What to make of Narendra Modi’s ‘56-inch’ chest

The Hindu nationalist mindset

There has been a change of guard in our Indian neighbourhood. After sixteen elections dominated by the Congress, another party, the Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) is in the driving seat, now. Unlike Congress which professed to be secular, the BJP is avowedly Hindu nationalist. The person who is credited for the stunning BJP victory is Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

There are lots of photographs of Modi doing yoga and there has been a lot of talk of him having a ‘56-inch chest’ (the actual size of his chest as reported in the Times of India is 50-inch). He is a role model for his supporters and they are expected to do regular exercise to become physically strong. Apparently, there is nothing unusual if somebody does physical exercise and possesses a broad chest; however, these attributes have special significance and deeper meanings in Hindu nationalism.

The Hindu nationalists of today are the offspring of the Hindu nationalists of yesterday. There is a wave of Hindu reassertion in today’s India and a somewhat similar Hindu nationalist wave swept through British India post-1857. The Hindu reassertion in colonial India had certain peculiar features which revealed the mindset of the Hindu nationalists.

The thinking minds among the Hindu nationalists felt that the Hindus as a community were deficient in courage and physical vigour that had to be revived by the revival of martial traditions. It was also thought that over time the Hindus had degenerated physically and one way to make them physically strong was to encourage them to fight for a sacred religious cause which was started in the form of the “Cow Protection” societies whereby the members armed themselves with “lathis” (sticks) and learned the art to fight pitched battles against those who desecrated the sanctity of the “Cow Empress.”

The Hindu nationalists of today are the offspring of the Hindu nationalists of yesterday. There is a wave of Hindu reassertion in today’s India and a somewhat similar Hindu nationalist wave swept through British India post-1857

Historically, Hinduism has been rich in martial traditions in the form of the legendary battles and wars fought in the classical Hindu scriptures and mythical epics, however, that martial spirit had atrophied particularly after the British had pacified the subcontinent and the opportunities of recruitment in the military had become limited for the Hindu population owing to the British policy of selecting recruits from the so-called martial races such as the Punjabis, Pathans, etc.

In addition to the wielding of ‘lathis,’ the Hindus were also encouraged to join ‘akharas’ (gymnasia) to practice wrestling and to learn to march in paramilitary formations in the Hindu religious festivals, the latter practice being the brainchild of Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak and initiated in the Ganpati melas that were accompanied by loud music and dance outside the mosques resulting in Hindu-Muslim clashes. This idea of regenerating the physical vitality particularly attracted the Hindu youth of the urban and semi-urban areas including the students of the English medium schools.

The Hindu-Muslim riots as a consequence of this Hindu reassertion were condemnable because these resulted in injuries, deaths, desecration of places of worship, destruction of properties, forcible eviction of affected people, causing deep fissures among the communities living together for generations. No sane person in the wildest of imagination could condone such despicable acts of violence but for an England educated Hindu lawyer Pandit Bishan Narayan Dar, who had also served as the president of the Congress in 1911; the Hindu-Muslim riots were good for the Hindus. He had a method in his madness. He argued that the Hindus were looked down upon as cowards and physically weak whereas these riots showed “that the Hindus are not quite such a meek, unmanly, and contemptible race as they have been imagined.” Dar’s pathological logic did not end here. He continued that the Hindus as a community were a divided house, divided by castes, sub-castes, ‘jatis’, etc and they required a glue to bind them together. This glue could be furnished by the communal riots because the violence would lead to persecution of Hindus and the persecution would generate a spirit of resistance and resilience as well as a sense of unity among the otherwise heterogeneous Hindus. Thus, while on one hand, the Hindu nationalists accused the British of tearing “the great fabric of Hindu and Mohomedan union” through the devilish policy of divide and rule by orchestrating communal violence; on the other hand they welcomed this policy as it provided a spur to unite the Hindus against the Muslims and the British.

Pandit Bishan Dar was not alone in reaching this bizarre conclusion; other prominent Hindu nationalists such as Lala Lajpat Rai also welcomed the communal riots because the Muslims could be presented as Hindus’ foil to overcome Hindus’ “national malady of disunity.” This analysis may look weird yet it served the purpose of Hindu nationalists. At least the birth of two iconic Hindu nationalist leaders, who are held in great esteem even today in India, was the result of the Hindu-Muslim riots. One was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who organised terrorist acts from London and Paris to avenge the deaths of fellow Hindus killed in the 1893 Azamgarh riots. The other was Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, who founded the dreadful Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the aftermath of the communal riots in Nagpur in 1924 and 1925 because he felt that in those riots “the Hindu community generally made a weak and disorganised showing.” It is the same RSS to which the incumbent Indian Premier Narendra Modi belongs to. Now, we may have some idea as to why the Hindu nationalists trumpet about Modi’s proverbial “56-inch” chest because a broad chest in the subcontinental sensibility is a symbol of courage, strength, bravery, etc, and the possessor of a broad chest is expected to stand up and browbeat his opponents. The yoga of today is equivalent to the ‘akharas’ and ‘lathi-wielding’ practices of the yester years reminding the Hindus of their martial traditions and not to shirk from the use of physical force to bulldoze the foe. Such a mindset welcomes violence, takes pride in the use of violent means and knows how to use violent situations to its political advantage. With such a mindset in the neighbourhood, the nights become sleepless and the days become worrisome.

The Hindu-Muslim riots as a consequence of this Hindu reassertion were condemnable because these resulted in injuries, deaths, desecration of places of worship, destruction of properties, forcible eviction of affected people, causing deep fissures among the communities living together for generations