Past and Future of Hindutva
I found Raghu S. Jaitley’s post on the Ayodhya ceremony on 22 nd January interesting. He starts with the late 80’s, when Hindu assertiveness started off – slogans like “ Garv se kaho hum Hindu hai ” (say with pride that we are Hindus). “In about a year from then, the Ram Janmanhoomi movement began dominating the Indian political landscape. The door-to-door collection of bricks for the shilanyas, the daily reports of the L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra and the trail it left behind and lumpenisation of Jai Shree Ram and Jai Bajrang Bali all followed soon after.” While it increased the Hindu assertive footprint, it was still limited to pockets of the North, nothing more. But eventually, it led to huge political wins: “To those who grew up in the 80s, the events on the 22 nd of January… will bookend a political issue that dominated all our adult lives.” While the timing was deliberate (close to the next Lok Sabha elections), it raises a new question, says Jaitley: “The temple mov