Fascinating Hindutva: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation

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SAGE Publications, Jan 6, 2009 - Political Science - 195 pages
Fascinating Hindutva examines how, aided by other Hindutva forces like RSS and VHP, the strategies of BJP for mobilizing dalits rests on reinterpreting their Hindu past and unifying them under the metanarrative of Hindutva. It is an exploration of the fascinating tactics used by the Hindutva forces to politically mobilize individual dalit castes like the Nishads, Musahars and Dusadhs by saffronising their heroes.
 

Contents

Pastness and Politics
1
Saffron Imagining of the Local
41
Exploring Dalit Militia
58
Making of a Warring Hero
80
Creating Popular Politics
101
Legend War
116
The Politics of Cultural Resources
137
Saffronisation of a Dalit Hero
158
The Path Traversed and the Way Ahead
175
Bibliography
184
Index
190
About the Author
195
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About the author (2009)

Badri Narayan is a social historian and cultural anthropologist and currently lecturer of social and cultural anthropology at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. His interests lie in popular culture, social and anthropological history, Dalit and subaltern issues and the relationship between power and culture. He has been a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (1998–99). The Indian Council of Social Science Research (1995) and the University Grants Commission, New Delhi (1989–93). He has also been Visiting Fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies, University of Leiden, The Netherlands (2002) and HGIS Fellow at the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam (2001). He was a recipient of the Fulbright Senior Fellowship (2004–5) and the Smuts Fellowship, University of Cambridge (2005–6). Besides having written a number of articles both in English and in Hindi, he has authored Documenting Dissent: Contesting Fables, Contested Memories and Dalit Political Discourse (2001) and edited (with A.R. Misra) Multiple Marginalities: An Anthology of Identified Dalit Wrintings (2004).

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