Encounters with a Hindutva klansman

The past week has whizzed by at break-neck speed. I was acting as RA for a Professor doing research at a shrine in Karnataka. As part of the assignment I had to interview a member of the Bajrang Dal, one of the more popular Hindutva outfits in India. I can safely say that this has been by far the most infuriating and frightening experiences of my adult life. We sat at a table in a restaurant in the middle of town--my prof, Anil and I. He seemed like a normal, mild-mannered guy, speaking in tones so soft they were barely more than a murmur. And there he sat across from me speaking so casually about intimidation, violence and hatred. He smiled wistfully as he spoke of the early years of his involvement in the group when their violent mobs were subjected to laathi charges and shell-firing from government authorities. He grew more intense as he spoke of how Muslims lived in "our" country, ate "our" food, breathed "our" air, and about how "we Hindus" had to reclaim what was ours by whatever means. "If a mosquito bites me, I am not willing to sit there and let it suck my blood. I will do whatever is in my power to rid myself of the pest," he said. And then he took on a proud and smug air as he talked about the group's current and future plans: of spreading "awareness" among the public about the threats to our "Hindu nation", of how they "educated" the community and urged them to keep an eye on the Muslims who lived around them, of how they would reclaim Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh to form an undivided and Hindu India.

What was so infuriating was that he presumed that just because I was a Hindu, I had some natural empathy for his worldview and his cause; that all that he was doing, he was doing on my behalf, for my sake. And equally frustrating was that I could do nothing to correct this grossly incorrect assessment on his part; had I revealed my politics to him, he would not have been as candid as he had been thus far, thus denying us access to his chilling rhetoric.

This encounter has made me very glad that I did not take up Hindu-Muslim issues in India as the core of my dissertation research. The horror of each encounter, each interview, each new ethnographic relationship, would have driven me quite literally insane. And I do not think I could have dealt with the constant and vivid reminder that this kind of violence and hatred was so close to home, and took on a guise that was so deceptively normal.