The Sangh Parivar: A Reader

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This volume brings together significant readings on the Sangh Parivar–the `family’ of Hindu nationalist organizations–and traces the rise of the right wing in Indian politics. The volume describes the matrix of the Parivar–the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)–and how it was constituted. It examines the core group of the Sangh Parivar which represents major arenas of the public sphere–the Bharatiya Janata Party (the political heir of the Jana Sangh) in the political domain, the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal in the religious domain, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti (women’s wing of the RSS), and the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (for `welfare’ of tribal groups), the Seva Bharati (for socio-ideological work among the Dalits), the Vidya Bharati (and its network of schools), and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (active in the economic domain since the 1990s). The reader therefore shows that the Sangh Parivar engages with different sectors of the Indian society. Besides scrutinizing and providing the first-ever comprehensive overview of these components, the volume also examines the major role played by the RSS and the VHP in the expansion of the Sangh Parivar, concluding with an examination of the ways in which the Sangh Parivar has started to organize the Indian (Hindu) diaspora primarily in the west.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Christophe Jaffrelot

Dr. Christophe Jaffrelot is Research Director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherch Scientifique) and teaches South Asian politics and history at Science Po (Paris). From 2000 to 2008, he was Director of CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) at Sciences Po. Dr Jaffrelot’s publications include The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, 1925 to the 1990s (1996 and 1999), India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India (2003), and Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (2005). He has also edited Pakistan: Natinalism without a Nation: (2002), and co-edited, with P.Van der Veer, Patterns of Middle Class Consumption in China and India (2008) as well as, with L Gayer, Militias of South Asia (2010).