Exploring the Limits of History and Nation-hood: Savarkar and Hindu Nationalism.

This paper interrogates history-writing, as a practice, embedded in relations of power, and its links with the nationalist imaginary through the writings of Hindu nationalist V.D. Savarkar, founder of Hindutva or Hindu extremism in India. Savarkar attempts to produce the ‘Hindu’ nation, through the writing of history. This paper however, goes beyond looking at his version of nationalist history to examining his use of History itself, as a modern category that claims objective scientific knowledge about the past. Exploring links between ideas of nation-hood and history, I argue that Hindu extremism is a specifically modern articulation, that relies heavily on a modern historical discourse, closely linked to that of the modern nation-state. Savarkar’s use of Hinduism is entirely political/instrumental and has little to do with religion, making it amenable to a linear historical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]