Hindutva

Competing Nationalisms: The Sacred and Political Life of Jagat Narain Lal by Rajshree Chandra, New Delhi: Penguin, 2021; pp xxv + 211, `599.

It is argued that it would be naïve to explain the Bharatiya Janata Party’s success as a wholehearted endorsement of its Hindutva agenda as there are substantial local reservations on this. Unlike Uttar Pradesh or other parts of North India where it aggressively pushed its Hindutva agenda, the BJP knows the limitation of this agenda and has instead used a combination of strategies like the promise of development and peaceful settlement of armed conflicts. These electoral strategies intersect with and are driven by a set of factors that, in turn, determine the BJP’s success: first, the increasing electoral insignificance of the Congress, and second, the continuing salience of complex and cross-cutting social cleavages.

The cultural marginalisation of the tribal people in India through the school system in pre- and post-independence India is discussed by drawing parallels with the residential school system that existed in the United States and Canada.

Even as the National Education Policy, 2020 talks of accessibility, there are too many visions in the document that would not allow that. It seeks to build skills for traditional vocations and for the global market. This is structured with a vision that deepens the inequalities of caste, class and gender by focusing on two types of citizens. With no vision to sustain the environment, tribal education is also weakened. Accessibility is deeply associated with nature of knowledge. With the pre­dominance of skills, the heavy base on Hindutva, and a lightness of curriculum that is yet to be defined, the NEP cannot enhance the right of citizens to know, to critically reflect and to shape the world.