Warriors in Politics: Religious Nationalism, Masculine Hinduism and the Shiv Sena in Bombay

In: Women & politics, Band 20, Heft 3, S. 1-26

Abstract

There is a growing perception that ideas of masculinity delineated through militaristic metaphors facilitate some of the violence committed in the name of emergent nationalisms in post-Cold War world. Attempting to analyze this argument, recent feminist theorizing is drawn on here to examine the political ideology of the Shiv Sena, a political party based in Bombay, India, that espouses Hindu nationalism. Masculinist images derived from India's encounter with Western ideas of gender construction during the British colonial period form the basis of a uniquely Indian construction here termed "masculine Hinduism." Masculine Hinduism shapes much of the Sena's political ideology & creates a political vocabulary that can facilitate violence against an enemy of the Hindu nation. 25 References. Adapted from the source document.