Jyotirmaya Sharma’s Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism

Abstract

In 2003 Jyotirmaya Sharma first published Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism. He intended to trace a genealogy of Hindu identity and to analyse the idea that Hindu nationalism and Hindu identity in India can become indistinguishable. Hindutva is predicated on an assumed consensus about what constitutes Hindu identity and differentiates it from the ways of life and values of “others,” especially Muslims. The reviews on Sharma’s book coincided in pointing out his shortened but rigorous exploration of Hindu nationalism in the recent past, but also the fact that the book had obvious flaws.