslims when they are circumcised and Christians when they are baptized’ (Siddiqui et al. Reference Siddiqui, Das, Wilkes and Lasseter2017). Surendra Jain, joint secretary for Viswa Hindu Parishad, said: ‘If the sentiments of the majority community are respected, there would be no such incidents. Can we demand pork in any Gulf country?’ (Siddiqui et al. Reference Siddiqui, Das, Wilkes and Lasseter2017). These are the hardliners who pursue an active agenda to defend the Hindu faith in a public and political way, and hold anti-Muslim views. Dinesh Arya, state head of the Gau Raksha Dal, acknowledged his group is breaking the law: ‘Seizing cattle is not legal and we know that well. We are not authorized to do this, it’s the police department’s work,’ he said. But he claims a higher calling: ‘Our religion has given us the right to stop our mother being butchered’, referring to ‘gau mata’ or ‘mother cow’. ‘We have forcefully taken that right’ (Siddiqui et al. Reference Siddiqui, Das, Wilkes and Lasseter2017). Many speakers at Dharma Sansad in Hardwar calling for the ‘killing of Muslims’ and, seeking inspiration from Myanmar’s genocide against Muslims, are classic examples of such hardliners. They also celebrate their closeness with BJP leaders such as Yogi Adityanath, among others, although the RSS has distanced itself from the Dharma Sansad (The Wire 2021).

These hardliners refuse to listen to official statements, even by Prime Minister Modi himself, revealing that the boundaries between the party, the RSS, and society have become porous, and that hardliners are beginning to push the BJP and RSS from the bottom up in new ways. ‘The cow protection movement totally belonged to the BJP before 2014,’ said a local Hindu group’s leader, Pawan Pandit, a part-time software engineer. ‘Now, groups like ours [Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal] have the momentum.’ Many self-styled local groups and activists have emerged, seeking to shore up their ‘hardliner’ credibility. Balen Baishya, head of the Hindu Youth-Students Council of Assam, said that he believed that the local party leadership was not made up of ‘hardcore believers and decided to take matters in their own hands’ (Siddiqui et al. Reference Siddiqui, Das, Wilkes and Lasseter2017).

These hardliners form the core support base and get a lot of media coverage, but underneath this group is a larger group of willing ethnic-nationalists, who, while not formal members of organizations, strongly empathize with their views. We met many such individuals during our fieldwork. Sumesh [name changed] is a professional in his fifties and grew up as part of the Nehruvian world view. Over time, especially in the 2000s, he became disillusioned by the terrorist attacks by Pakistani groups, and now fervently believes that ‘Hindus need to show Muslims a lesson.’ Similarly, a large group of professionals sympathize with Hindu-centric views, and repost many ‘fake’ stories about Muslim brutality to their friends on social media. In conversations they defend Hindu activists even when the latter skirt around the law or their actions lead to violence such as the death of a Muslim trader who was transporting cows for dairy. Some of the willing supporters are housewives, students, and ordinary middle-class Indians. Many of them are not explicitly religious (that is, they do not pray regularly or observe rituals, and so on) but they believe that ‘Hindus deserve preferential treatment over Muslims.’Footnote ³⁶ They see their task as rousing other Hindus against Muslims. Similar beliefs can also be found in Udupa’s fieldwork with technology-savvy, ordinary people such as Vasisht, who trolls her moderate friend for taking a ‘liberal-secular position’. Her interviews were conducted around 2013–2014 (Udupa Reference Udupa2018, 456–61) and, in our view, confirm that we need a new category to differentiate such people from the hardliners.

The journalist Sheela Bhatt’s interview with a fan of Modi in 2014 is notable. Pramod Singh said: ‘To preserve one’s identity one has to do something. I am not from the RSS. I have never been to their shakha. I don’t think this country should be a Hindu rashtra, but in this country at least we should be respected’ (Bhatt Reference Bhatt2014). A US-trained former mechanical engineer defended the use of violence by Hindus: ‘…the outfit’s [Bajrang Dal’s] use of violence is justified because no one listens to Hindus otherwise. The aggression of Muslims makes them heard but the meekness of Hindus leads people to ignore them. Thus, it is not wrong for Hindus to pay back the abuse they have endured for centuries’ (Mehta Reference Mehta2017, 12). Chhibber and Osterman (Reference Chhibber and Ostermann2014, 2) would call such supporters ‘vote mobilizers’: ‘individuals whose support for a particular party goes beyond simple voting and instead involves monetary donations, door-to-door canvassing, leaflet/poster distribution etc.’. Brass’s (Reference Brass2003, 32) concept of ‘fire tender’ and a ‘conversion specialist’, ‘whose task it is to decide when a trivial, everyday incident will be exaggerated and placed into the communal system of talk, the communal discourse, and allowed to escalate into communal violence’ is also relevant here.

Radikha [name changed] is a professional who was and remains quite non-political. She never used to vote in elections and rarely followed political trends and events. Her interaction with her family and friends is usually over everyday issues. She does not like rioting and violence but has come to believe that ‘Muslims look different and behave differently.’ She is a classic bystander who at certain times could become a willing ethnic-nationalist but is more wary of violence. She also does not condone vigilante attacks but feels that Hindus need to be defended and protected. In a similar vein Dipanker Gupta argues: ‘…for a successful ethnic operation, innocent insiders must be convincingly cast against seditious “outsiders”… They did not accept the politics of separatism, but admired the “heroics” of those who did’ (Gupta Reference Gupta2011, 29). Importantly, people who strongly oppose such behaviours and attitudes—moderates—are mostly silent and act like bystanders: unable to collectively challenge the status quo perceptions and anti-Muslim vitriol. The moderates note that the feelings of animosity towards and distance from Muslims have become so pervasive that it is impossible for them to fight on all fronts—in your neighbourhood, workplace, or within your own family.

Psychological and international relations research into the motivations for terrorism and racial violence has identified the importance of the bystander phenomenon. Staub observes: ‘The psychological effects of passivity are similar to but less intense than the effects of perpetration. To reduce their own distress, passive members of the perpetrator group tend to distance themselves from victims, in part by accepting justifications offered by perpetrators, and by blaming and devaluing victims’ (Staub Reference Staub2006, 872). So, bystanders may become willing supporters under the right social-political conditions (Staub Reference Staub1993). Another way to think about bystanders is that, in the context of tension between communities, bystanders interpret every event in ‘communal terms’ (Brass Reference Brass2003, 18).

Many bystanders and willing ethnic-nationalists emulate and translate the dominant ideas pursued by hardliners, highlighting the processes of diffusion we discuss below. They spread stories, songs, and pictures that talk of the ‘Muslim’ threat. These willing ethnic-nationalists may be educated, unemployed, or employed youth and professionals who seek to defend the Hindu faith and proselytize their ideas to their friends and co-workers. The assumption that ethnic-nationalists are only unemployed youth is incorrect; such views are found among professionals, the college educated, and well-off people in large measure, as our interviews with professionals confirmed, and as survey data revealed (Venugopalan Reference Venugopalan2020). In the early decades of India’s independence, moderates shaped dominant discourse and ideas; now it is the willing ethnic-nationalists and hardliners who do so.

It would be remiss to fail to acknowledge the group of moderates who are opposed to this larger world view, although their numbers are relatively quite small. We found many important voices of resistance and opposition, who oppose or are uncomfortable with the polarization that is sweeping Indian middle-class society. Many of them are linked to Indian central or regional universities or are associated with civil liberties movements, and are writers, journalists, students, and educators. Yet, what was also palpable was the silence and fear among moderate liberals. Some noted that they have become careful about explicitly criticizing the social consensus. An interviewee expressed this angst in the following way:

This four-part profile of willing ethnic-nationalists, bystanders, hardliners, and moderates raises the important, but difficult, issue of participation and complicity in the emerging discourse and sensibility. While hardliners and willing supporters play an active role in the enduring power of exclusive nationalism, are moderates as complicit as bystanders in their effective inability to challenge this system and beliefs? We argue that the beliefs, attitudes, and speech acts of all four groups combine together to create a larger social consensus or the popular common sense of Hindu nationalism, albeit in slightly distinct ways. While bystanders and moderates seem to be the passive receivers of the larger consensus around them, their helplessness does have political consequences in reinforcing the power of Hindu nationalism’s discourse and ideals.

Yet, even as the volume of willing ethnic-nationalists accelerates the resonant discourse of Hindu nationalism, the bystanders and moderates’ relationship to the larger system is vicarious, mediated, and more indirect. For example, moderates might not vote for the BJP, while bystanders might. Moderates tend to use strategies theorized by James Scott as ‘weapons of the weak’ (Scott Reference Scott2008), although many of them also write publicly against exclusive nationalism and make their voices heard in whatever way possible. Simultaneously, it is difficult to offer wholescale or collective resistance to the dominant social consensus. The notion of complicity relies on the presupposition of individual control and responsibility that affect different profiles in varied ways. Resisting the dominant system in quieter ways, as evident in many moderates’ actions, is not surrender nor complicity. Importantly, though, through the actions and views of a variety of individuals, the power of a large Hindu-centric social sensibility has acquired a social and political force that affects the national-popular common sense of all actors as well as what is possible to talk about in social and public interactions.

Additional survey evidence, 2015–2021

Our interview findings can be supplemented by a survey of public opinion and social attitudes conducted by CSDS-Lokniti and APU (Swaminathan and Palshikar Reference Swaminathan and Palshikar2021; CSDS-APU 2017, 2018, 2019) and recent writings based on that survey (Varshney et al. Reference Varshney, Ayyangar and Swaminathan2021; Swaminathan and Shastri Reference Swaminathan and Shastri2020; Kumar and Gupta Reference Kumar and Gupta2020). In addition, the just concluded Pew survey on religions in India is also relevant (Pew Research Center 2021). The CSDS-APU survey was conducted across 23 states in three separate rounds, and sampled 48,542 respondents. It shows that ordinary people’s attitudes mirror the stark Hindu-centric feelings we identified in our interviews. The attitudes of conservatism are the greatest among the middle class, as we found, and have also extended to the rural areas (Kumar and Gupta Reference Kumar and Gupta2020, 209), perhaps to the middle class there. Varshney et al. (Reference Varshney, Ayyangar and Swaminathan2021, 23) also found that the ‘middle-class and upper-class’ variable correlates strongly with Hindu nationalism, which, they argue, is ‘unexpected and needs more analysis’ (Varshney et al. Reference Varshney, Ayyangar and Swaminathan2021, 24). The recent Pew survey conducted between November 2019 and March 2020 across 29,999 people finds that 64 per cent of Hindus say that it is very important to belong to a Hindu religion in order to be truly Indian (Pew Research Center 2021), which is, arguably, an ethno-nationalist claim.

Below, we present data on three prominent questions deployed in the CSDS-APU survey: whether people (1) want the government to punish beef eaters, (2) punish those who refuse to say Bharat Mata Ke Jai, and (3) support punishment for conversion, and on questions that could help assess anti-Muslim attitudes. In 2017, surveys of people from Odisha, Karnataka, Haryana, and Gujarat found that close to 75 per cent believe in a strongly majoritarian (or illiberal) view of national identity, while 6 per cent believe in a strong liberal nationalism and 17 per cent take a weak liberal nationalist position (CSDS-APU 2017, 2018, 2019, 41–42).Footnote ³⁸ It notes: ‘A striking finding is that the highest proportion of respondents holding a majoritarian nationalist position are among those college educated and above. Unlike other societies, there appears to be no correspondence between higher levels of education and a liberal view of nationalism’ (CSDS-APU 2017, 2018, 2019, 42). Rather the reverse. In 2018 the findings from surveys from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana found that on average 68 per cent of respondents believe that ‘those that do not stand for the national anthem should be punished’. As many as 80 per cent of Hindus believe the same, which means that this sentiment is quite strong among Hindus. In addition, 75 per cent of all Hindus and 80 per cent of the urban population believe that the government should punish those who eat beef or cow meat across these states, and 69 per cent of respondents are supportive of punishment for conversion across all states. In 2019, 72 per cent of Hindus felt that someone who eats beef cannot be a Hindu; while this number is lower in the South, it still comprises half of the Hindu population (50 per cent). In the same year, the survey across Assam, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Tripura Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal found that 28 per cent of all college--educated people support a conservative nationalism position, which is defined by a combination of views on punishment for beef eating, conversions, and punishment for people not standing for the national anthem or for those who do not say Bharat Mata Ki Jai. What this report defines as ‘majoritarian nationalism’ appears to hold strongly across a wide variety of states and especially among Hindus and college-educated Hindus. People from the states of Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, and Nagaland adopted more liberal nationalist or centrist positions. The recent Pew survey also found a strong correlation between various aspects of a Hindu-nationalist position: ‘For example, Hindus who take a strong position against eating beef are more likely than others to say they would not accept followers of other religions as their neighbors (forty-nine per cent vs. thirty per cent) and to say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian (68 per cent vs. 51 per cent)’ (Pew Research Center 2021).

What about attitudes regarding Muslims? A 2015 survey of around 5,081 people across 21 states found that 40 per cent of Hindus have either little or no trust in people belonging to the Muslim religion and lack of trust persists among the college educated or middle classes (CSDS-Lokniti 2015). A 2017 survey found that only 13 per cent of Hindus think that Muslims are highly patriotic, while 77 per cent of Muslims think of themselves as ‘highly patriotic’ (Express Web desk 2017). These findings continue for the 2019 survey where more than 30 per cent of Hindus think of Muslims as unpatriotic and 13 per cent think of them as ‘highly unpatriotic’ (CSDS-APU 2017, 2018, 2019). This means that close to 50 per cent of Hindus think that Muslims are unpatriotic—a striking figure. Interestingly, this view is one-sided: in large measure Muslims do not consider Hindus to be unpatriotic. Similarly, 13 per cent of all respondents believe Muslims to be peaceful, which is a low figure, while 31 per cent believe that Muslims are violent. Perceptions about Muslims’ ‘unpatriotic and violent behavior’ as compared to other religions score at the highest level, revealing an Islam-specific religious polarization. Importantly, being ‘college educated’ reduces the perception that Muslims are a peaceful community (CSDS-APU 2017, 2018, 2019, 57), which is in line with our interview results. Venugopalan (Reference Venugopalan2020, 159–160), using the CSDS-APU survey, also found that education, especially college education, increases prejudice towards Muslims (emphasis added), noting: ‘For instance, college-educated Hindus—around 11 per cent of the Indian population—perceive Muslims more negatively than their non-literate counterparts’ (Venugopalan Reference Venugopalan2020, 163). She also observed that the intensity of those feelings is relatively strong, with most, even when they are friends with Muslims, weakly or strongly prejudicial and ‘the predominant notions in the society of suspicion and negativity towards the Muslim minority are entrenched’ (Venugopalan Reference Venugopalan2020, 163).

Empirical analysis of contours of Hindu nationalism: campaigns and mechanisms

How are willing ethnic-nationalists and hardliners created and hardened? Tambiah (Reference Tambiah1996) defined the processes of identity formation as a product of opposing forces as local events become aggregated into national themes and issues, and national mobilization reverberates into local arenas (Tambiah Reference Tambiah1996, 257–258). Building on his insight, but also going beyond it, we argue that in addition to identifying the processes through which identity boundaries are reified, we also need to identify the mechanisms that create different kinds of supporters of Hindu nationalism as well as the intermediaries and linkages between top-down drivers and bottom-up demand. We highlight the tripartite mechanisms of diffusion and emulation, mobilization, and impunity by focusing on campaigns such as the response to coronavirus and legal-social campaigns such as the beef ban and ‘love jihad’.Footnote ³⁹