Hindutva Decolonization: From Inverted Discourse to Practice

This article examines how Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) political actors in India have strategically co-opted the language of decolonization to advance a majoritarian ethno-religious agenda—one that, paradoxically, reproduces the exclusionary dynamics that postcolonial theory was originally developed to critique. The article identifies three core rhetorical vectors: a “double colonialism” thesis that frames Muslim rule as equivalent to British colonialism; curriculum reform that erases Muslim contributions to Indian history while privileging a mythologized Hindu past; and the reframing of caste discrimination as itself a colonial invention, undermining the legitimacy of affirmative action. Beyond rhetoric, the article traces how decolonization has been operationalized as state policy—through legal reform, changes in the military, urban renaming, and education reforms—to systematically Hinduize public institutions. This article further argues that this recent semantic appropriation of decolonial vocabulary is deployed to legitimize the implementation of old Hindu nationalist ideas.