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Religious Identity and Political Destiny: Hindutva in the Culture of Ethnicism. Deepa S. Reddy. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2006. 211 pp.
Deepa Reddy is grappling with a very difficult problem, and her book is a troubling and upsetting read. It is a flawed work in more ways than one. Many readers will find it politically objectionable, and it is also poorly organized and often murky. Nonetheless, Reddy's claims are provocative. She argues passionately for a deep, logical link between Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, and medieval Hindu traditions of bhakti, devotion or love. Thus, her book is not just about why nice, intelligent, educated, and thoughtful people whose natures are not full of hate might be drawn into the worldview of Hindutva; it also attempts to root this phenomenon, so bewildering to many intellectuals, in deeper soils of South Asian religiosity. Reddy's claims are made in a personal voice, so that even though their broader implications are in my view unconvincing and discountable, her introspective report of the attraction of Hindu nationalist positions for a sensitive, musical, feminist anthropologist like herself demands our attention and prohibits any outof-hand dismissal of her work.
Reddy's project began as a delimited study of the ways that...