Idolatry, Language, and the Birth of “Hindutva:” Religious Articulation and the Constructions of Hinduism in Colonial Bengal

What is the relationship between vernacular languages and the birth of “Hindutva?” Despite Sanskrit’s notoriety as the language of Brahminical articulation, when Hindutva or Hindu Nationalism broadly as a political movement was born in the late nineteenth century, the vernacular became the language of its political articulation. Here, I probe and problematize a raucous public debate in Bengal in the final decade of the nineteenth century. At the heart of it was a polemical exchange between Brahmos and Hindus surrounding the nature of idolatry. As Brahmos chastised Hindus, castigating them of idol worship, those who defended image worship self-essentialized it as a fundamental fulcrum of a Hindu identity. This public articulation in the vernacular (at least in Bengal), discursively produced the category of the “Hindu.”  This controversy, I argue, allows us a glimpse into the connection between religion, language, and a Hindu identity formation in a colonized society.