Understanding the “Terms” of the Hindutva Discussion
One of the challenges of navigating the sea of information, particularly through online media, regarding topics related to South Asia and its diaspora is understanding terms like “Hindutva”, “savarna”, etc. To further complicate matters, different groups and individuals sometimes use the same terms in different ways. This list of terms includes words and phrases commonly used in media settings as well as by the public to discuss South Asian and social categories, especially by those who research Hindutva. We have also included other terms such as “decolonial” and “secular” that have been retooled by some Hindu Right organizations and individual actors to support Hindu nationalist positions. For each term, we offer a brief definition, relevant uses in Hindutva conversations, and a short read for further information.
We are concerned that Hindu Right organizations are using their platforms to promote particular, sometimes intolerant and even inverse meanings of terms in the hopes of controlling the conversation around Hindutva hate. We see these “redefinitions” as part of the overarching Hindu Right initiative--including in North America--to control speech and eliminate dissent. Also see our Bad Faith Bias Claims section for further discussion of how Hindutva harassment often invokes and twists the language of social justice and antiracism.
Glossary
Academic Freedom
Academic freedom is a bedrock of the modern academy. It ensures that faculty and students are free to pursue research and teach—articulating ideas, arguments, and facts—free of intimidation or retaliation. The AAUP’s foundational statement on the subject identifies academic freedom in three key areas:
Research and Publication
Teaching and the Classroom
Public Engagement
Academic freedom covers the study of sensitive topics, including religious traditions and political movements. It is often attacked and infringed upon in the context of Hindutva harassment using an array of tactics. For more, see our Academic Freedom section.
Adivasi / Indigenous
Adivasi refers to “first-dweller” and is a designation commonly used for and among tribal communities in mainland India, such as the Gond in the Deccan Peninsula and the Bhil in the western Deccan and central Indian regions. For mixed tribal-majority regions such as the Northeast, local semantic practices often privilege Indigenous identities, such as the broad Assamese “khilonjia” or tribal identification such as Bodo (Assam), Ao (Nagaland), Khasi (Meghalaya), etc. for specificity. Many Adivasi and Indigenous peoples (not all) are included within the category of Dalit-Bahujan (see the terms Dalit and savarna for more information). The Indian state often considers many to belong to Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes. Adivasis and Indigenous communities have special government protections in the Indian constitution, such as the Sixth Schedule, that protect their rights to land, resources, and traditions. However, these rights have been infringed upon (also this) by the Indian government since 1947, providing further fodder for long-running insurgencies and sovereignty demands.
Anti-Racism
Anti-racism is the practice of identifying and pushing back against racism, in oneself and society at large. Anti-racism is a valuable activity for all people, regardless of their ethnic and racial background. In the case of South Asian communities, considerations of caste and religious-based discrimination are included in anti-racism.
Anti-Semitism
Members of the Hindu Right sometimes invoke anti-Semitic slurs and stereotypes against people of European descent. This often surprises those who know, correctly, that India lacks a history of anti-Semitism in premodernity. But early Hindutva ideologues openly admired Hitler and his treatment of the Jewish people, considering it a model for how Hindus ought to treat India’s Muslim population.
Aryan
From the Sanskrit arya (noble). Scholars use “aryan” (also Indo-Aryan, Arya) to denote people who used Sanskrit (or an earlier Indo-European language) and participated in Vedic culture in ancient India. The Aryan Migration Theory (AMT) posits that small bands of Indo-European speakers migrated, over several generations, from further west into northwestern areas of the subcontinent between 1700 and 1200 BCE. The AMT is supported by strong linguistic evidence and is a matter of scholarly consensus. Decades ago, the AMT replaced the outdated Aryan Invasion Theory, which posited violent conflict between a race of people known as Aryans and Indigenous groups in India. The definition of "aryan" as a race was elaborated in Nazi racial theories and is rejected by scholars today. Hindutva proponents continue to attack the discarded Aryan Invasion Theory, as a straw man argument and because they do not wish to admit that any contributions to the diverse religious tradition of Hinduism, even in the distant past, originated beyond the subcontinent.
Atrocity Denial
Members of the Hindu Right often accuse scholars who refuse to advance politically-motivated fictions about the South Asian past—specifically, invented atrocities committed on Hindu subjects or civilians by Muslim rulers or armies—of atrocity denial. This is a powerful accusation due to real problems with genocide denial regarding the Holocaust (also see anti-Semitism). But, in the case of the Hindu Right, the accusation is false on two scores. Scholars have written a great deal about the violence of premodern South Asia. Also, the Hindu Right relies upon a politics of grievance, in which they invent mythological atrocities in the past, divided along religious lines that only became operative in modern times, in order to justify their all-to-real atrocities in the present-day. Such violence is increasingly deadly for non-Hindu religious minorities.
Brahmanism
Term used by scholars who research India, especially when analyzing texts and societies from centuries, even millennia ago in which one of the operative identities was based on being Brahmin or upper caste. Relevant is that many scholars have found little to no trace of Hinduism as a broad-based religious tradition in sources written before the eighteenth century (others offer alternative dates). “Brahmanism” is also used by anti-caste activists and allies to describe brahmanical cultural, religious, and social practices in contemporary contexts.
Caste
This term refers to the hierarchical social system rooted in Hindu religious texts and in operation across a range of South Asian communities. Caste consists of two components: varna and jati (some scholars distinguish varna as class and jati as caste, whereas others do not). In India, caste, like race, operates as a marker of identity that defines one’s place in social, political, educational, and religious frameworks. South Asians in the diaspora differ on whether they overtly identify caste as an important marker of their identity, but they often continue certain cultural practices (e.g., intra-caste marriage, intra-caste socialization, etc.) that reveal the pervasiveness of casteist practices. Dalit groups have been outspoken, powerful advocates of the harms of caste-based discrimination on US soil. Hindu Right individuals and groups often seek to minimize, or even deny, caste and caste-based discrimination in both the past and the present. See our section on Intersectional Hate for more.
Colonialism
The subjugation of one people by another, including by people in a remote metropole or through settlement (in this sense, “settler colonialism”). In South Asian history, examples of colonialism include British rule circa mid-18th century – mid-20th century and the Indian government’s approach to Kashmir since 1947. The Hindu Right sometimes wrongly describes premodern Indo-Muslim kingdoms as colonial enterprises in an effort to mark Muslims as “foreign” to India. The demonization of Indo-Persian rulers is, itself, a legacy of British colonialism.
Dailt-Bahujan (DBA)
The term “Dalit”—literally meaning “oppressed, broken”—refers to those who hail from the caste-oppressed community in South Asia formerly referred to as “untouchable”. The terms “Bahujan” and “Dalit-Bahujan” are often used in place of “Dalit”. “Bahujan” is a Pali term referring to the many or majority. Some scholars have argued that the term “Bahujan” encompasses all marginalized communities. Sometimes, the term “Adivasi” or first-dweller referring to the Indigenous communities in India, is also attached to “Dalit-Bahujan”. The abbreviation DBA has become the preferred moniker used by anti-caste movements, such as the one spearheaded by Thenmozhi Soundarraajan and Equality Labs, to include all marginalized groups in South Asia.
Decolonial / Decolonize
Decolonization is a set of attempts to recognize and reform the legacies of colonialism, including its knowledge systems, that continue to exert influences over our thinking and societies. Decolonial approaches to knowledge, governance, religion, and social/communal organization include practices that seek to fundamentally transform the impact and legacies of colonialism by dismantling colonial and neocolonial rule and forms of oppression. These approaches reject aspects of colonial knowledge systems that continue to exert restrictive influences over our thinking and societies and center Indigenous ways of knowing and seeing the world.
The Hindu Right sometimes twists decolonization to advocate the wholesale replacement of current knowledge systems with indigenous ones (or what they imagine to be indigenous ones). This is a facile misunderstanding of the concept. Decolonization is hard work and requires both analytical thought and critical awareness one’s own biases. Many scholars and activists are on the frontlines of decolonization through work on our syllabi, with our students, public education campaigns, and more.
Diversity
Diversity is variety in social, cultural, and religious norms, both between traditions and within individual traditions. Some scholars of South Asia, including many of us at SASAC, emphasize recovering and listening to the views of historically oppressed groups, as part of our efforts to enhance and value diversity. The Hindu Right abuses diversity efforts by claiming (falsely) that a narrow set of views and prejudices are held by all Hindus and by denying many members of South Asian communities their own voices.
Fascism
Fascism is the logical extreme of nationalism, characterized by authoritarianism, intolerance of dissent, and a dislike of critical thought. People sometimes use the term “Hindutva fascism,” which is accurate both in terms of the history of Hindutva ideology and its present-day trajectory. The originators of Hindutva philosophy in colonial India were demonstrably influenced by Italian fascism and later National Socialist thought. Specifically, the RSS or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has considerable historical links to fascism.
Ghar Wapsi
Literally “returning home” in Hindi, Ghar Wapsi refers to the religious conversion of Indian Christians and Muslims to Hinduism and in some cases, Sikhism. Hindutva proponents argue that such conversions are a homecoming of people that were ancestrally Hindu. Since 2014, Hindutva organizations--especially the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)--have spearheaded such conversion campaigns across India, particularly in states with sizable Christian and Muslim populations, including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, parts of northeastern India, and West Bengal. In 2015, the Supreme Court in India ruled that ghar wapsi activities would not prevent those from caste-oppressed communities who “reconverted” to Hinduism from accessing reservation benefits, a decision decried by many Indian Christian organizations and lauded as a stamp of approval by the VHP.
Hindu Rashtra
The “Hindu nation” is a major goal of Hindutva: an ethnonationalist state—moving even beyond the territory of modern India—that would enact Hindu supremacy and enforce Hindu majoritarian norms. The Hindu Rashtra would replace the constitutionally secular nation-state of India. The Hindu Rashtra overlaps with the idea of “Akhand Bharat,” meaning “undivided India,” which posits, both anachronistically and in the future, that the territories spread over multiple South Asian nations and the disputed area of Kashmir are one nation.
Hinduism
A broad-based religious tradition or set of traditions. “Hinduism” as a term, came into use by missionaries and colonialists at the end of the 18th century CE, combining the Perso-Arabic term “Hindu” and the English suffix -ism. At this time, it was used to distinguish Hindus from other religious communities (e.g., Muslims, Christians, etc.). The term “Hindu” dates back about 1,000 years and was originally used by Persian and Arabic speakers to describe, primarily, residents of the subcontinent. Its first use by someone we would, today, anachronistically call “Hindu” dates to the 14th century. The term only became regularly used as a religious category and self-referentially centuries later.
Colonial rule in India had a significant impact on how the category “Hindu” came into being, which of the diverse practices/rituals considered “Hindu” ought to be included, and to whom it was and is assigned. There have been debates, continuing into present times, over what practices and rituals constitute Hinduism and when these practices and rituals were categorized as Hindu.
Learn More
Hinduphobia
A recently coined term popularized by far-right groups to claim systematic and targeted discrimination against Hindus for being Hindu. Scholars of South Asia overall consider the term “Hinduphobia” inappropriate for several reasons. It is deployed to stifle academic inquiry into Hinduism as well as to tamp down critiques of the Indian state, Hindu nationalist positions, Islamophobia, and casteism. “Hinduphobia” rests on the false notion that Hindus have faced systematic oppression throughout history. Anti-Hindu bias, while real and painful in individual cases, is neither systemic nor entrenched in modern society, in either India or the United States. The term seeks to mirror and thereby discredit “Islamophobia,” similar to claims of anti-white racism to undercut anti-black racism. “Hindumisia” is a synonym, sometimes preferred by India-based (rather than US-based) Hindu nationalists. In many cases, those who claim to be victims of “Hinduphobia” or “Hindumisia” are engaged in discrimination against others of South Asian descent, including Muslims, lower-castes, Dalits, Christians, and progressive Hindus.
Hindutva & Hindu nationalism
Hindutva (literally “Hindu-ness”) is a modern political ideology that advocates for Hindu supremacy and seeks to transform India, a constitutionally secular state, into an ethno-religious nation known as the Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation). Hindutva is the official platform of the BJP, an extreme right political party in India. Parts of the Indian diaspora, including in the United States, also champion Hindutva. Some scholars define Hindutva as a type of Hindu nationalism, whereas others use “Hindutva” and “Hindu nationalism” as synonyms. See our Defining Hindutva page for more.
India
“India” has two major meanings. Pre-1947, “India” is a geographic designation for the Indian subcontinent (including parts of modern-day Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal). Some scholars, especially those who work on premodernity, still use “India” in this older sense. Post-1947, “India” refers most often to the modern nation-state. Some modern borders of the modern nation-state of India are contested. To avoid confusion between the distinct meanings of “India”, some scholars prefer the term “South Asia” to refer to the broader region for all periods. “Indian” as an adjective can indicate national identity, cultural heritage, or both.
Islamophobia
Islamophobia refers to the structural and targeted fear of Islam and Muslims that leads to the racialization of and discrimination against Muslims and those perceived as Muslim in all strata of society. Such structural prejudice and perceptions, embedded in imperial and nationalist logics, perpetuate a widespread misunderstanding of Islamic practices, beliefs, and values. It can also instigate targeting by law enforcement and feed media tendencies to sensationalize such fear with their coverage of terrorism and extremism in Muslim-dominant regions. It is, in effect, a systematic discriminatory practice that labels Islam as contradictory to the values of the United States and Muslims as inherently “other”. In the podcast “Keeping it 101: A Feminist Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion,” Drs. Megan Goodwin and Illyse Morgenstein Fuerst do an excellent job in identifying common misperceptions that are perpetuated in online echo chambers (e.g., social media, media websites, etc.) and explaining how to understand the practice in question. See episode 308 of the podcast for a scholarly, accessible overview of Islam.
Jati
Social category or group that exists in a hierarchy; see caste
Kashmir
“Kashmir” refers to the Kashmir Valley or Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (J&K for short), as well as the Princely State of J&K before 1947 (whose former territory is controlled today by India, Pakistan, and China). Under the United Nations, Kashmir is under international dispute that is to be solved by a plebiscite. Scholars of Kashmiri studies largely view India’s seven-decade rule in Kashmir (since 1947) as a colonial occupation, enforced through human rights violations and war crimes, including extrajudicial killings, massacres, rapes, enforced disappearances, mass graves, fake encounters, and more.
Denial of Kashmiri rights to self-determination has been an integral part of the Indian nation-state's colonial project in the region, beginning in the Nehruvian period. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi (2014–), India has advanced its settler-colonial ambitions in Kashmir. The Modi government has removed the region’s nominal autonomy and advanced laws and regulations that seek to change the region’s demographics to reduce and marginalize the Muslim majority, while silencing all means of dissent and resistance.
Kashmiri Pandits
A group of Brahmins in Kashmir. In colonial and post-1947 India, Kashmiri pandits often enjoyed positions of privilege, including the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and his descendents. Around 1990, roughly 100,000 Kashmiri pandits, out of a population of 140,000, left the Kashmir valley, in the midst of a popular armed rebellion for self-determination in the region. The Indian Supreme Court has rejected pleas to investigate the events, and international organizations have not been allowed into Kashmir to document the conditions that led to the departure, as well as the human rights violations faced by Kashmiris of varying ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Hindutva proponents frequently discuss the Kashmir pandit exodus--often peddling misinformation, including false claims of a genocide--to promote larger Hindutva goals, much to the dismay of some Kashmiri pandits.
Misogyny
Misogyny “is a way women are kept in (patriarchal) order, by imposing social costs for those breaking role or rank, and warning others not to.” Such anti-woman attitudes and punitive measures are common in Hindutva harassment.
Orientalism
Orientalism is a set of assumptions and stereotypes, based on Western knowledge, that leads to a misapprehension of aspects of premodern and modern South Asia. Orientalism was often deeply intertwined with colonial power. Scholars have identified Orientalist influences in many areas, including the construction of Hinduism as a religion and the construction of Indology as a field of study. Scholars of South Asia have long criticized Orientalism and continue to grapple with this baggage. The Hindu Right sometimes tries to redefine and flatten Orientalism to propose that any outsider studying India is a threat. In so doing, they often fail to self-reflect on the degree to which they rely on Orientalist ideas in their own thinking.
Raytas (Raitas)
Raytas/Raitas are Hindu nationalists that, according to Trads [link to entry] do not exhibit the violent behavior required to eradicate non-Hindu peoples en route to creating a Hindu rashtra in India. They often prefer legislative and political actions to achieve their desired ends.
Religious Studies
The academic study of religion is a secular investigation into religious practices and beliefs as a human phenomenon. Religious studies departments are common in the United States and Europe, but they are uncommon in India. Religious Studies and Theology are related but distinct disciplines; the former is the academic study of religion, whereas the latter is concerned with a confessional approach to understanding the nature, being, and actions of God. Theology has typically referred to study of Christian beliefs and practices, although it has expanded to include other traditions as well. For more on this distinction, check out this short podcast.
Religious studies scholarship is attuned to the positionality of individual scholars and students (the “insider-outsider debate”), and members of both groups—insiders and outsiders—study all religions. A key insight in Religious Studies scholarship is that no person is an insider to the entirety of a broad-based tradition such as Hinduism. For more on the insider/outsider debate in religious studies see this short piece.
“rice bag”
A slur invoked by members of the Hindu Right. The slur refers to Indian Christians, playing upon a misperception that many converted to Christianity for financial incentives. Such an ignorant view ignores the long, complicated history of Christianity in India, which dates back to the 4th century CE. The term plays into a Hindu Right project to collapse the identities of “Indian” and “Hindu.”
RSS
The RSS--short for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh--is a paramilitary organization founded in 1925. The RSS stands at the center of the Sangh Parivar and generally sets the tone for Hindutva goals and visions for an array of groups in India and in the diaspora. The RSS has used violence on a number of occasions to promote its aims. The overseas branches of the RSS are known as the HSS, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh.
Sanatana Dharma
Literally “Eternal Law,” the term “Sanatana Dharma” (also spelled Sanatan Dharma) was popularized in the late 19th century as Hindu reformers reacted to the coining of the Western term “Hinduism.” Some Hindus use Sanatana Dharma to include non-Brahminical aspects of Hindu traditions (one view of its capaciousness), whereas others seek to project Hinduism as a timeless, changeless reality rather than as a historical tradition. VD Savarkar considered those who followed Sanatana dharma to be only one of a range of Hindus, which he used as an ethnic category.
Sangh Parivar
The Sangh Parivar, literally “Sangh family”, is a network of cultural, political, and social groups that promote the political ideology of Hindutva. The RSS is at the center of the Sangh, although the Sangh’s organization is notably diffuse. Traditionally upper castes supported the Sangh Parivar, although those dynamics have shifted in recent years. Numerous groups based in the United States, both generally and on college campuses, are considered part of the Sangh Parivar.
Savarna
This term refers to those who have the privilege of “varna” or a caste and class position as opposed to “avarna” or those without a caste designation (e.g., Dalit-Bahujan, Adivasi). Due to long-term, structural caste-based prejudices, savarna communities maintain explicit and implicit advantages over avarna groups both in India and among the diaspora. Savarna groups are heavily overrepresented in the US-based diaspora.
Secular
While the term “secular” often connotes a separation of church and state in the Euro-centric context, in South Asia, it has multiple valences. Scholars have argued that “secularism” in the region does not necessitate a strict separation, but rather entails that the state cannot grant privileges to one religious community over another. Recent studies of the secular and secularism have highlighted how it is a modality of power that seeks to manage what is deemed appropriate religion and religious identity, and can often be used to project majoritarian aims.
“Secular” has additional meanings in India, specifically. Constitutionally, the Indian state is “secular,” but scholarship on Muslim and other religious minority communities have underscored how that secularism has been undermined since India’s establishment as a modern nation-state. Additionally, Hindutva groups sometimes project themselves, and even Hinduism, as inherently secular, glossing over the ways in which the secular in India has been mediated through Hindu majoritarianism.
South Asia
South Asia is a geographical region consisting of eight nations: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. The term emerged in scholarly parlance in the 20th century though there is much debate about when it emerged, to what it specifically refers, and who should use it. Scholars and others often use the terms “South Asia” and “South Asian”, as opposed to “India” and “Indian.” “South Asian” is broader and thus more inclusive and accurate in many contexts.
Trads
"Trads" or traditionalists are right-wing Hindu extremists that feel that the BJP and Hindu Right political parties do not go far enough in centering the concerns of Hindus and see violence and misogyny as necessary to combat the threat of Muslims, Christians, Dalits, feminists, and anyone seeking a pluralist society. They refer to Hindu nationalists that they perceive as not violent or misogynistic enough, derogatorily, as "Raytas/Raitas". In 2022, Trad Hindu programmers created two apps using Islamphobic misogynistic slurs (Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai) to auction off and assault Muslim women whose images were featured on these apps without their consent. Despite the outcry, the underground online world of Trads continues to flourish.
Varna
A term referring to a social class within the hierarchical caste system, see caste