A nation must think before it acts.
Senior Fellow Sumit Ganguly Cited by ASPI on Nationalism in India
Australian Strategic Policy Unit
The party’s ‘Hindutva’ ideology envisages India as an exclusively Hindu domain, with a narrow interpretation of what Hinduism represents and requires. A recent article by Sumit Ganguly and Raja Menon in The National Interest provides an excellent overview of the sentiment within the BJP and the broader ideological movement, and how it is manifesting itself within Indian society. The piece should be essential reading for Australian policymakers dealing with India.
The current government is the second the BJP has formed (it only gained significant electoral traction in the 1990s—in a worrying manner). It is the first to be able to hold power in the Lok Sabha (lower house) without regional allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and confidence supplied by other parties (as was the case in the first BJP government between 1998 and 2004).