''Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right'' is a literary collection by Swapan Dasgupta, published by

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...

in 2019. The book is about the rise and beliefs of

right-wing politics in India Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...

Background

Hindu nationalism Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...

is one of the predominant political beliefs prevalent in India. According to the author, the book is not about Hindu nationalism as a power, but as a social and political movement.

Publication

''Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right'' is a 2019 literary collection by a

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

politician

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

and

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

award recipient Swapan Dasgupta. The book was published by

and contains 440 pages.

Summary

Dasgupta wrote the first three chapters of the book, which are: ''The Political context; Motherland, Religion and Community; Politics and the Hindu Narrative.'' The book then provides a collection of essays which are divided into three categories: ''The Motherland and Nation Building, History, and Fault Lines.'' The latter section of the book contains essays written by

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (also Chattopadhayay) CIE (26 or 27 June 1838 – 8 April 1894) was an Indian novelist, poet, Essayist and journalist.Staff writer"Bankim Chandra: The First Prominent Bengali Novelist" ''The Daily Star'', 30 June 2011 ...

Sister Nivedita Sister Nivedita ( born Margaret Elizabeth Noble; 28 October 1867 – 13 October 1911) was an Irish teacher, author, social activist, school founder and disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She spent her childhood and early youth in Ireland. She was ...

Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, maharishi, poet, and Indian nationalist. He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as ''Vande Mataram''. He joined the ...

, R. C. Majumdar,

Jadunath Sarkar Sir Jadunath Sarkar (10 December 1870 – 19 May 1958) was a prominent Indian historian and a specialist on the Mughal dynasty. Academic career Sarkar was born in Karachmaria village in Natore, Bengal to Rajkumar Sarkar, the local Zamindar ...

Veer Savarkar Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (), Marathi pronunciation: �inaːjək saːʋəɾkəɾ also commonly known as Veer Savarkar (28 May 1883 – 26 February 1966), was an Indian politician, activist, and writer. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalis ...

Mahadev Govind Ranade Mahadev Govind Ranade (18 January 1842 – 16 January 1901), popularly referred to as Justice Ranade, was an Indian scholar, social reformer, judge and author. He was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress party and owned ...

Sardar Patel Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel (; ; 31 October 1875 – 15 December 1950), commonly known as Sardar, was an Indian lawyer, influential political leader, barrister and statesman who served as the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of I ...

Sita Ram Goel Sita Ram Goel (16 October 1921 – 3 December 2003) was an Indian historian, religious and political activist, writer, and publisher in the late twentieth century. He had Marxist leanings during the 1940s, but later became an outspoken anti-co ...

Ananda Coomaraswamy Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy ( ta, ஆனந்த குமாரசுவாமி, ''Ānanda Kentiś Muthū Kumāraswāmī''; si, ආනන්ද කුමාරස්වාමි ''Ānanda Kumārasvāmī''; 22 August 1877 − 9 Septem ...

Ramananda Chatterjee Ramananda Chatterjee ( bn, রামানন্দ চট্টোপাধ্যায়) (29 May 1865 – 30 September 1943) was founder, editor, and owner of the Calcutta based magazine, the '' Modern Review''. He has been described as th ...

, Nirad C. Chaudhuri,

L. K. Advani Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. Advani is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a longtime memb ...

, Girilal Jain and S. Gurumurthy.

Reception

Rishi Raj, reviewing for the ''Financial Express'', called the book a "timely book". According to Raj, in India's

left liberal Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...

dominated discourse, BJP and

Hindutva Hindutva () is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The term was formulated as a political ideology by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the ...

politics have been given distaste in intellectual and academic circles. Besides tracking the rise and success of Hindutva politics, the book also examines its faultlines. Raj praised the essays selected by Dasgupta but expected the author's own analysis on its relevance in today's times. In the end of review, Raj suggests to give the book to liberal historian

Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra "Ram" Guha (born 29 April 1958) is an Indian historian, environmentalist, writer and public intellectual whose research interests include social, political, contemporary, environmental and cricket history, and the field of economics. ...

when he rues about absence of India's conservative intellectuals. Ravish Tiwari, writing for ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split betw ...

'', observed that the book teases out different strands of Hindu cultural nationalist belief. According to him, the book's introductory chapters form the context of the book but specific context is lacking on why the essays were chosen. For ''

The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's edi ...

'', Vijaya Pushkarna wrote that book is an attempt to identify some of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs of

conservatism in India Conservatism in India refers to the political philosophy which seeks to promote preservation of certain traditional values that are cherished and have developed in the subcontinent of India. Pre-independence A number of political parties with ...

. "Anecdotes and stories in the book," wrote Pushkarna, "are interesting to read." She observed that Dasgupta's chapters in the book are more about

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

and his contributions to economic intellect and ideas for the

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

References

{{Reflist 2019 non-fiction books Penguin Books India books History books about India