ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the willingness to “consume” Hindutva by considering Jayendra Saraswati’s mediation of Hindu nationalism through the Jan Kalyan movement. Saraswati’s representation of Smartas as culture brokers depended on prior authorization by colonial administrators and judges. Jan Kalyan recoded Brahmanism as Hindu tradition, arguing that Hindu tradition, as interpreted by Saraswati, was the most effective regulator of social life and political action. Through Jan Kalyan’s imagery of a gendered, Hindu national culture, Saraswati sought a hegemonic principle consistent with caste and class privilege but at the same time capable of articulating different interests and idioms associated with different classes and castes. Saraswati’s version of Hindutva kept class, caste, and gender distinctions intact by naturalizing them through Hindu practice. In stipulating the practices of cultural citizenship, the members’ pledge provided a blueprint for the ways in which class and caste distinctions were consolidated and represented as integrative rather than conflictual categories.
