The State of the Union-India Edition: Hindu Majoritarianism and the 2024 Indian Elections

This interdisciplinary roundtable discussion considers how Hindu majoritarianism has shaped Indian electoral politics and articulations of nationalism, belonging, and citizenship in the runup to the 2024 Indian elections. The panelists explore domestic, transnational, and diaspora-centered reactions to, and perceptions of, Indian electoral politics. The roundtable is specifically interested in articulations of religion, particularly Hinduism, in Indian political campaigns, and the mobilization of political rhetoric around religion and secularism in creating voting blocs, influencing policies, and engaging in hard and soft power gambits on international stages. The members of this panel chart various aspects of this discourse-the role of social media in manufacturing transnational support for BJP policies, how US Hindutva organizations represent Indian electoral politics to their constituents, the electoral impact of the language of secularism within political campaigns, and how the Ramjanmabhoomi movement becomes a political movement that buttresses the BJP's goals of reinventing India as a Hindu rashtra.