Power of Ideology: the Hindu Nationalist Movement in India

The book is a modest attempt to critically analyze the Hindu Nationalist movement in India since pre-independence period to till date. The book is divided into three parts, part one contains four chapters which critically locate and analyze the reasons of the growth of Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar in India. The second part is state specific study, it covers three chapters, Chapter five and Six critically analyzes Ashutosh Varshney's work on Kerala and Gujarat to conclude that it is not the pre-existing local networks whose presence or absence causes communal violence or lack of violence. It concludes that in Kerala the different political parties and people's loyalty to it has caused the communal harmony and in Gujarat; the powerful presence of Sangh Parivar in the state has resulted into series of well organized communal violence in recent years. Chapter seven compares the similarities and differences between Non-party terrorism and Party Terrorism in India. Last section is a book review of Pradip Kumar Datta's work, titled, Heterogeneities: Identity Formations in Modern India, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010.