What is new, however, is the way in which the J&K state’s attempt to promote “border tourism” as a “peace industry” has become unwittingly aligned with the recent surge of right-wing Hindutva groups in Kargil who rely on the discourse of Aryan and Hindu indigeneity to validate their hold on India’s disputed territory, laying new grounds for intensely violent politics in the post-conflict period. Since the Kargil war, many right-wing militant groups, such as the Rashtra Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have become politically active in the Himalayan region to protect what they perceive to be India’s “natural frontier lines,” a task for which Brogpa Aryanism plays an indispensable role.3 The RSS treats Aryanism and the associated Vedic cultures as fundamentally Indian, a militant ideology that validates India’s Hindu origins at the expense of excluding and even demonizing minority religious and adivasi (indigenous) groups, who define themselves as India’s “original inhabitants.”4 In order to disprove theories of Aryan invasions into India, the RSS promotes Brogpas as “pure Aryans,” showcasing them as India’s mul nivasis or indigenous inhabitants, a political feat that is accompanied by disregarding the claims of many other “non-Aryan” adivasi groups to indigeneity.5 Even as the RSS continues to forcibly draw adivasis across India into the Hindu fold through its large-scale “reconversion efforts” (Chatterji 2009, 35; Menon 2010, 59), Brogpas, because of their “Aryanness,” have become particularly salient to validate claims of Hindu indigeneity in India.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 18:49:30 +0000
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