Being Hindu adopts a longue durée view of history and attempts to contextualize the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its progenitor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), as political phenomena by examining certain medieval state structures and instances of advocacy and popular mobilization in the colonial period. Further, it studies the politics of Narendra Modi and the policy initiatives undertaken by him as the prime minister of India to highlight their apparent cultural and moral underpinnings. Its eventual objective is to make a case for the historical authenticity of the Hindu mode of politics that emerged in post-Independence India. The attempt, in other words, is to demonstrate that it is a thing in its own right and not a cynical invention of hostility towards religious minorities, an irrational or ‘fascist’ mindset, or sundry anxieties, but has precedents in frameworks and practices going rather far back in history. The BJS and the BJP are thus shown to be locatable in a long tradition of Hindus organizing their political practice or politics through cultural resources and a cultural imagination distinctive to them. Narendra Modi, similarly, brings an inclusive Hindu catholicity and sangathanist outlook to his politics and developmental agenda. Being Hindu, in this way, relates a brief history of the political expressions of being Hindu over slightly more than eleven centuries—from the ascension of Aditya I, the first of the imperial Cholas, in 870 CE until our own time and age.

India is expected to become a $25 trillion+ economy by 2050. With a size like that it will be the world’s second- or third-largest economic power, enjoying unprecedented influence over global affairs. This will also make India the third pillar of a tri-polar world—the US and China being the other two.

Will India seize the opportunity and assume leadership with responsibility? This book seeks to answer that. Besides becoming an economic and military superpower, it will also increasingly dominate in the culture sphere. India is already claiming its place in a new global order in the making, and in less than a decade, it will begin to assert itself globally in the realm of culture too. The book seeks to highlight these trends—spanning across society, government, diplomacy, economy, military, and culture— through the visions of leading Indian thinkers and public intellectuals who are considered experts in their chosen fields.