What is Hindutva, the ideology of India’s ruling party?

IN INDIA NATIONAL elections are looming. Voters are expected to go to the polls in April and May. Narendra Modi, the prime minister, hopes to win a third term in office. To that end he has been playing up his religious devotion. On January 22nd Mr Modi inaugurated a new temple to Ram, in Ayodhya, a northern city believed by devotees to be that Hindu god’s birthplace. The temple was built on land previously occupied by a centuries-old mosque, which was torn down by a Hindu-nationalist mob in 1992. Addressing a crowd of supporters after the ceremony, which marked the unofficial start of his campaign for re-election, Mr Modi claimed the new construction was “not just a divine temple” but “a temple of India’s vision, philosophy and direction”. What did he mean?

Equating Hinduism and India in this way is one of the main tenets of Mr Modi’s ideology: Hindutva, or “Hinduness”. Adherents of Hindutva, including many members of Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), believe in the hegemony of Hinduism in India—to the extent that they consider Hindu and Indian culture synonymous. Critics fear the BJP aims to to turn the country of 1.4bn people, 80% of whom are Hindus, from a secular state into a Hindu one. BJP officials deny this. They say they are trying to establish a Hindu national identity suppressed for centuries by Muslim and British invaders.