ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the erection of colossal statues depicting Hindu bodies and the renaming of cities that bear a somewhat recognisable Muslim toponym. These events have to be understood as elements of a Hindutva politics of symbolism that aims to symbolically erase perceived enemies of the Hindu Rashtra and subsequently enregister alternative narratives that promote Hindu superpower. In the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-dominated political climate, a new type of renaming narrative becomes possible: toponymic saffronisation constructs a precolonial imaginary in which India was free and pure and the people of India were ruling their own country. The populist politics of symbolism that the BJP and its associate groups in India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Sangh Parivar, currently develop, involves metapragmatic practices of erasure and enregisterment to circulate alternative narratives and reorganise the Indian imagination as one of immense magnitude and ancient civilisational glory of the Hindus.
