Assassin’s Ashes

Dear Reader,

Assassin’s Ashes, by the Indian journalist Dhirendra Jha, is short, like all our books, but it has an epic sweep. Writing with an immense command of Indian history, Jha shows us how Hindu nationalism in India has progressed inexorably from its origins in the early twentieth century to the point where it is now the dominant factor in Narendra Modi’s long-running political leadership of the country. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a century-old right-wing paramilitary corps, has long promoted the idea of Akhand Bharat, Hindu control over a vast geographical span. Nathuram Godse, the RSS member who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, was operating from a sense of rage about the tolerance Gandhi showed toward Muslims. From the RSS point of view, the partition that created Pakistan was a kind of original sin, possibly correctible, and Godse is properly regarded as a kind of hero. And the RSS is strongly aligned with Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

India is not the only country where militant religious nationalism has been on the rise, but it is the largest, and its leadership appears to be unusually popular and stable. The result is a severe erosion in the condition of India’s Muslims, and at least the beginnings of broader territorial ambitions by the government. Jha’s portrait of his country is dispiriting, but essential for anybody who wants to understand the state of the world today.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Lemann
Director, Columbia Global Reports