This dissertation investigates how vernacular (local, non-mainstream) Hindu practices and Hindu nationalist (often termed Hindutva) groups interact with and influence each other in India. I examine this in the context of the largely lower caste festival ‘Bharani’ in Kerala. Hindutva attitudes to the diversity of Hindu practices across India—including festivals and rituals—are often accused of being hostile to vernacular and lower caste practices and of trying to contain them through high-caste, Brahminic ideals. Based on a 7 month-long fieldwork, I outline a more complicated dynamic at the Bharani where Hindutva organisations engage the Bharani’s vernacular practices on their own terms, expanding its conceptions of what constitutes “authentic” Hindu praxis. Such interactions reshape both the festival’s rituals and the way Hindutva groups present and practice their ideologies and outlooks in places where they have been less prominent.
This is understood through an analysis of the evolving attitudes of Hindutva groups to two controversial Bharani rituals that have often been targeted by reformist and modernising interventions, that of animal sacrifice and erotic worship songs (bharaṇippāṭṭŭ), as well as a broader look at how Hindu nationalist groups engage with the festival as a whole. In terms of the two rituals, I underline how Hindutva groups both enable and resist ritual change amidst broader sociopolitical transformations, claiming for itself sovereignty and authority over Hindu belief and praxis.
I suggest that these different dynamics cause Hindutva politics to tailor itself to both vernacular (local) and lower caste (subaltern) needs. Seen in the context of the post-Mandal era in India, these processes have aided Hindutva politics to become the dominant power after 2014. I emphasise that this has led to enhanced religio-cultural flexibility for Hindutva ideology and practice, unlike its earlier rigidity. This calls for a more developed understanding of Hindutva politics, especially in how its practices and operations are understood.
The defense and trial lecture will be streamed:
Trial lecture
Designated topic: Explore the relationship between vernacularisation and subalternisation with regard to Bharani and Hindutva.
Time and place: Friday 6 February, 10:15 AM, Sophus Bugges hus, auditorium 2
Evaluation committee
- Professor Rachel McDermott, Columbia University
- Professor Arkotong Longkumer, University of Edinburgh
- Professor Mark Teeuwen, University of Oslo
Chair of the defence
Supervisors
- Professor Kathinka Frøystad, University of Oslo