AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 35, No.3, pp. 3030–3033. ISSN 1048–4876, eISSN 1556–486X. © 2008 by the American Anthropological Association.

Reprint information can be found at https://caesar.sheridan.com/reprints/redir.php?pub=10089&acro=AMET.

Religious Division and Social Conflict: The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in Rural India. Peggy Froerer. New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2007.

SUMANT BADAMIMacquarie University

Dealing with the relationship between the Oran Christians and the Ratiya Kanwar of

“Mohanpur,” Religious Division and Social Conflict is a meticulously constructed account of the

process by which Hindu nationalism is introduced to a rural Adivasi (indigenous) community in

Chhattisgarh, Central India. Documenting the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

(RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization, we are given a comprehensive depiction of the

manner in which local conflicts over land, health care, and political leadership are transformed

into broader Hindu–Christian religious divisions. Addressing a current void in ethnography,

Froerer’s specific account of the emergence of Hindu nationalism, outside of the growing urban

middle class, draws us into a direct connection with the rural experience of the postcolonial

struggle for legitimacy and the distribution of resources and power.

Beginning with an incident whereby a number of Catholic fathers are detained and

intimidated by a group of young Hindu men, this book immediately asserts its concern for the

lives of local people and the way in which they are affected by rising tensions between Christians

and Hindus. Froerer continues to illustrate a number of significant events in this manner and, in

doing so, slowly reveals the wider importance and precise implications of bringing an explicitly

ethnographic engagement to the discourse on the emergence of Hindu nationalism in rural India.

This book is primarily concerned with the social relationship between the Ratiya Kanwar

and the Orans, and the way in which these identities and local traditions have been appropriated

and transformed by the RSS and the Church. In an attempt to capitalize on the 8.2 percent of

Adivasis, who comprise a viable and potent political demographic, primordialist claims about

their “true identity as Hindus” have been used by the RSS to reintegrate Adivasis into the Hindu

mainstream. These claims have resulted in the formation of programs for the “reeducation” of

local “backward” Adivasis, which act as conduits through which the rhetoric of Hindu nation

building can be transferred. With marginal success, however, and the need to counteract minority

Christian cultures that have taken away Adivasis form the Hindu fold, local support has been

augmented by implementing strategies of “emulation” and “stigmatization” (Jaffrelot 1996, in

Froerer 2007:22, 23, 145, 179, 264) On the one hand, the RSS have endeared themselves to the

local community through a sustained engagement in civic rights, based on the model of the

Christian missionaries as an alternative welfare system. A process made easier by the failure of

the state to provide such entitlements. On the other hand, RSS activists, using a process that

Tambiah (1996, in Froerer 2007:17, 20, 182, 193, 219, 221, 253, 254, 262) calls “focalization”

and “transvaluation,” would strip local grievances of their contextual particulars and then distort

and attach them to broader communal issues of national or ethnic interest. This provided a

convenient platform from which to position Christian identity and practices as the “threatening

other,” a defining feature of the “one-nation, one culture” agenda of the Hindutva movement. In

doing so, the RSS were drawn into a mimetic relationship with the church, a mimesis that

paradoxically served as a “function of its relation of opposition” (p. 264).

The communalization of local grievances and the promotion of the church as the

“threatening other” was carried out by the instrumentalist involvement of “self-interested,

powerful (usually elite) outsiders … who are ‘disproportionately important’ in the local context”

(pp. 23–24). By first endearing themselves to local communities, and then maintaining sustained

contact, RSS “conversion specialists” were able to gain an intimate knowledge of the local

incidents and minor disputes that would facilitate the process of focalization and transvaluation.

This process has been compounded by the church’s own civilizing mission to transform

“backward” Oran Adivasis into “proper” Christians, a process that has improved the lower-caste

Oran’s material status, and, thus, had the greatest impact on their relationship with the higher-

caste Ratiya Kanwar Hindus. Centered around a number of key events that serve to highlight the

RSS strategies of emulation and stigmatization, we are given an extremely detailed account of a

number of local practices that draw the attention of the RSS and the church’s respective

“civilizing missions.” This is closely followed by an examination of two specific strategies of

civic engagement, including the RSS installation of a biomedical treatment alternative, and their

assistance with countering local corruption. The book culminates in a portrayal of the way in

which local land tensions, disputes over liquor production, and the increasing wealth of the Oran

community have been utilized by the RSS to facilitate the implementation of its more aggressive

strategies and propagate its Hindu nationalist agenda.

Religious Division and Social Conflict persuasively initiates a critical analysis of RSS

strategies, and situates them as a paradoxically mimetic response to the historical practices and

contemporary presence of the church. By highlighting the way in which the Christian “civilizing

mission” was used as a powerful tool to legitimize 19th-century colonial rule, and connecting the

presence of Hindu nationalism in the local context to its broader discourses, the author makes a

valuable contribution that reveals the contradictions inherent in strategies used by the RSS that

conceal the more aggressive agenda underpinning the Hindu nationalist movement as a whole.

Froerer presents us with an extremely well constructed and clear, if occasionally

repetitive, narrative. Emphasis is placed on social organization and economics over purely

symbolic or literary analysis. Told from this perspective, however, her account of agency tends

to leave out the Orans and Ratiya Kanwar, attributing power and influence almost entirely to the

RSS and the Church. Having said that, significant events are meticulously “unpacked” so as to

create an intimate connection between the reader and the specific context. Thick descriptions and

a comprehensive engagement with key elements of life in Mohanpur facilitate a very clear and

involved understanding of the web of interconnectedness that informs the process by which RSS

activists manipulated local tensions into communal conflicts. Her thoughtful analysis comes as a

timely response to the lack of detailed ethnography, from contemporary scholarship, on the rise

of Hindu nationalism in specifically rural Adivasi communities.

References cited

Jaffelrot, C.

1996 The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s. London:

Hurst and Co.

Tambiah, S.

1996 Leveling Crowds: Ethno-Nationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South

Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.