Thus, Hinduism was not merely a faith and more than a racialized identity. It was in fact a political identity and movement, and for the RSS, the BJP, and the man who would become prime minister of India in 2014, an identity that obliges its adherents to actively work toward the realization of Bharat. A vision of India as the Hindu holy land that mandates the removal of Muslims—a population that BJP leaders have dubbed “termites” (Amit Shah, minister of the interior) and “foreigners” (Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh), and that swelling numbers of Hindutva loyalists have labeled “Pakistanis.”

XREF: Connects to discussions of Hindu nationalism, RSS ideology, and the politicization of religious identity in modern India.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 400