Hindu Nationalism in Neoliberal India 1980-1992
This proposed research project investigates the relations between the rise of Hindu
Nationalist politics in India and the introduction of the New Economic Policy in the country
from 1980 to 1992 (the opening of the Indian market to globalization). Hindu Nationalism,
otherwise known as Hindutva, has attracted scholarly attention across various disciplines
since the late 1990s, especially since the spectacular electoral success in the 2014 Indian
General Election. However, this specific aspect of the Hindutva story has remained relatively
less well explored. This project seeks to understand and explain the meteoric rise of Hindutva
in Indian society and thereby introduce an original analysis of its political economy.
