The Clash Between Nehruvian Secularism and Hindu Nationalism

India has a long and very complex history due to its massive diversity of different cultures, traditional, religions and due to the period of British rule. This has collaborated in forming India today. In the birth of India as a nation, Nehruvian secularism and Hindu nationalism were the main ideals of how India should be formed. The following essay shall discuss how these two ideals clash, taking into context of the history and social character of India.

For most of the 19th century India was ruled by the British. Under British rule India was a disorganised feudal system system characterized by a lack of centralization and state. Indians themselves had no say in central government and even at a local level, their influence on policies and decision making were limited. India’s industry serve the needs of Britain which impacted on the Indian people due to the free trade policy and having no tariff protection, this saw the collapse of handicrafts and artisanal industries in 19th century. The British rule aided the endless complicated alliances between and across religious groups, kingdoms and states, as in the case of the Zamindar System where aristocratic landowners collected revenues from peasants on behalf of dominant group being the Mughuls and British and the way in which Britain drew the borders on India. India Independence happen in1947 it was this new found freedom that sparked the many clash between Nehruvian secularism and Hindu nationalism.

India’s freedom from its colonial rule started the question of how would India constructed itself. Would India become a victim and fall for communism or would it take on the more popular democratic system seen in Britain and USA. India now had the power to shape its own statehood...

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...direct contrast to goals of democracy. Nehru didn’t agree as such with this but understood that there are elements of Hinduism nationalism that were undemocratic stretching from caste to gender discrimination which clashed his objectives of full equality for all and equal rights that weren’t depending on caste, class, race and religion. Nehrism secularism belief system understands that their shouldn’t be any barrier to defy democratic objective in India but Hindu nationalists attempted to displace Nehruvian secularism and the ideal of India being multicultural saw a sharp assault on what Hindus Nationalist conceive to be minority appeasement. Instead the nationalist pronounced alternatives ranging from ‘positive secularism’ by the national BJP and RSS to the authoritarian vision of an exclusive Hindu nation state of the RSS or the VHP as discussed previously