Here we provide a very brief summary of the Hindu Nationalist movement in India, including both its parliamentary and non-governmental faces. Several organisations are omitted for concision.
The political party which currently rules India as part of a coalition government is the BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party). The BJP belongs to a family of organisations which have come to be known as the Sangh Parivar. The beginning of the Sangh Parivar dates to the creation of an organisation called the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National Self-help Corps, often simply referred to as the Sangh) in 1925. This organisation can be seen both as the key parent and as the "military" wing of the family. It's early leaders had admiration for, and links with, the fascist movements that were gaining ground in Europe during the 20s and 30s (1). The ideology of its founder, Dr. Hedgewar, was that national unity would only come about if it was declared that all non-Hindus in India, do not form a part of the nation. It was a member of the RSS, Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Gandhi. Though the RSS has subsequently attempted to deny this, the reality is that Godse was a person of considerable importance in the RSS - a so called intellectual propagator. His own brother, an accomplice in the murder, has admitted this, and that Godse left the organisation shortly before the assassination in order to protect the RSS (2).
The Jana Sangh Party was formed in 1951 as the political wing of the RSS. It was later replaced by the BJP in 1980 (3). Both India's prime minister, A.B. Vajpayee and its deputy prime Minister and Home Minister (L.K. Advani) are lifelong RSS members, along with many other leading politicians in the BJP, including, very importantly, Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi (4) . The religious wing of the Hindu nationalist movement is the VHP (Vishva Hindu Parishad or World Council of Hindus). It was formed in 1964 by the RSS (5) supposedly to combat proselytising religions in India. Posing as a religious/cultural organisation in the west the VHP has been a key player in much of the communal violence in India in recent times. It is one of the best-financed wings of the Sangh with large quantities of money reportedly flowing in from overseas, particularly the United States. In the mid 1980s, a movement was created, under the leadership of the VHP to construct a temple on the site of an existing Mosque in the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. Their contention was that the mosque, known as Babri Masjid was built upon the ruins of a Hindu temple that had supposedly been demolished by "Muslim" invaders. It is widely accepted by academics, including the Archaelogical Survey of India, that there is little historical evidence for this (6) . This campaign culminated in the violent destruction of the mosque by a mob of "kar sevaks" on December 6th 1992. There followed the outbreak of massive communal rioting throughout India, as far away as Bombay, which left thousands dead. There are several other organisations within the Sangh Parivar. The Bajrang Dal is a highly militant auxilliary of the VHP formed by the VHP in the 1980s to get "Hindu youth" invovled in the movement to construct a mosque on the site of the Babri Masjid (7) . They have been highly active in organising campaigns against both Muslims and Christians in India. There are other neo-fascist organisations with which the BJP has electoral alliances. The Shiv Sena, mainly active in Maharashtra is an openly fascist party whose leader Bal Thackeray is an admirer of Hitler.
The collection of groups which makes up the Sangh Parivar becomes confusing, and the forces of the Hindu right use this confusion effectively. Indeed there are further organisations such as the ABVP (student wing of the sangh parivar) and the BKS, their trade union. The different organisations possess apparently different aims and work in different ways. While the VHP organises within temples, the RSS organises Shakhas - cells where young people are given military training, the BJP fights national elections, and the ABVP fights student union elections, the Bajrang Dal... well, they just murder. On occasion the links and common genesis of the organisations are openly accepted, on others some members of the family are censured, even temporarily disowned, by others. What is vitally important to understand is that all share essentially the same agenda. For all, Hinduism is the sole basis of national identity in India. All are fundamentally antagonistic to the notion of India as a secular, democratic country. By whatever means this agenda is pushed, what Gujarat makes clear is that when the Sangh Parivar comes together and acts as a body, what results is genocide.
The best summary of the Hindu Right is prepared by Human Rights Watch and is available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/India0402-05.htm.
1. http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/casolari.html
2. http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/godsevsGandhi.html
3. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/India0402-05.htm
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1958555.stm
5. http://www.indian-express.com/ie20020224/op2.html
6. http://www.geocities.com/indianfascism/Babri/vhp_claims.htm
7. http://www.vhp.org/englishsite/d.Dimensions_of_VHP/myouth-wing/bajrangdalsjain.htm
(here we present a site of the far right itself - it is often very educative
to visit their own sites and view the way they choose to present themselves.