ABSTRACT. ‘Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain’! (‘Say it with pride, we are Hindu!’) has long been the chant of an ascendent and assertive Hindu nationalist chorus. This paper examines the role of pride in the context of Hindutva. I begin with an overview of Hindutva and locate the notion of pride among the earliest of its canonical texts. I then turn to the concept of pride to better understand this trait of character. After briefly recounting episodes from a history of persistent discrimination against Indian New Zealanders, I argue that the narratives of identity deployed by Hindutva ideologues aim to prop up a sense of Hindu pride and intervene in the Indian diaspora’s negotiations of belonging as migrant settlers. The pride in a Hindu identity that Hindutva seeks to instil is based on a principle of othering, intertwined with which is the seeding and circulation of Islamophobia. Although this explanation is frequently given in the existing literature on Hindutva, most notably in Aotearoa/New Zealand by Mohan J. Dutta, the idea is briefly stated. This paper brings together three distinct conversations – on Hindutva, pride and Indian New Zealanders – to make sense of a rising adoption of this political ideology among the Indian Hindu diaspora.

Keywords: pride; Hindutva; BJP; Indian diaspora; Indian New Zealanders

How to cite: Shingade, B. (2024). Propping up pride: The intervention of Hindutva in the Indian diaspora’s negotiations of belonging in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Knowledge Cultures, 12(2), 152-170. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc12120249.

Received September 13, 2023 • Received in revised form February 27, 2024
Accepted March 8, 2024 • Available online September 1, 2024