There’s a quiet but persistent coalition, inside and outside India, that seems intent on denying Hindus the right to define their own future. It includes unreformed Islamists who refuse to reckon with modernity, English-speaking liberal elites still shadowboxing for Nehru, minorities with veto power but no stake in cohesion, and a chorus of Western (and increasingly Chinese) voices, eager to manage India’s trajectory from afar. What unites them? A shared discomfort with Hindu political consolidation.
Let’s be clear: Hindu identity is not a new construct. Whether you place its roots 3,000 or 5,000 years ago, it’s one of the world’s oldest living civilizational continuities. That identity has always been plural, regional, and evolving. But it has also always been there; visible in memory, ritual, geography, and language. Today, that identity is waking up to its political form. And it will not be put back to sleep.
Hindutva is not going anywhere. Nor is the Indian Union. Those who hoped Kashmir would stay outside this arc have already seen the direction of travel. Pakistan’s decision to opt out of Hindustan, and then build an identity against it, has led not to strength but to strategic stasis. Bangladesh, too, for all its cultural richness, now stands as a separate civilizational lane. And so we arrive at the core truth: Hinduism and India are coterminous.
This isn’t a call for exclusion. But it is a reminder that those who opted out do not get to dictate terms to those who stayed in. That includes foreign commentators and diasporic gatekeepers alike. There is a difference between pluralism and paralysis. There is a difference between nationalism and denial. And if majoritarianism is the anxiety; perhaps the deeper fear is that Hindus are no longer apologizing for being the majority. Let India decide. Let Hindus decide. Let the world, finally, learn to listen.
