Hindutva pop artists<\/a> are establishing an ardent fanbase based solely on spewing musical hatred against Muslims, disseminating genocidal arousal<\/a> and engendering \u2018violent spectating\u2019 buttressed by the most malicious Hindutva themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More subtle forms of saffronisation exist in India\u2019s massive cinema industry. Popular cinema is already profiteering from the identity politics of Hindutva \u2013 particularly by reifying binaries such as the \u2018native\u2019 Hindu valiant warrior versus the \u2018foreign\u2019 invading Muslim \u2018barbarian\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It also assembles a nostalgia for a mythical past, particularly through the theme of \u2018Ram Rajya\u2019 (Rama\u2019s kingdom). An archetypal past-cum-future imaginary that has had many lives in India, Ram Rajya is the utopian rule of an upper-caste Hindu god \u2013 Ram\/Rama, from the epic Ramayana<\/em> \u2013 characterised by peace and prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nostalgia is an often-underappreciated component<\/a> in nationalism: a carefully crafted collective yearning for a lost idealised and often non-existent past, used in the service of contemporary political projects. The \u2018glorious golden age\u2019 serves to galvanise a particular form of collective social identity that stresses shared cultural heritage for a unified nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, nostalgic visions exclude those deemed internal and external \u2018others\u2019 responsible for the downfall of this golden age (the Mughal era is currently being removed from the Indian school syllabus<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This repurposing and \u2018presenting\u2019 of the past<\/a> \u2013 a kind of heritage politics<\/a> \u2013 not only mobilises support for political causes and commercial interests but also provides distraction from bad governance, through the promise and vision of a regenerated past-inspired future, associated with pride and dominance over enemies. Nostalgia, therefore, can be used to build hegemony by nationalist movements and parties, by articulating disparate individuals and groups into a nationalist political identity while marginalising others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The notion of Ram Rajya was central to Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi\u2019s utopian vision for India\u2019s future, post British imperialism. In Gandhi\u2019s \u2018critical traditionalist<\/a>\u2019 nationalism, Ram Rajya was \u2018true civilisation\u2019 \u2013 \u2018a perfect democracy<\/a>\u2019 free of social and economic inequality. Nonetheless, this vision sought to preserve the traditional, deeply hierarchical and patriarchal institution of caste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Ram Rajya \u2013 the utopian rule of an upper-caste Hindu god \u2013 is a fixture of a growing saffronised public culture that furthers the ruling BJP\u2019s authoritarian politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nostalgia of Ram Rajya was later invoked in post-independence India by the Congress government of Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s. Styling himself as a leader of technological and military prowess, Gandhi sought to shore up support for his flagging government by invoking national pride for the future he claimed he would deliver. In 1987, he made the momentous decision to broadcast a serialisation of the Ramayana<\/em><\/a> on the national television broadcaster, which proved wildly popular, attracting an estimated 100 million viewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gandhi\u2019s supposedly technology-driven celebration of the Ram Rajya myth aimed to prefigure the future in the supposed scientific, military and economic successes of India\u2019s glorious past. Yet the promotion of religion by government institutions had been, until then, frowned upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The popularisation of the Ramayana<\/em> and the Hinduisation of the public sphere by Congress opened new political opportunities for the Hindutva movement. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, they would saffronise the public sphere through the politics of nostalgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1989, the BJP-allied Hindutva organisations Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh launched the Ramjanmabhoomi (Rama\u2019s birthplace) movement to agitate for the building of a Ram temple at the alleged site of Rama\u2019s birthplace in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya, where the Babri mosque stood. In 1990, the BJP launched a rath yatra \u2013 a chariot procession meant to resemble those detailed in Hindu myths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A still from the 1980s series Ramayan<\/em>, showing Lord Ram with his brother Laxman and wife Sita Influenced by the series<\/a>, rather than other known versions of the Ramayana<\/em>, this Hindutva conglomerate transformed Rama, a god-king often portrayed as mild-mannered and of north Indian provenance, into a militant all-India icon for Hindus. Volunteers dressed as characters from the series: the BJP leader L K Advani even drove through northern India posing as Rama in a jeep converted to resemble a chariot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The movement led to a campaign of communal violence<\/a>, with more than 2,000 (mainly Muslims) being killed in 1992 and the Babri mosque being demolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Ram Rajya is a fixture of a growing saffronised public culture that furthers the ruling BJP\u2019s authoritarian and anti-minority politics. Mainstream, overtly Hindu nationalist films have protagonists drawing analogies<\/a> with the Hindu god Rama \u2013 invoking a saffron agenda with explicit support from Hindutva leaders, who equate these characterisations with a \u2018cultural revival\u2019 that would return the country to its \u2018glory days<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Others play with the imagery of Ram Rajya in much more innovative ways, combining a nostalgia for the glorious (Hindu) past \u2013 rebrand(ish)ing traditional religious symbols to elicit a pride and freedom of Hindu identity \u2013 with futuristic themes and technologies. For instance, Ram Setu<\/em><\/a> pits a secular state colluding with a greedy corporate against an honest \u2018scientific\u2019 modern faith man who excavates traces of the existence of Lord Rama, \u00e0 la Indiana Jones<\/a>. The movie attempts to turn mythology into factual history<\/a> to present the supposed grandeur of the Hindu past in rational terms and chastise those who do not accept this \u2018fact\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The globally-acclaimed action drama RRR<\/em><\/a>, on the other hand, delicately saffronises the Indian freedom struggle<\/a> against the British through a climactic mythologisation of the protagonist freedom fighter into a maximalist Rama figure. This supposedly benign version of Hindutva<\/a> is characterised by acceptance of all kinds of people, yet foregrounds a hypermasculine, vigorous upper-caste Hindu pride and aggression. It envisions a Ram Rajya premised on hierarchical and predatory inclusion, with the Hindu warrior archetype and his dominance being explicitly upper caste in tone and patronising towards all other identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later this year, Adipurush <\/em><\/a>\u2013 a contemporary adaptation of Ramayana<\/em> inspired by sci-fi western movies<\/a> \u2013 is set to be released, ahead of the inauguration of a Ram temple<\/a> in Ayodhya and the 2024 general election. Thirty years after the BJP elevated its influence on Indian politics through televised Hindu nostalgia, its dominance will likely be confirmed alongside the promise of Hindutva futurism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Priya Chacko and Maggie Paul explore how historic and religious popular culture uses nostalgia to further Hindu nationalist agendas \u2013 a process known as \u2018saffronisation\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":37736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2526,203,2543],"tags":[2578,2579],"class_list":["post-37613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-religion","category-stage-screen","tag-maggie-paul","tag-priya-chacko"],"yoast_head":"\nNostalgia in nationalism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ramjanmabhoomi, Ayodhya and Babri Mosque<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Ramayan-series-1980s.jpeg\")
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CREDIT: RAMANAND SAGAR PRODUCTIONS<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nRam Rajya today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
This article first appeared in issue #240, Summer 2023, Debt. <\/em>Subscribe<\/a> today to get your magazine delivered hot off the press!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"