The aim of this paper is to investigate the Indian Hindu nationalist concept of “love jihad”, an idea based upon the alleged fact that Muslim men actively seeks out non-Muslim women for conversion to Islam by various methods including, false promises of love and abductions. While the accusation that Muslims are conducting love jihad currently is being propagated by several active Hindu nationalist groups, the focus of this paper lies on the Viśva Hindū Pariṣad (VHP) and the Rāṣṭrīya Svayaṃsevak Saṃgh (RSS), two major branches within the so-called family of Hindu nationalist organisations, or the Saṃgh Parivār. The material primarily con-sists of articles pertaining to love jihad, published in each organisation’s mouthpiece magazines. Utilising theories on Indian nationalism placed within a structure of analysing propaganda, based on the propaganda model of Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, this paper investigates the idea of love jihad in relation to the VHP and RSS constructs of Indian identities.

Syftet med denna komparativa litteraturstudie har varit att jämföra teorier om vilka sociala och psykologiska processer som kan vara bidragande till att unga muslimer i indienstyrda Kashmir dras till radikala och våldsbejakande grupper samt att undersöka vilken påverkan de hindunationalistiska strömningar som vuxit sig starka i Indien under de senaste decennierna har haft på radikaliseringen av denna grupp. Avsikten har varit att bidra med en fördjupad insikt om de processer som bidrar till en polarisering mellan en utgrupp (det hindunationalistiska styret) och en ingrupp (de unga muslimska aktivisterna) och genom jämförelse av olika radikaliseringsteorier utröna vilka eventuella skillnader och svagheter dessa teorier har. Med hjälp av en deduktiv metod och en hermeneutisk ansats har tre förklaringsmodeller jämförts och analyserats. Resultatet visar att radikalisering är en komplex process där både inre psykologiska och yttre sociala faktorer samspelar. Den hindunationalistiska diskurs som vuxit sig allt starkare i Indien under senare år har bidragit till att etnicitet och religion i allt större utsträckning hörs i en debatt som tidigare mest handlat om rätten till självbestämmande. De tre förklaringsmodeller som här analyserats visar att staten har en avgörande roll att spela i radikaliseringsprocessen. Slutsatsen är att det finns ett starkt samband mellan utgruppens användande av statssanktionerat våld och ingruppens radikalisering. I kampen mot terrorism är statsmakten med och skapar det polariserade klimat och de våldsaccepterande radikala grupper som den sedan investerar mycket tid och resurser för att bekämpa. Jag visar nedan hur den indiska staten under decennier besvarat kashmiriernas krav på rätt till självbestämmande med ökad militär närvaro, minskad autonomi och ökat militärt våld. Den intensiva militariseringen av området och förvägran av befolkningens rätt till självbestämmande har haft en stor inverkan på hur unga muslimer i Kashmir organiserar motstånd och en anledning till varför de kommit att se våld som en nödvändig del av detta motstånd. Ingen av de tre valda teorierna förklarar dock varför endast ett litet fåtal av befolkningen i området deltar i våldsamt motstånd mot det upplevda förtrycket. / The purpose of this comparative literature study has been to compare theories about the social and psychological processes that may contribute to young Muslims in Indian-led Kashmir being drawn to radical groups and to examine what impact the Hindu nationalist movement, which have grown strong in India in recent years, have had on the radicalization of this group. The intention has been to contribute with an in-depth insight into the processes that contribute to a polarization between an out-group group (the Hindu nationalist government) and an in-group (the young Muslim activists) and by comparing different radicalization theories to find out what differences and weaknesses these theories have. Using a deductive method and a hermeneutic approach, three explanatory models have been compared and analyzed. The results show that radicalization is a complex process in which both internal psychological and external social factors interact. The Hindu nationalist discourse, which has grown stronger in India in recent years, has contributed to ethnicity and religion being heard to an increasing extent in a debate that in the past was mostly about the right to self-determination. The three explanatory models analyzed here show that the state has a crucial role to play in the radicalization process. The conclusion is that there is a strong connection between the out-group's use of state-sanctioned violence and the in-group’s level of radicalization. In the fight against terrorism, the state is contributing to the polarized climate and the emergence of violence-accepting radical groups, which it then invests a lot of time and resources in combating. I show below how the Indian state for decades has responded to the Kashmiris' demands for the right to self-determination with increased military presence, reduced autonomy and increased military violence. The intense militarization of the area and the denial of the population's right to self-determination have had a major impact on how young Muslims in Kashmir organize resistance and a reason why they have come to see violence as a necessary part of this resistance. However, none of the three chosen theories explains why only a small minority of the population in the area participates in violent resistance against the oppressors.

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The Ayodhya dispute with the following wave of Hindutva has resulted in a rising number of Hindu claims of Mosques getting raised in other places in Uttar Pradesh as well. This thesis presents a suggestion for understanding these types of claims by analyzing the Gyanvapi Mosque dispute through the theoretical framework of violences of development. In order to present a context for the formation of the dispute, the political development of Hindutva is mapped, firstly by exploring the uprising of the ideology and later the transgression of the Hindutva ideology into new spheres. The spatial transgression of Hindutva is further explored in the analysis of the interconnection between the current development discourse and Hindutva. In doing this, the paper analyzes material from both Hindu and English newspapers through the framework of violences of development and suggests spatial displacement, marginalization and erosion of heritage as important components of the Gyanvapi Mosque dispute.

Yes / The ideology and politics of Hindu nationalism has always been predicated on an antagonistic discursive construction of ‘dangerous others,’ notably Muslims but also Christians. This construct has served to define India as first and foremost a Hindu nation, thereby de facto relegating religious minorities to the status of not properly belonging to the nation. However, under the leadership of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has acquired an unprecedented political force. A key consequence of this has been that the discursive construction of dangerous others is now increasingly being written into law, through a process of Hindu nationalist statecraft. The result is, we argue, not just a de facto but increasingly also a de jure marginalization and stigmatization of religious minorities. We substantiate this argument by analysing the intent and effect of recent pieces of legislation in two Indian states regulating, among other things, religious conversions, inter-faith relationships, and population growth. Conceiving of such laws as dog-whistle legislation, we argue that they are, in fact, geared towards the legal consolidation of India as a Hindu state. We also analyse the intimate entanglement between these laws and the collective violence of vigilante groups against those minorities that Hindu nationalists frame as dangerous, anti-national others.

The aim of this paper is to analyze how the Mumbai-based Hindu nationalist and regionalist/nativist political party Shiv Sena communicates about minorities through the Hindi version of its daily newspaper Saamana. After giving a brief introduction to Shiv Sena and the Hindu nationalist movement in India, the editorial articles published in the period Mon. 8/2-Sun. 14/2 2016 are analyzed within a theoretical framework based on Foucault and the idea that the public discourse itself is a field of battle where different actors can and do contest what is socially possible to express. The articles – as far as they are concerned with minorities – are found to be mainly preoccupied with Muslims, which are associated with Pakistan and terrorists and pictured as potentially fanatic and disloyal to the nation. / <p>Kandidatuppsats i indologi</p>

This dissertation examines Vivekananda (1863-1902) as an itinerant monk rather than the nationalist ideologue he has become in recent scholarship. Historians have approached Vivekananda as either a pioneer of Hindu nationalism or as the voice of a universalist calling for service to humanity. Such labelling neglects the fact that he predominantly navigated between those polarised identities, and overlooks the incongruities between his actions and his ideas. By contextualising his travels within various scales of history, this dissertation puts Vivekananda's lived life in dialogue with his thought, as articulated in his correspondence and speeches. It shows that purposeful movement characterised Vivekananda's life. Instead of searching for enlightenment, he travelled throughout the subcontinent as a wandering monk to territorialise spirituality. He carved out his own support base in Madras to reclaim the region from the Theosophical Society, and dwelled in native courts to accrue the patronage of native princes to build the Ramakrishna Math and Mission with him at the helm. His web of princely patronage also carried him to the Parliament of the World's Religions (World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893), as a representative of 'Hinduism' rather than a Hindu representative of a religious community or organisation. His rise to fame at the Parliament also unfolded through spatial dynamic. His performance triggered highly gendered and disordered spectacle, which starkly contrasted with the British Royal Commission's obsession with discipline at the main Exposition. Furthermore, his speeches painted an anti-colonial geography of fraternity, and instilled new malleable subjectivity in his western female followers. After his death, his life and ideas continued to challenge the colonial state's distinction between 'spirituality' and anarchism. Thus, Vivekananda territorialised spirituality in both India and America not only by travelling, but also by inhabiting the interstices of empire. By examining Vivekananda through space, this dissertation creates a new template for contextualising Vivekananda in national, imperial, and international histories, leading to new insights on the man, his ideas, and his legacy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how India’s Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, constructs the image of minorities and refugees in articles, speeches, and on social media platforms. The analysis is performed with the method of qualitative content analysis within a theoretical framework of propaganda put against the backdrop of Hindu nationalism. The main analysis is divided into four categories, based upon Jowett and O'Donnell’s model of analysing propaganda, going into the themes of: context surrounding the speech; communalism; values; and target audience. This paper argues that Amit Shah’s speech in the upper house of the parliament of India, is a part of a larger Hindu nationalist campaign concerning questions of Indian identity that dates back to, at least, the early 20th century.

In much existing literature the incidence of sexual violence during Hindu-Muslim conflict has been attributed to the militant ideology of Hindu nationalism. This thesis interrogates this view. It first examines the ideological framework laid down by the founding ideologues of the Hindu nationalist movement with respect to sexual violence. I argue that a justification of sexual violence against Muslim women is at the core of their ideology. In order to examine how this ideology has contributed to the actual incidents, this thesis studies the episodes of Hindu-Muslim violence that occurred in 1969, 1985, 1992 and 2002 in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. An examination of these episodes shows that sexual violence against Muslim women, in both extreme and less extreme forms, were significantly motivated by Hindu nationalist ideology. However, in addition to this ideology, patriarchal ideas that serve to normalize sexual violence as ‘sex’ and sanction its infliction to maintain gendered hierarchies also motivated such crimes. Moreover, this thesis argues that the manifestation of Hindu nationalist and patriarchal motivations in acts of sexual violence was enabled by the breakdown of neighbourhood ties between Hindus and Muslims in 1969 and 2002. By contrast, during the 1985 and 1992 riots Hindus and Muslims strengthened neighbourhood ties despite extensive communal mobilization, which seems to have prevented the perpetration of extreme sexual violence against Muslim women. Thus, by providing a comprehensive analysis of the contribution of Hindu nationalist ideology, and arguing for the significance of the patriarchal ideas and neighbourhood ties in the infliction of sexual violence during conflict, this study contributes to and departs from the existing literature.

For the 70 years since Independence, India has been facing a two-fold problem: on the one hand, there is a strong need of a just society on the basis of cultural and religious diversity. On the other hand, however, there is a strong urge to find an overarching unifying idea which could keep the polity together without any risk of further fragmentation. Taking the communitarian philosophy of Charles Taylor and his distinction between the politics of equal dignity and politics of difference as the basic conceptual framework, the thesis pursues three different objectives. First, to prove that affirmative approach towards recognition of minorities does not provide stability in the Indian case. Second, to rehabilitate the Nehruvian secularism as a viable state ideology of independent India. And third, to interpret the Indian political discourse on the level of political practice as a struggle for hegemony between the elites and bourgeoisie in the Gramscian sense. The rise of identity politics and Hindu nationalism is thus perceived not as an outcome of the failure of the Indian secularism as such, but rather of its ineffective application and subsequent crisis of legitimacy. Keywords: India; multiculturalism; politics of difference; secularism; anti-modernism; Hindu nationalism; hegemony; passive revolution