Vishwa Hindu Parishad Research Articles

ВИШВА ХИНДУ ПАРИШАД: ИСТОРИЯ НА ЭКСПОРТ

Индийская диаспора является одной из крупнейших и влиятельных в мире, её численность превышает 30 млн чел. Индийцы в настоящее время расселены во множестве стран мира, их миграции способствовала сначала колониальная политика британцев, затем — изменение экономической ситуации в мире. Поэтому она имеет особое значение для современной Индии не только в контексте внешней политики страны как составляющая «мягкой силы», но и в плане распространения индийских традиций и ценностей, в т.ч. сведений об историческом прошлом страны. В настоящее время господствующее положение занимают последователи идеологии хиндутвы, соединённые в единую сеть организаций — Сангх паривар, где вопросом защиты и распространения традиций и ценностей индийцев занимается Вишва хинду паришад (ВХП). В статье показано, как сформировалась историческая концепция хиндутвы, какова роль в этом процессе у Вишва хинду паришад, какие методы используются для распространения концепции в странах с крупными индийскими диаспорами, в первую очередь на Западе, и как с процессом экспорта данной концепции связаны индологи-сторонники идеологии индусского национализма. The Indian diaspora is one of the largest and most influential in the world with more than 30 million people. Indians are currently settled in many countries around the world; their migration was facilitated first by the colonial policy of the British, then by changes in the economic situation in the world. Therefore, it plays a special significance for modern India, not only in the context of the country’s foreign policy as a component of “soft power”, but also in terms of disseminating Indian traditions and values, including information about the country’s historical past. At present, the dominant position is occupied by followers of the Hindutva ideology, united in a single network of organizations of its supporters, which is the Sangh Parivar, where the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) is engaged in the protection and dissemination of the traditions and values of Indians. The article indicates how the historical concept of Hindutva was formed, what is the role of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in this process, what methods are used to spread the concept outside of India in countries with large Indian diasporas, primarily in the West, and how Indologists who support the ideology of Hindu nationalism are connected with the process of exporting this concept.

Hindu-Right Activism in Pandemic: Exploring the Role of Durga Vahini in Covid-19

Women’s activism in the Hindu right has gone through communication and mobilisation shifts in the context of Covid-19. The article traces how the hierarchy and coordination within the Durga Vahini—the women’s wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad facilitate the propagation of two primary goals 1 of seva, and sanskar in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Through semi-structured interviews with the representatives of the organisation, the article focuses on understanding mobilisation strategies like e- satsangs, accommodation of marginalised groups through the distribution of raw food resources, and manipulation of mythological narratives for the recruitment of young girls to propagate Hindu nationalism. The core argument of the article is focused on understanding these mobilisation tactics and changing nature seva in the times of pandemic.

ОСНОВНЫЕ НАПРАВЛЕНИЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ИНДУССКИХ НАЦИОНАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЙ ЗА ПРЕДЕЛАМИ ИНДИИ

In modern India, the Hindutva ideology, which many researchers call the Hindu nationalism, occupies a leading position. It is actively promoted by such organizations as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power since 2014, not only within India, but also abroad, primarily in countries with a large-size Indian diaspora. The involvement of diaspora plays a crucial role in the consolidation of Indian society along religious lines, which is emphasized by these organizations. The work of spreading of the Hindutva is complex, and this will be discussed in this article. The main attention is paid to the activities and activities of Hindu nationalist organizations abroad, the main reasons for their work being to consolidate the Indian diaspora and involve it in their ideology. The purpose of the article is to show the level of activity of these organizations outside the territory of India and their methods of work abroad. The study used materials from the official websites of these organizations and their foreign branches, as well as allied organizations that are not involved in political activities. They are the main sources of research. Some of these organizations have not yet been studied in Russian historiography. Studying the activities of organizations that promote Hindutva outside of India allows one to gain a deeper understanding of the ideology of Hindu nationalism, the methods of its spreading and the reasons for strengthening its political positions.

Decoloniality and cultural representations in Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her

ABSTRACT This study is an investigation of juxtaposed ideological paradigms represented in Nisha Pahuja’s documentary The World Before Her. Examining the correlations between Western and colonial cultural influences and the felt need for going back to ‘home’/roots, the documentary allows the analysis of cultural dichotomies and complexly situated voices. Through decolonial and feminist critical lens and the Hindutva ideology, there is a representation of polarised categories through tacit comparative frameworks in the documentary. The representation of contrasting images of tradition versus modernity epitomised through the portrayal of the Miss World contest organised in Bengaluru, India, in 1996, and the protests against the propagation of Westernization by the Durga Vahinis – the women’s wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad – highlight the quandary that characterises the notion of nationalism. The Durga Vahinis’ ideals symbolise female identity and Hindu traditions as non-negotiable in the wake of the perception of women’s progress. Through narrative and conceptual analysis, this study centralises the idea of decoloniality versus the broad system of modernity discourses as being prominent trajectories affecting the lives of Hindu women.

From Extremism to Terrorism: Threat Implications of Saffron Terrorism for South Asia

The Indian Sub-Continent had two majority religions practiced known as Islam and Hindu, for this the two major ethnicities (Muslims and Hindu’s) got independence in the year 1947. The Muslim state that was formed is known as Pakistan and the Hindu state that was formed is called India. Mahatma Gandhi declared that India would be a secular state where all religions will be allowed to practice. However, Rashtriya Swamyamsevak Sangh (RSS) was formed in the year 1925 where the main aim of the party was to have one identity known as Hindu and followed the ideology of Hindutva, It was impossible as India had many different ethnicities in the state, for this the party formed its political (Bhartiya Janata Party) and social wings (Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena etc). Since 2001 Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) came in power in Gujrat under Narendra Modi the social wing (VHP) started to target Muslim Mosques and even used communal violence as a tool to exploit Muslims due to which Gujrat was known as an Experimental lab where Muslims were targeted economic and socially. The brutality didn’t stop as Bhartiya Janata party under Narendra Modi used religion to gain votes and in 2014. However, the extremist ideology became an organized terrorism when Narendra Modi was elected as a Prime Minister of India since then under the ideology of Hindutva. Hindutva is not restricted to India only it has started to become a huge threat for different states in South Asian

Rani Gaidinliu: The Iconic Woman of Northeast India

This article attempts to analyse why Rani Gaidinliu, who was a freedom fighter and social and religious reformer, was keen to preserve the identity and culture of her cognate tribe1—the Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmai/Kabui and Npui. Does Heraka—a socio-religious movement started by Haipou Jadonang and later developed by the Rani—become a tool of ‘cultural revivalism’ and act as a means to unite cognate tribes? Why do we juxtapose Heraka with the Hindutva ideologues such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that position Rani Gaidinliu in a new spirit of nationalism and identity as the lone woman spiritual and political protagonist of Northeast India? She used Heraka with politics to fulfil her goals in fighting the British. Using the interview method, I spoke to selected respondents, particularly elders and community leaders, about Rani Gaidinliu. Her story illustrates a rationality that could encourage marginalised and invisible women to become sociopolitical and spiritual leaders, questioning patriarchy and bringing about empowerment and social inclusion.

Women, Muscular Nationalism and Hinduism in India: Roop Kanwar and the Fire Protests

This article unpacks the manner in which women/womanhood circulates within an uniquely Hindu interpretation of a particular gendered vision of nation that I term ‘muscular nationalism’. Muscular nationalism centres the values of martial prowess, physical strength, moral fortitude and the readiness to go to battle against groups defined as enemies of the nation. Further, these values are most frequently expressed by a male body. The relationship between women/womanhood and muscular nationalism is dynamic. This nation as woman can take multiple forms; it can be imagined as powerful mother or vulnerable virgin or warrior goddess. Whether mother or virgin or goddess, chastity and purity are important components of this imagination and nation as woman impacts real women’s lives through ideas of honour. In muscular nationalism this focus on the purity and chastity of female bodies stems from their role as border guards. By border guards I mean the notion that the boundaries separating ‘we the people’ from ‘them’ are represented by chaste women’s bodies. Put another way, this line of thinking argues that our women are chaste and pure, yours are not. This is the difference that separates our nation from yours. Women’s role as border guards requires that their purity be vigilantly guarded. The story of women/womanhood in Hindutva or Hindu muscular nationalism which unfolds in this essay is rooted in the assumptions described above. By drawing on interviews with women in the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Sevika Samiti – with reference to women’s involvement in the Bharatiya Janata Party, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Shiv Sena – this paper contextualizes the role of women in Hindutva. Then it goes on to unpack the 1987 immolation of Roop Kanwar as well as cultural protests against Deepa Mehta’s film Fire to illustrate the contested location of female bodies in this ideology. This analysis indicates that many women are certainly politically active in Hindu muscular nationalism; however, the vision of femininity driving the discourse around Roop Kanwar and the resistance against Fire reveals the limitations of an activism embedded in a context of a rigid expectation of female chastity and virtue.

Situating Hindu nationalism in the UK: Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the development of British Hindu identity

This paper assesses the role of Hindu nationalism in the development of Hindu identity in Britain. Some accounts argue that the authoritarian network of Hindu nationalist organisations apparent in India is reproduced in diaspora contexts, especially in the west. The paper argues that this degree of organisational intentionality is not always borne out by evidence in the UK. Although Hindu nationalist organisations have achieved some success in establishing their presence, in national arenas they frequently give way to umbrella organisations such as the Hindu Forum of Britain (HFB) and the Hindu Council UK (HCUK). The paper argues that Hindu nationalist organisations nevertheless operate vigorously in multilocal contexts, fuelling a ‘Hindutva effect’ which has a broader ideological influence. The paper examines some of the positions taken by the HFB and HCUK to demonstrate how this influence is played out in national arenas, before reflecting more broadly on the implications of these dynamics for the development of diaspora identities.

THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF FACTIONALISM AMONG HINDU NATIONALISTS IN DENMARK

The experience of international migration is generally found to turn migrants into culturally hybrid communities. Yet, migrant communities often hold on to their religious moorings even as they relocate. From the 1970s onwards, the emerging leadership of Hindu settlers in Denmark consciously tried to transfer with them what they saw to be key aspects of Hinduism as they migrated to Denmark. In 1985, Hindus organized a major conference to position the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) as the umbrella organization for Hinduism in Denmark. Later on they established a Temple of Indians called Bharatiya Mandir to provide a place of worship for local Hindus. The philosophy behind the temple conformed to the nondenominational Hindu nationalist vision of Hindus as a unified community. This article, which contrasts the aim of Hindu nationalism with the on-the-ground realities of Hindu mobilization in Denmark, reveals that two major factions spearheaded Hindu nationalist endeavors in Denmark from the 1980s until 2006. The two factions successfully launched several projects, and even collaborated in their execution, but the initiatives were beset with rivalries that hampered the communal unity they had set out to achieve. The authors analyze this factional rivalry as an expression of Indian political culture, arguing that tensions among Hindu activists in Denmark is an instance of the political factionalism prevalent in the Indian subcontinent. The unintended emergence of such factionalism represents the successful transfer of a core element of Indian political culture to a new locale through Hindu nationalist politics. The authors base their argument on field observations since the 1980s, recent interviews with key religious players, and more than two hundred pages of written materials that offer a rare entry point to the study of Hindu nationalism ex situ.

Islam, science, and free and open inquiry

In his article, Pervez Hoodbhoy referred to “extreme Hindu groups such as Vishnu Hindu Parishad, which has called for ethnic cleansing of Christians and Muslims.” He obviously meant the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, one of the largest Hindu organizations in India, with branches in many countries, including the US. The allegation of calls for “ethnic cleansing” is extreme; no authority of the VHP has made derogatory statements toward Muslims or Christians. No one can produce a pamphlet, speech, or statement made by VHP authorities that speaks of eliminating Muslims and Christians. It is irresponsible to publish such a vicious accusation without checking the facts.© 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Normalizing Violence: Transitional Justice and the Gujarat Riots

How does it feel to be Indian Muslim? To be constantly tom by rabid elements that your real home is across border? (1) In February and March of 2001, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP--World Hindu Council), a religious-based organization set up to mobilize the Hindu masses, sounded drum roll of Ram Mandir (Ram Temple) movement. The primary objective of movement is to construct a temple on very spot in Ayodhya where mobs of Hindu Right tore apart a sixteenth century mosque with their bare hands in December 1992. The VHP declared that mosque stood precisely on spot where God was born and determined to carry out its objective of constructing temple in pursuit of broader mission of Hindu Right, establishment of a Hindu state for a nation consisting primarily of Hindus. (2) In preparation for event, their foot soldiers visited site of now cordoned off area to pay respects and prepare for bhumipuja (grand prayer). While some of these participants were returning from site by train, allegedly shouting god chants, (hail 'ram rajya'--Hail to Rule of Lord Ram) and anti-Muslim slogans (Muslims Bharat chodo!--Muslims leave India!), their bogey was purportedly set alight by mobs of Muslims as train moved through Godhra station in Gujarat. (3) The carnage that followed left fifty-eight Hindus dead. This event ignited second catastrophic event--the slaughter of over two thousand Muslims throughout state of Gujarat both within sight of state's law enforcement officers, who simply stood by as witnesses to massacre, and, in some cases, with active support of state officials. (4) Dev, a Bollywood film directed by reputed filmmaker Govind Nihalani, depicts isolation of Indian Muslim in post-Gujarat scenario where even secularists turned partisan, rendering country's law and order machinery into a force capable of most horrifying violence. At center of power game are two police officers--Dev Pratap Singh, (Amitabh Bachchan) and Tejinder Khosla (Om Puri). Although film is located in Bombay, it serves as a metaphor for what happened in Gujarat riots in 2002. Dev, Joint Commissioner of Police, is a proud and seasoned police officer representing liberal subject with complete faith in supremacy of law. Dev is conscience of film, and has a tough time comprehending real politics behind riots. He is initially simply disgusted, and refuses to see how majoritarianism of Hindus has turned into a process of gradual disentitlement and marginalisation of Muslims. His neutral stance and fence-sitting political ideology persists throughout film, until he is attacked by a young Muslim, Farhan (Fardeen Khan), an unemployed law graduate who holds Dev responsible for his father's death. Farhan's father, Ali Saheb, was accidentally shot and killed by police during a march protesting police injustices against Muslim community. Ali Saheb infused Farhan with ideas of patriotism, non-violence, and faith in democratic process and rule of law, which are very same liberal values to which Dev subscribes, but violent death of his father leaves Farhan emotionally orphaned and disillusioned. He chooses path of violence and joins forces with a corrupt and ambitious politician, Lati, with intent to kill Dev. Unlike Dev, who goes through a process of gradual realization of enormity of politics behind isolation of minorities in India, Tejinder represents a one-dimensional, almost villainous communalization. He is a boorish communal cop who throws shocking lines into film's narrative. They're all terrorists, claims Tejinder, who lives by his communal convictions until very end, including at moment of his suicide. (5) The untangling of complex ideological tension between films main protagonists is set against a subtext--Bollywood's mandatory romantic interlude. …

The Mythology of Female Sexuality: Alternative Narratives of Belonging

The concept of duty is overrated (Fire) The swamiji's testicles have grown too big for his loincloth (Fire) It's a dyke thing (Junky Punky Girlz) Eswar Allah tero Naam (Junky Punky Girlz) Before ex...

Rethinking Institutional Theories of Political Moderation: The Case of Hindu Nationalism in India, 1996-2004

In March 1998, following India's twelfth general election, a coalition of sixteen parties led by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a majority of seats in Lok Sabha, lower house of parliament, and formed a national government in New Delhi. For many observers, it marked a crucial turning point in modem Indian pol itics. The BJP, as front party of sangh parivar a family of militant Hindu organi zations led by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Corps), escaped its erstwhile political isolation by convincing a number of smaller secular par ties to join its ranks. In exchange, BJP shelved most contentious aspects of its agenda. Chief among them was campaign, spearheaded by its sister organization, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council), since mid 1980s, to build a temple for Hindu god Ram in town of Ayodhya in northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The Ramjanmabhoomi campaign had led to demolition of Babri mosque, which allegedly stood on birthplace of Ram, on December 6, 1992, unleashing worst communal riots in India since partition in 1947.1 The events in Ayodhya and their aftermath convinced most secular parties to renounce electoral alliances with BJP. The BJP agreed prior to 1998 election, however, to remove Ram temple issue from its official policy platform. It also set aside other controver sial proposals such as adoption of a union civil code, which would nullify spe cial judicial arrangements regarding personal family laws governing various minority groups, and abrogation of Article 370 of constitution, which gave disputed Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir special asymmetric rights in union. As a result of these gestures, many commentators portrayed the politics of social exclusion that BJP has carried forward to new extremes [as] self-limiting in domain of representative democracy.'2 In general terms, two versions of self-limiting thesis underwrote these confident expectations. The first, more general version was that BJP as a party would respect rule of law due to general exigencies of democratic electoral politics. Committing excessive violence towards minority groups would harm its prospects at polls.3 The second, more particular version claimed that it would have to moderate its policies due to the compulsions of coalition politics.4 The inability of any single party to capture a parliamentary majority on its own after 1989 forced larger parties, such as

Rituals between religion and politics: the case of VHP’s 2001-2002 Ayodhya-campaign

The present paper deals with rituals in a political discourse, namely the rituals employed by the right wing, Hindu nationalist movement, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), in its campaign for a Rama temple in the north Indian town of Ayodhya. As is probably well-known, VHP is part of a group of organizations known as the Sangh Parivar, or sangh family, which also includes the presently ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the ultranationalistic organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. The rituals of VHP are instruments of the construction of an ideal Hindu society and part of an encounter between Hindu-nationalist tenets and the secular, political establishment. However, the rituals employed by VHP can not be said to represent a separate ritual genre, since they are not different from similar, traditional Hindu rituals. What makes them different is their context and their motives, the fact that they do not serve ordinary material, eschatological, or soteriological aims, but rather political aims, as well as the fact that the ritual agents in this case do not seem to have a satisfactory juridical legitimacy to perform the rituals.

The Death of Sanskrit

In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People's Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideological auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India's past. Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the dominant culture language of precolonial southern Asia outside the Persianate order. Hindutva propagandists have sought to show, for example, that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, and they purport to decipher Indus Valley seals to prove its presence two millennia before it actually came into existence. In a farcical repetition of Romantic myths of primevality, Sanskrit is considered—according to the characteristic hyperbole of the VHP—the source and sole preserver of world culture. The state's anxiety both about Sanskrit's role in shaping the historical identity of the Hindu nation and about its contemporary vitality has manifested itself in substantial new funding for Sanskrit education, and in the declaration of 1999–2000 as the “Year of Sanskrit,” with plans for conversation camps, debate and essay competitions, drama festivals, and the like.The VHP assessment is cited in Bhattacharji 1990; see also Goldman 1996 and Ramaswamy 1999. A recent review of Hindutva fantasy (and fraud) about indigenous Sanskrit is found in Witzel and Farmer 2000. The “Year of Sanskrit” runs for “Yugābda 5101,” the year of the Kaliyuga dating system now apparently in use by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (“Times of India,” Bombay ed., December 10, 1999).

The public face of Hindu nationalism

This article maps some of the salient ways in which the tenets of Hindu nationalism are being disseminated and made acceptable within British politics and within the core of social living among various communities in Britain. It examines specific institutional sites through which a politicized Hindutva community is forged: the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (UK), the vernacular press, and the Swaminarayan temple in north London. It argues that the “familiar-familial” space occupied by religious preachers draws large numbers of believers into the Hindutva fold. The article demonstrates the role of the vernacular press in constructing an articulate political community in Britain which silences criticisms of Hindu nationalist aggression in India. It draws out the connections between violence against religious minorities in India with the assertion of a global Hindu pride, and argues that the latter is founded upon a curious anti-racist and anti-imperialist discourse. It concludes that the intellectual project of the Hindu right is to shift the basis of ethical judgements, insert the trope of “Hindu hurt” within British politics and reconfigure the nature of political identities.

Transnational networks and Hindu nationalism

Contemporary Hindu nationalism articulates a genteel multiculturalist presence in the United States that is at odds with militant Hindu supremacism in India. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of America trumpets Hindu culture as both a contribution to America's multiculturalist experiment and as an example of successful multiculturalism in itself. Indian immigrants who support VHP in the United States think of the largely urban lower-class membership of the VHP in India as a reservoir of Hindu nationalist sentiment—one that legitimizes their identities. But the differences between the members of the two branches of VHP can be enormous. Indian immigrants' assertions of Indian/Hindu identity cannot be dissociated from their negotiation of the experience of racial marginalization in the United States. They may substitute religion for race, but regional and national loyalties are still salient. The politics they espouse centers on concerns that are U.S.-focused even when they look approvingly on Hindu militant activities in their homeland. Second-generation Indian immigrants may assume the political attitudes of the first generation, but they also seek a culturally congenial way of asserting their identities without reference to race. Finally, this article shows that there is a much wider spectrum of people in India, who in spite of their nationalist, anti-U.S. political beliefs, are likely to sense affirmation of their politics in the international support and financial assistance they receive from the members of VHP of America and from other Indians living abroad.Nine months after the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India, in December 1992, a conference was held in Washington, D.C., sponsored by VHP of America, the U.S. branch of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Assembly). Despite the fact that VHP (India) had been banned by the Indian governmentt for its role in the destruction of Babri Masjid and in the riots that followed, several VHP leaders were allowed to attend the 1993 conference under the pretext that “Global Vision 2000” was purely a cultural event, marking the centenary anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's 1893 address to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

The Nizam Between Mughals and British: Hyderabad Under Salar Jang I. By Vasant Kumar Bawa. New Delhi: S. Chand and Co., 1986. xxiv, 264 pp. Rs. 120.

BOOK REVIEWS-SOUTH ASIA these suppositions, as the RSS developed first under the leadership of Kesnav Hed- gewar (d. 1940) and then of Madhav Golwakar (d. 1973). Follow.ing independence, the Sangh broadened its institutional structure in order to find methods for inculcating its ideas and values throughout Indian society. It published newspapers and weeklies, including the Organiser in English, the Marathi weekly Shakti, and the Panchjanya in Hindi. New organizations were founded that proved effective allies of the core society. These included a scudenc society, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (1948); an extended labor union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (1955); and an association that sought to unite all Hindu religious leaders, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad ( 1964). The Parishad in turn created a second organization to act as a platform for religious leaders, the Marga Darshan Mandal (1981). The Sangh also founded the Deendayal Research Institute ( 1972), which initially aimed to conduct scholarly study but soon moved into relief efforts. Following the example of the Bharatiya Varanasi Kalyan Ashram, established in 1952, the institute began to work among the tribals of Madhya Pradesh. The discussion of these affiliate organizations brings to life the breadth of the Sangh and provides a comprehensive picture of this organizational complex. With independence and the lifting in 1949 of a ban against the RSS instituted following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the organization faced new oppor- tunities, especially in the political arena. Roughly half the book focuses on the po- litical involvement of the Sangh, first with the Jana Sangh party, then the Janata government, and most recently the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The authors carefully ex- amine the Sangh's interrelations with these political parties and how it is able to exert influence on its political partners. The RSS trained and provided many political workers and thus held considerable power in allied political parties. Yet there remains a sense of ambiguity among Sangh leaders as to just what their political role should be and w. lether overt political action is compatible with their goal of creating a true Hindu society and culture. The authors have skillfully investigated this dilemma. The conclusions and analysis presented in this volume have been built on extensive research from a wide variety of pr.imary sources: reports, articles, newspapers, peri- odicals, and manuscripts in English, Hindi, and Marathi. In addition the authors conducted 307 interviews in the years 1968 to 1985 with people inside the Sangh at all levels, as well as with a number of people outside the organization. They have carefully integrated diverse actions and ideals of the RSS in reference to the core sockty, its affiliate organizations, and the broader sphere of Indian politics. The result of these labors is a comprehensive study that contributes significantly to our knowl- edge and should be read by all scholars and students interested in the convergence in the Indian Republic of religion, culture, and politics. W. JONES Kamas State University KENNETH The Nizam Between M11ghals and British: Hyderabad Under Safar Jang I. V ASANT KUMAR BA WA. 264 pp. Rs. 120. New Delhi: S. Chand and Co., 1986. By xxiv, This book began as V. K. .Bawa's Ph. D. dissertation in 1967. The dissertation has been considerably changed and augmented, and scholars of Hyderabad who have been using it will be glad to see this work published. Bawa's career as an Indian Administrative Service officer placed him as director of the Andhra Pradesh State