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Lala Lajpat Rai was a prominent figure of the Arya Samaj, the influential nineteenth-century Hindu socio-religious reform movement. He is also seen as having sown the seeds of Hindu nationalism in the first decade of the twentieth century. Exploring Lajpat Rai’s thought between the 1880s and 1915, this article traces how felt imperatives of Hindu nation-building impelled him to regularly re-define Hinduism. These first prompted Rai to articulate a ‘thin’ Hinduism, defined less in terms of an insistence on a complex set of beliefs and more in broad, simple terms. They then induced him to culturalise Hinduism and make a distinction between ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Hindu culture’. The article ends by comparing the Hinduism and Hindu nationalism of Lajpat Rai and V.D. Savarkar, the chief ideologue of the Hindutva ideology, which is considered the main influence on India’s Hindu nationalist movement. It argues that while formulations of a thin and culturalised Hinduism enabled both men to articulate a ‘Hindu nationalism’, their nationalisms in fact remained qualitatively different. By scrutinizing intellectual trends and processes occurring in Rai’s thought, the article demonstrates that the modern ideology of Hindu nationalism impacted how Hindu religion was defined and re-defined and how such re-definitions can still produce distinct forms of Hindu nationalism.

This article discusses Chaudhari Mulkiram (April 1910–August 1954) and the contesting ideologies, memories, histories, and socio-political conditions surrounding his career from the 1920s to the mid-1950s. Mulkiram belonged to the Dhangar, a sub-caste of the Khatik caste in Meerut. He was the first Dalit of the United Provinces (UP) who qualified for the Public Service Commission in 1939. This article shows his socio-religious and socio-political relations and responses to the Arya Samaj, Congress, and Scheduled Caste Federation. It reveals how the representatives of these agencies portrayed his life and work. This article also discusses how his relations and responses helped and influenced his caste members in the western UP. It argues that the Arya Samaj, Harijan Sevak Sangh, and Congress used the first generation of Dalit civil servants like Mulkiram to cultivate local leaders and to mobilize local Dalits, peasants, labourers, and villagers to act in their political interests against Ambedkar’s movement. Hence, in the 1940s and early 1950s, Mulkiram presented himself as a Gandhi bhakt, Jan Neta (public leader), and Sanyasi (household monk and socio-religious reformer).

Hindu nationalism came to world attention in 1998, when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won national elections in India. Although the BJP was defeated nationally in 2004, it continues to govern large Indian states, and the movement it represents remains a major force in the world's largest democracy. This book presents the thought of the founding fathers and key intellectual leaders of Hindu nationalism from the time of the British Raj, through the independence period, to the present. Spanning more than 130 years of Indian history and including the writings of both famous and unknown ideologues, this reader reveals how the \"Hindutuva\" movement approaches key issues of Indian politics. Covering such important topics as secularism, religious conversion, relations with Muslims, education, and Hindu identity in the growing diaspora, this reader will be indispensable for anyone wishing to understand contemporary Indian politics, society, culture, or history.

This article examines the contemporary relationship between the Ārya Samāj and Sanātan Dharm movements among Hindus in India and abroad. Since their beginnings in the nineteenth century, the two loosely organized groups have disagreed about correct ritual practice, with the Arya Samaj promoting a simple “Vedic” fire sacrifice, and those identifying as Sanātan Dharm accepting image worship as an integral aspect of Hindu practice. While Hindus whose families come from northwest India identify themselves, their families, and their practices as either Arya Samaji or Sanatani, fieldwork conducted in India and the United States from 1999 to 2009 suggests that the relationships between these two movements are more flexible than this discourse indicates. This article argues that the Arya Samaj and Sanātan Dharm positions have been combined within extended families, individual ritual practices, and transnational communities in more fluid ways than previously understood.

\"The Saffron Wave is an analytically incisive and insightful exploration of one of the most important social movements to have swept postcolonial India. The book is remarkable not only for the historical depth it lends to our understanding of Hindu nationalism but also for the insights it affords contemporary politics in India.\"--Akhil Gupta, Stanford University

THE Raisethorpe Arya Samaj, Arya Shree Samaj, Veerdal and Bal Samaj and the Orient Heights Samaj invites the public to attend a Raam Naume celebration on Friday, April 3, at the Ved Mandir, 137 Khan Road, Raisethorpe, commencing at 6:30pm. The guest speaker will be Oushnee Hanuman. For enquiries contact Sabitha Harrichandpersad at 033 3912633

Arya Samaj Sabha of Fiji president Kamlesh Arya said the strengthening of racial tolerance was needed in schools and the good side was that it was already happening in many schools. Shree Sanatan Dharam Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji president Surendra Kumar said there were already mixed races in schools but he acknowledged having more multi-racial schools would be great.

r The Shri Sita Raam Mandhir in Coleous Avenue, Crossmoor, Chatsworth, on Friday, at 6pm. Call Parmadevi Moonilal at 031 409 2990 or Sham Singh at 031 409 1459. r The Kalyana Subramaniyar Alayam in Foresthaven Drive, Unit 21, Phoenix, on Friday, at 6pm. Call Rani Moodley at 031 505 4811 or Shirley Naidoo at 031 505 4714. r The Woodview Hindu Society on Friday, at 6pm, at the Woodview Temple in Viewhaven Drive, Woodview. Call the society at 031 303 2814 or 031 505 2945.

This chapter discusses the age of Orientalism, focusing on the first British depictions of Tantra and the ways in which they played into the colonial political programs and the sexual-moral ideals of Victorian culture. It also examines the earliest discussions of Tantrism as a distinct entity, which appear in European missionary works, Orientalist scholarship, and the early Indian reform movements such as the Brāhmo Samāj and the Ārya Samāj. What we find here is a fairly consistent dichotomy between different conceptions of “Hinduism” and the Indian mind: at one extreme, the ideal of an ancient, pure, and uncorrupted Golden Age, identified with the Vedas and Upanisads, and at the other extreme, the nightmare of a modern, perverse, and degenerate era, embodied in the licentious idolatry of the tantras. Discourse about Tantra was thus bound up with the construction of Western cultural identity, and above all with the problem of sexuality and sexual deviance in modern Europe. But at the same time, the discourse surrounding Tantra would also became a key part of the conceptualization of India and “Hinduism.”.