Hinduism, Hindutva, Colonial and Post-Colonial Myths "During this period (early history of the British in India) in India, while the Europeans fought one another and the British intrigued among themselves for personal advantage, Mughals killed Mughals, Rajputs killed Rajputs, Mughals killed Rajputs, Rajputs killed Mughals, British killed Mughals and Rajputs, Mughals and Rajputs killed British, and starvation and taxation kept killing the farmers and laborers of India as usual." 1 This is how Wendy
Hinduism was launched into modernity as a consequence of both the introduction of Muslims into the culture as well as the later British Colonial Project in India. Subsequently, Hinduism has evolved immensely on a social as well as a political front over the last 500 to 800 years (Lorenzen 631), altering the way that both insiders and outsiders define Hinduism through themselves. Analyzing Modern Hinduism today, then becomes a job of working backwards chronologically in order to compare the identities
Struggle Between Hindu and Secular Nationalisms in India India holds a prominent place in the history of imperialism and decolonization, making recent events in this country of nearly one billion especially important to the current day citizen. India also faces problems associated with accommodating religion and diversity within a large federal republic, making their experience important for Americans concerned with these issues. India faces growing action of governing which invites the use of
ideas (or nationalist discourse) that shape the Indian nation – democracy, multicultural unity and secularity – and deals with ‘conditions and events that generated them, and which they both reflect and distort’ (p.2). For Anderson the idea of India as one in its civilizational aspects of evolution and inherent unity is contested by the fact that ‘subcontinent as we know it today never formed a single political or cultural unit in premodern times’ (p.10).
Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal) were the Swadeshi triumvirate who advocated the Swadeshi movement involving the boycott of all imported items and the use of Indian-made goods in 1907. The last years of the nineteenth century, saw a radical sensibility emerge among some Indian Intellectuals. This position burst onto the national all-India scene in 1905 with the Swadeshi movement - the term is usually rendered as "self reliance" or "self sufficiency".[1] Lal-Bal-Pal, mobilized Indians
Mahatma Gandhi had been murdered by a Hindu fanatic. The act had shocked many Indians, but apparently it had the approval of some. According to one news report, the jailed assassin, Nathuram Godse, received an average of 50 letters a day expressing admiration for his action. This was part of a much wider right-wing, religious, reaction against Partition. Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan were calling for retribution against the Muslims who had stayed behind in India. The relations between the two communities