Overview

Sadhus in Indian Politics: Dynamics of Hindutva maps the changing face of contemporary Hindu politics, evaluating the influence of sadhus (ascetics) on the course of politics in India. This book explores the anxieties around ascetic engagement with public affairs, understanding politics as janaseva and polities as rajniti, and the authority exercised by these sadhus. It investigates the spirit of ‘individualism’ reflected by the sadhus in the organized and unorganized domains of politics, and traces the dialectics of ‘Hindutva’ reflected through selected case studies, exposing the patterns of how the sadhus got involved in the muddled world of politics. This book also demonstrates the uneasy conflict between the modern Hindu right wing and Hindu traditionalists with their advocacy of Sanatan Dharma. It turns towards sadhus and gurus to explore the ‘Hindu-ness’ of the Hindus and confronts the metanarrative of Hindutva offered by various institutions. 

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Koushiki Dasgupta works as Vidyasagar Chair Professor at the Department of History,  Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. Her most recent publications include Electoral Politics and Hindu Nationalism in India: The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, 1951–1971, (Routledge, London, 2020). She has received the Charles Wallace Research Grant in the United Kingdom and UGC (University Grants Commission) Resource Associateship at IIAS (Indian Institute of Advanced Study), Shimla, and has worked as a Visiting Scholar at SOAS, London. She has extensively published works on different aspects of Bengal politics, gender studies, diaspora studies and post-independence Indian politics and is a regular speaker at national and international conferences. Her interests include writing poetry, singing classical music and playing the guitar.

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