Negotiating Multiculturalism: Religion and the Organisation of Hindu Identity in Contemporary Britain

Abstract

This paper examines the intersections of religious with ethnic and racial discourses in contemporary British politics, and asks how this process has affected the projection of minority identities in Britain. In particular, it looks at the development of Hindu identity through the emergence of national-level Hindu organisations, examining them in the framework of an analysis of developing multiculturalism and the articulation of religion as a legitimate facet of the public space. The paper argues that religion has emerged in a number of ways in recent years, and tries to understand Hindu organisations in relation to these varied articulations. Drawing comparisons with the political representation of Hindus and others in colonial India, the paper goes on to argue that the dominant discursive formation through which religion is legitimated as a facet of contemporary politics invokes an ‘organisational landscape’ which mediates and contains the potential of religious identifications in modern Britain.