If not for Maharashtra and its historic attachment with Shivaji, which Indian state would have been the capital of Hindu nationalism?

If not for Maharashtra and its historic attachment with Shivaji, which Indian state would have been the capital of Hindu nationalism?

Balaji Viswanathan, Political Observer.

If not for Maharashtra, it would be Allahabad that would have been capital. To understand this, let me walk you through a number of variants of Hindu reform movements.

There is the Bengali variant with Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Vivekananda and Tagore - a critical, reform focused Hinduism that was more cosmopolitan. It was more of a social force than a political one. However, these great leaders didn't look to produce a strong political movement centered on that. Thus, modern West Bengal is quite disconnected from that and no longer produces iconic Hindu reformers.

There is the Marathi variant with Gokhale, Tilak, Hedgewar and Savarkar. This is again European inspired, but akin to the rising nationalism in mainland Europe. Unlike the Bengali variant, it had a strong political core and thus this movement had a longer lifespan. It is due to these leaders Maharashtra forms a key part of Hindu nationalism and not due to Sivaji alone.

Then there is the Gujarathi variant with the likes of Gandhi and Patel. It is a more of merchant driven pragmatic Hinduism with the Bengali cosmopolitan elements or Marathi rebel elements. They are classic conservatives - where religion and trade are generously mixed, like it has always been throughout history [without trade world religions would have looked very different].

The fourth variant is the Gangetic plain Hinduism with the likes of Madan Mohan Malviya, Dheendayal Upadhyay etc that was focused on scriptures and symbolism. The cow and Ram politics is the strongest here.

The fifth, small variant is Madrasi [Telugu-Tamil] variant with the likes of Rajaji, Kumaraswami Raja etc. They were conservative Hindus, but unlike the 4 other groups, didn't strive to carve a niche for Hinduism [since most of AP and TN were Hindus]. Since the Hindutva movement was the weakest here in the past, it becomes quite tough for BJP to enter this market. Linguistic nationalism is way stronger than religious nationalism.

The south Indian Hindutva movement was quite weak in the past and Madras type Hinduism is too non-threatening to become a centre for a major Hindu nationalism. Bengali nationalism has also burned out.

That leaves Nagpur/Pune to be contention with Allahabad and Ahmedabad. Gujarathi Hindutva is pragmatic, but that is also its weakness. Despite the rise of Modi, Ahmedabad would struggle to be the Hindutva capital.

That leaves Allahabad - the city of Sangam - to be the rightful capital of Hindu nationalism. Ganges flows there and Gangetic valley is where you have most Indians [when Modi shifted to the Varanasi seat he was acknowledging that power - the one who controls Ganges controls India].

As a sidenote, if you want to understand RSS/BJP, you want to understand these 5 strands of Hinduism. RSS/BJP was not traditionally much into cow/mandir politics as their base in MH was more focused on para-military style nationalism. However, at some point Sarsanghchalak Deoras mixed Marathi style with the Gangetic style, making cow and mandir to the top [I guess, not all of RSS is comfortable with this focus]. Again both these styles often talk about a swadesi anti-corporate ideology that doesn't sit well with the Gujarati style [where business of religion is not different from the religion of business]