> In a brilliant chapter Mishra observes that one of the central
> aims of
> India's 19th-century anti-colonial movements was to invent
> Hinduism as a
> religion. As part of building a modern Indian nation that could
> resist and
> overthrow British rule, the Hindu elite simplified and remoulded
> India's
> unfathomably rich inheritance of beliefs and practices into
> something
> resembling a western creed. ... The result has been to exacerbate
> sectarian
> divisions, and create them where they did not exist before. ...
India's anti-colonial movement was predominantly a secular movement. Hindu sectarian currents like the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha were on the periphery of the anti-colonial movement or were even hostile to it. Muslim sectarian politics became a mass phenomena primarily in 1940s, ie few years before independence. The British imperialism played a substantial role in building up Muslim sectarian movement which ultimately lead to the Partition of British India. India remains a secular state though Indian secularism faced a serious threat in the 1980-90s from Hindu sectarian movements. Since BJP's defeat in 2004 elections, BJP is in complete disarray. The claim that "Religion has come to be a tool of the state which is used to homogenise society" in India is a dubious one.
Ulhas