Cleansing the Nation

India, the Hindu Modern, and Mediations of Gender

Raka Shome

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781478032755
  9781478029311
• eBook ISBN:
  9781478061519
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Social Sciences

In Cleansing the Nation, Raka Shome explores the logics of governmentality of contemporary Hindu nationalism in India by advancing the concept of the "Hindu modern." Analyzing a national cleanliness program and other development projects, Shome shows how the Hindu modern—a form of national governmentality that disciplines and regulates individual subjects to create desirable "clean" citizens—inscribes Hindu nationalism in India. Focused on security, progress, and development while celebrating and protecting the figure of the upper-caste Hindu woman, the Hindu modern works toward a religious and casteist cleansing of the nation that rewrites Indian modernity as a purified and cleansed Hindu modernity. It shores up caste and religious inequalities around who is authentically Indian, reproducing historical violence against and exclusions of caste, gender, and religion, especially toward Muslims, Dalits, and Adivasis. By outlining how the Hindu modern sutures Hindu-ness to the contemporary Indian national project of modernity, Shome helps us further understand projects of national purification and cleanliness within global populist authoritarian movements.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• One. Cleansing the Nation: Hindu Nationalism, the Hindu Modern, and Gender
• Two. Purifying Bharat Mata
• Three. “Women’s Empowerment” Through Toilet Modernity: The No Toilet, No Bride Campaign
• Four. Swachh Violence: The Will to Punish
• Five. From Cleansing to Cleaning: An Alternative (Clean) India
• Notes
• References
• Index