Beyond elections, a reading list to understand the rise of Hindutva and the BJP

In May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi marks 12 years in office. Given the country's median age of 29, roughly half of all Indians – nearly 750 million people – have never known a different national leader as adults. Although the Bharatiya Janata Party that he represents had previously been in power, Modi’s landmark 2014 victory gave India its very first experience of a Hindu nationalist majority government.

Three decades after it was reduced to a paltry two seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections and despite the political setback of 2024, the BJP, today, inarguably stands as the pole around which Indian politics is arrayed.

Once described as a North Indian “Hindi belt” party that would find it hard to grow beyond its upper-caste base, the BJP now draws in votes from every corner of the country and supporters from across castes, communities, and even religions.

The underlying ideology that powers the BJP-Hindutva-and the party’s parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is indisputably the most influential socio-political force in the country – and by dint of India’s sheer scale, one of the most important phenomena in global politics.

How did this happen? What turned the BJP and the RSS into social and political behemoths? How did a movement...

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