Hindutva then and now: ‘Violent Gods: Hindu nationalism in India’s present’ by Angana Chatterji and ‘Savarkar and Hindutva’ by A G Noorani

If the metamorphosis of Mohandas Gandhi's Gujarat into a Hindutva laboratory was baffling to social scientists, Orissa's recent emergence as another communal hotspot has been no less surprising. If the metamorphosis of Mohandas Gandhi's Gujarat into a Hindutva laboratory was baffling to social scientists, Orissa's recent emergence as another communal hotspot has been no less surprising. Over the course of August and September 2008, following the murder by Maoists of Laxmananda Saraswati, a sadhu closely associated with the Hindutva brigade, the state witnessed large-scale communal violence against the Christian community in and around Kandhamal District. This onslaught was actually a continuation of disturbances that took place in Kandhamal in December 2007, when Christians were likewise subjected to indiscriminate violence – churches burned, houses destroyed, women brutalised and innocent people killed – even as the administration turned a blind eye.

The 'transformation' of Orissa into another Hindutva lab is the central focus of Angana Chatterji's book, Violent Gods: Hindu nationalism in India's present. An assistant professor of cultural anthropology in California, Chatterji says her work was prompted by the Gujarat genocide of 2002, with her first visit to Orissa being a sequel to her Gujarat trip. There, she learned how the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had galvanised its forces to replicate the "successful Gujarat experiment". This initial exposure to the unfolding situation led the author to enter into a different kind of engagement in Orissa. She returned numerous times, meeting people from across the ideological spectrum, visiting victims of sectarian and communal violence, interacting with NGOs and social-action groups, and even involving herself in convening the Orissa People's Tribunal on Communalism.