Hindu Nationalism and the International Relations of India

Abstract

The constitution of the Republic of India declares it to be a secular state. But secularism in India has its own special meaning in the context of a country which has many religions and where the passion of religious sentiments affects political life. Religious concerns have, therefore, often affected state policy despite what one might assume would be secularism’s constraints on the role of religion. The study of the impact of religion on a formally secular state would be interesting in itself. Some argue that greater account of the deeply felt religious sentiments of people should be taken than has been possible within the somewhat abstract and idealistic framework of the secular constitution. Something of a movement has gathered pace amongst Indian intellectuals in this regard.¹ They are mostly careful to distinguish their position from that of Hindu nationalists. I implicitly do not intend here to examine either their nuanced academic views or their relationship to the more strident and expressly political views and actions of the Hindu nationalists. Instead, I want to concentrate on the political parties and extraparliamentary organizations which have carved out a space in the Indian polity for an aggressive religion-based nationalism which calls into question, in a very real and immediate way, the secular basis of the Indian political system.