In the nearly 44 years since India became independent, one vision of politics and society has reigned supreme. It interweaves two powerful strands: Congress Party leader Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy of a secular, socialist government; and the nonviolence and religious tolerance exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi, the ascetic Hindu champion. In elections concluded late last week, that tradition faces an unprecedented challenge from a movement that proudly proclaims itself to be the antithesis of what Nehru, and to some extent Gandhi, represented. It rejects the "foreign" influences of Islam, Christianity, capitalism and socialism, and aspires to restore Rama Rajya, a mythical golden age of Hindu civilization when the Hindu god Rama ruled. In less than two years, the movement's political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by L.K. Advani, 63, has moved from the margins to the center of Indian politics.
The rise of the Hindu nationalists, like the upsurge of Islamic politics in the Arab world, reflects widespread disillusionment with the leftist political order that dominated the freedom movements in the colonial world after World War II. In India, Advani and other B.J.P. politicians draw huge crowds to hear them rip into the Congress for the billions wasted on unproductive, state- owned industry, the alleged "pampering" of Muslims or the downplaying of Hindu tradition in favor of "pseudo secularism" -- their catchall term for Congress politicians who claim to be blind to religion but play to Muslim sentiments. Nehru, Gandhi and Congress still have a legion of defenders, but the tide is not with them. "The existing order is in a state of decomposition," writes Girilal Jain, a former editor of the Times of India. "Like the Soviets, we are facing the moment of truth. The Nehru model has exhausted its potential for good."
The B.J.P. has been waiting a long time for that turn of the wheel. The party traces its lineage to the 1920s, when a young doctor named Keshav Baliram Hedgewar founded the R.S.S., or National Volunteer Corps; its members today form the core of the B.J.P.. Hedgewar believed that divisions of caste, sect and language made Hindu society weak and an easy victim of foreign, especially Muslim, domination.
Hedgewar argued that the only way to restore Hindu vigor was to stir a sense of martial nationalism in Hindus. The R.S.S., which has grown quickly in recent years to nearly 100,000 members, emphasizes fighting arts and militant Hindu pride, choosing as its heroes figures like Shivaji, a 17th century Hindu king who successfully fought the Muslim Mogul emperors.