Religious Nationalism: Narendra Modi’s 2019 Election Victory Speech
The ideology of nationalism is permeating and ascending across societies, eventually manifesting materially in several nations across the world. In this essay, I analyze the religious manifestation of nationalism within the context of India’s Hindu nationalism. I argue that Modi, in his 2019 electio...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
|
| In: |
Religions
Year: 2025, Volume: 16, Issue: 3 |
| Further subjects: | B
Hindu nationalist sanyasi
B Religious Nationalism B constitutive rhetoric B Hindu mythology B second persona B third persona |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The ideology of nationalism is permeating and ascending across societies, eventually manifesting materially in several nations across the world. In this essay, I analyze the religious manifestation of nationalism within the context of India’s Hindu nationalism. I argue that Modi, in his 2019 election victory speech, constructs a grand narrative of Hindu nationalistic unification by positioning himself as a Hindu sanyasi (ascetic) and by alluding to Hindu mythologies. First, I present the historical context of India’s Hindu nationalism (Hindutva). Second, I explicate the formation of an ideological discourse through Kenneth Burke’s focus on identification and the constitutive rhetoric of calling into being the second and third persona. Third, I critique the ideological formations of Modi’s speech for its grand narrative of Hindu nationalistic unification. Fourth, I conclude within a broader context of national collective imaginings and the ideological formations of nationalistic rhetoric. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religions
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel16030349 |



