The Hindu consciousness found its principal expression in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the empire of Shivaji and later in Maratha confederation.
This has been contested by non-brahmin scholars who have argued how such conceptualisation furthers the process of Hindutva organisations, of appropriating Shivaji as a Hindu king . In 1720, the Brahmins took over the latter kingdom . These two political institutions were formed in the precolonial period against the Mughal Empire. However, as argued by Lele (1980), they do not represent a nationalist construction, as nationalism developed later. This conquest was never represented as a religious or communal conflict. However, except for spurts of violence at some places, communal conflict was virtually absent for a longtime. It began to occur on a large scale in the 1920s.
The British takeover of power in Western India marked a disruption in the structure of the social and political relations established during the Peshwa Rule. This created new patterns in social relations, which need to be explored. Under the colonial rule, brahmins in Maharashtra augmented their hold, continuing from precolonial Peshwa times, on new professions and education thus securing their monopoly over administrative posts.
However, from the 1860s they were confronted by an upsurge by the Mower caste’, who had found some space in the lower echelons of administration, education and entrepreneurial activities. The new Hindu middle class that emerged under the colonial rule was grounded in the power that the ‘upper caste’ derived from land, service and privileges. It felt threatened by the upsurge in the demand for tenancy rights and the emergence of self-help movements by ‘low caste’ peasants against ritual degradation. In addition to this, the liberal reforms during the colonial period challenged the ‘upper caste’ patriarchal absolutism.
The process of construction of Hindu nationalism as an ideology started in 1870s. It was derived from socio-religious movements initiated by ‘upper caste’ Hindus. The establishment o f the Arya Samaj and its expansion in Punjab from the 1870s onward, was in reaction to the Brahmo, Christian and Muslim proselytisation and grip of the missionaries over the educational institutions. Thus the primary aim of such an organization was to maintain the basic elements of the traditional social and cultural order of the Hindus and still offer a modernised existence by adoption of some Western ideas and liberal reforms in the case of women’s education, caste and gender reforms.
A new community of people undertook these reforms. They claimed to be the most authentic source of Hindu traditions and denied the claims of other communities to truth and power. Overtime, the claim of Hindu supremacy sharpened and prevailed over the impulse toward inner reform. ‘Lower castes’ were the main contestants in this battle for power by the Hindus. According to Sarkar (2001), this emerged as the absent cause, the salient invisible principle that structured communal stereotypes, anxieties and discourses. The possibility of ‘untouchables’ forming separate group would affect the claim of Hindus of being the numerical majority. Hindu nationalist glorification of the Vama System must also be interpreted in the context of Hindus trying to establish their claim of being a majority community. In the wake of the anti-caste movement under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar, attempts were made by the ‘upper caste’ revivalists to promote hierarchical but prestigious social models such as the vama system. This has also led to the development of an explanatory system that held Muslims responsible for the ills in Hindu society rather than the practices within Hinduism.
Consequently, one of the declared objectives of the Hindu Sangathan movement was the integration of ‘untouchables’ and the marginalised groups into Hindu society with the aim to prevent their conversion.
Excerpt from Hinduvta Rising by Achin Vanaik