Hindutva in the context of "Demolition of the Babri Masjid"

Sanskritisation is the process of introducing features from Sanskrit, such as vocabulary and grammar, into other languages. It is sometimes associated with the "Hinduisation" of a linguistic community. Many languages throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia were greatly influenced by Sanskrit (or its descendant languages, the Prakrits and modern-day Indo-Aryan languages) historically.

Sanskritisation often stands in opposition to the Persianisation or Englishisation of a language within South Asia, as occurs with the Hindustani language, which in its Sanskritised, Persianised, and English-influenced registers becomes Hindi, Urdu, and Hinglish/Urdish respectively. Support for Sanskritisation in South Asia runs highest among Hindu nationalists.

Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the member of parliament (MP) for Varanasi. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindutva paramilitary volunteer organisation. He is the longest-serving prime minister outside the Indian National Congress.

Modi was born and raised in Vadnagar, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat), where he completed his secondary education. He was introduced to the RSS at the age of eight, becoming a full-time worker for the organisation in Gujarat in 1971. The RSS assigned him to the BJP in 1985, and he rose through the party hierarchy, becoming general secretary in 1998. In 2001, Modi was appointed chief minister of Gujarat and elected to the legislative assembly soon after. His administration is considered complicit in the 2002 Gujarat violence and has been criticised for its management of the crisis. According to official records, a little over 1,000 people were killed, three-quarters of whom were Muslim; independent sources estimated 2,000 deaths, mostly Muslim. A Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India in 2012 found no evidence to initiate prosecution proceedings against him, causing widespread anger and disbelief among the country's Muslim communities. While his policies as chief minister were credited for encouraging economic growth, his administration was criticised for failing to significantly improve health, poverty and education indices in the state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; /bʱaːɾət̪iːjə dʒənət̪aː paːrtiː/ ; lit. 'Indian People's Party') is a conservative political party in India and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Shyama Prasad Mukherjee's Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under the incumbent prime minister Narendra Modi. The BJP is right-wing to far-right on the political spectrum, and it has close ideological and organisational links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right paramilitary organisation. The party's policies adhere to Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist ideology. As of January 2024, it is the country's biggest political party in terms of representation in the parliament as well as state legislatures.

The party's origins lie in the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was founded in 1951 by Indian politician Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, after he left the Hindu Mahasabha to form a party as the political wing of the RSS. After the Emergency of 1975–1977, the Jana Sangh merged with several other political parties to form the Janata Party; it defeated the then-incumbent Indian National Congress in the 1977 general election. After three years in power, the Janata Party dissolved in 1980, with the members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh reconvening to form the modern-day BJP. Although initially unsuccessful—winning only two seats in the 1984 general election, it grew in strength on the back of the Ram Rath Yatra in Uttar Pradesh. Following victories in several state elections and better performances in national elections, the BJP became the largest political party in the Parliament in 1996; however, it lacked a majority in the lower house of Parliament, and its government, under its then-leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, lasted for only 13 days.

The Babri Masjid (ISO: Bābarī Masjida; meaning Mosque of Babur) was a mosque located in Ayodhya, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It was claimed that the mosque was built upon the site of Ram Janmabhoomi, the legendary birthplace of Rama, a principal deity of Hinduism. The Ayodhya dispute has been a disputed focal point between the Hindu and Muslim communities since the 19th century. According to the mosque's inscriptions, it was built in 935 AH (1528/1529CE) by Mir Baqi, a commander of the Mughal emperor Babur. Before the 1940s, the masjid was officially known as "Masjid-i-Janmasthan" ("the mosque of the birthplace"). The mosque was attacked and demolished by a Hindu nationalist mob in 1992, which ignited communal violence across the Indian subcontinent.

The mosque was located on a hill known as Ramkot ("Rama's fort"). According to Hindu nationalists, Baqi destroyed a pre-existing temple of Rama at the site. The existence of this temple is a matter of controversy. The Archaeological Survey of India conducted an excavation of the disputed site on the orders of the Allahabad High Court. The excavation period was short due to court time constraints, lasting only 15 days. The report of the excavation concluded that there were ruins of "a massive structure" beneath the ruins of the mosque which was "indicative of remains which are distinctive features found associated with the temples of north India", but found no evidence that the structure was specifically demolished for the construction of the Babri Masjid. The report received both praise and criticism, with some other archaeologists contesting the results of the report.

Bhirrana, also Bhirdana and Birhana, (IAST: Bhirḍāna) is an archaeological site, located in a small village in the Fatehabad district of the north Indian state of Haryana. Bhirrana's earliest archaeological layers contained two charcoal samples dating to the 8th-7th millennium BCE, predating the Indus Valley civilisation, but occurring in the same levels with Hakra Ware pottery which had been dated to the 4th millennium BCE in other sites of the region, as well as "about half a dozen" other charcoal samples from the early levels of Bhirrana dated 3200-2600 BCE, and smelted copper artefacts indicating a Chalcolithic rather than Neolithic stage of development. The site is one of the many sites seen along the channels of the seasonal Ghaggar river, identified by ASI archeologists to be the Post-IVC, Rigvedic Saraswati river of c. 1500 BCE.

Scholarly interpretation and dating of Bhirrana, as with a number of other archaeological sites of ancient India, has been subject to contestation regarding the methodologies and ideology of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI): many senior officials of the ASI have been "embroiled in controversies" over pseudo-"scientific" efforts to legitimate the Hindutva ideology which identifies the ancient Harappans (incorrectly) with the Vedas and Sanskrit, in order to synthesize the nationalist narrative of Indian civilization as indigenous and continuous since its beginning, allegedly originating from the banks of the Saraswati River (rather than the Indus). A superintending archaeologist of the Bhirrana excavations was quoted as promoting the association of Harappans with the Vedas and the Saraswati river, and questions are being raised about the scientific quality of the excavations. Archaeologist Gregory Possehl—a leading expert of the Indus Valley civilization—expressed reservations "about temporal assertions made on the basis of radiocarbon dates" from Bhirrana.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian poet, writer and statesman who served as the prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 to 1999, followed by a full term from 1999 to 2004. He was the first non-Congress prime minister to serve a full term in the office. Vajpayee was one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was a volunteer and full-time functionary (pracharak) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindutva paramilitary volunteer organisation. He was also a Hindi poet and a writer.The Sangh's emphasis on self-cultivation and disciplined nation-building left a lasting mark on Vajpayee's early worldview. Scholars have observed that Vajpayee combined cultural nationalism with political moderation, shaping a distinctive strand of post-Independence Indian conservatism rooted in civilisational identity. His speeches and poetry are noted for blending political pragmatism with themes drawn from India's cultural and philosophical traditions.

Vajpayee represented a current in Hindu nationalism that sought to harmonise cultural identity with democratic pluralism.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (28 May 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Indian politician and ideologue. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalist political ideology of Hindutva while confined at Ratnagiri in 1922. The prefix "Veer" (meaning 'brave') has been given by himself, when he penned his own biography under the pseudonym Chitragupta. He was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha.

Savarkar began his political activities as a high school student and continued to do so at Fergusson College in Pune. He and his brother founded a secret society called Abhinav Bharat Society. When Savarkar travelled to England for his law studies, he involved himself with organisations such as India House and the Free India Society. He also published books advocating complete Indian independence by revolutionary means. One of the books he published called The Indian War of Independence about the Indian Rebellion of 1857 was banned in British India.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, lit. 'National Volunteer Union' or 'National Volunteer Corps') is an Indian right-wing Hindutva volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of Hindutva organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family"), which has developed a presence in all facets of Indian society and includes the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling political party under Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. Mohan Bhagwat currently serves as the Sarsanghchalak (lit. 'Chief') of the RSS, with Dattatreya Hosabale serving as the Sarkaryavah (lit. 'General Secretary').

Founded on 27 September 1925, the initial impetus of the organisation was to provide character training and instil "Hindu discipline" in order to unite the Hindu community and establish a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation). The organisation aims to spread the ideology of Hindutva to "strengthen" the Hindu community and promotes an ideal of upholding an Indian culture and its "civilisational values". On the other hand, the RSS has been described as being "founded on the premise of Hindu supremacy". The RSS has been accused of an intolerance of minorities, particularly Muslims.

Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (6 July 1901 – 23 June 1953) was an Indian barrister, educationalist, politician, Hindutva activist, and a minister in the state and national governments, appointed by Nehru the first Prime Minister of India. Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a nationalist leader who emphasised organised self-reliance over impulsive agitation, took a pragmatic stance during the Quit India Movement to prevent famine and administrative collapse in Bengal. He later became India’s first Minister for Industry and Supply in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet (1947–1950) and resigned over the Nehru–Liaquat Pact, citing concerns about the treatment of Hindus in East Pakistan. In 1953, he died in custody in Jammu and Kashmir while protesting the state’s permit system, declaring that there should be “one nation, one constitution, and one flag.” After falling out with Nehru, protesting against the Liaquat–Nehru Pact, Mukherjee resigned from Nehru's cabinet. With the help of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, he founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951.

He was also the president of Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha from 1943 to 1946. He was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in 1953 when he tried to cross the border of the state. He was provisionally diagnosed with a heart attack and shifted to a hospital but died a day later. Mukherjee’s ideals of cultural nationalism, civilizational unity and fearless national service continue to influence Indian political thought. The Bharatiya Janata Party recognises him as a principal ideological forerunner, while many scholars view him as one of the earliest articulators of a dhārmic vision of the Indian nation-state.