I  am a professor of media studies. I teach my students to understand how the media influences society. Sometimes, the media is a force for good. More often, media is harmful to health, happiness, and harmonious relations with friends and even family members. Sometimes, media influence is at the level of technology itself. Regardless of even actual content, new communication technologies like the smartphone have triggered a huge rise in teenage mental health crises in many countries.

More often though, media researchers study the content of media. For example, are news media representing all sides of the political debate objectively so that citizens can vote in a free and informed way? Is there misrepresentation or dehumanization taking place of different groups of people in the media? Is there a danger that the media is being used to fan fires of hatred and even violence against certain communities?

These are some of the questions that come to my mind as a media researcher in the wake of the just concluded elections in India, and on the eve of the re-launch of a new and updated edition of my best-selling book Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Indian Intelligence (BlueOne Ink publishers, available June 20, 2024).

Anguish and Hope

When I wrote this book ten years ago, I did so in a mood of anguish, and hope. The anguish was about how much I saw wrong with the media, education, and the world, from my perspective as a liberal arts professor trained in critical cultural studies who also happened to be a Hindu.

The hope was about what I thought was a growing revival of Hindu culture and philosophy in India, of which the new political direction in the country was one part. I found hope in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches at the time which seemed to signal a different direction from what his critics were accusing him of. I believed that through democracy, under his leadership, Hindus were preparing to rebuild a long-colonized and socially, ecologically, culturally and economically devastated India where no one, Hindus or non-Hindus, would be treated badly. From his speeches, I felt that Modi was going to follow in the spirit of Gandhi’s manifesto Hind Swaraj which I had long admired, and was not at all surprised to discover the book Integral Humanism by Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, which seemed like a logical post-independence sequel to Hind Swaraj, and an idealistic prelude to the Modi era.

Ten years have passed. Prime Minister Modi has won a historic third-term, although in slightly more complex and perhaps unanticipated circumstances. His ardent supporters are expressing euphoria about his return, as well as raw resentment towards residents of Ayodhya and some other places for the losses the BJP suffered. His usual opponents have also turned euphoric at his reduced margin of victory and the wisdom of Indian voters (after screaming hoarse for months that democracy was slip-sliding-away in India). There have also been voices critical of both camps, emanating from concern for the survival of Hindus and Hinduism.

2024: Hope and Anguish, Again

My new edition of Rearming Hinduism was written and sent to the publishers before the election results were known, and hence this new essay. In the new Preface and Afterword, there is once again an element of anguish, and hope, much as it was in the original 2014 edition. But the strange thing though is that the order is now reversed. I could not help begin writing the new Preface with anything other than a sense of celebration and gratitude for all that had happened in terms of Hindu revival in cultural and educational terms, even in my own life, since 2014. I happened to be in India on the day of the Ram Temple prana prathishta ceremony on January 22, visiting some of the most ancient and auspicious and remote punyakshetras in Andhra Pradesh. I felt like I was a part of history in the villages, and I was so happy I even forgot my usual “media studies” critical curmudgeonly lenses while watching the TV spectacle from Ayodhya. January 22 was, and will remain, a profoundly important moment.

But, sadly, there is a counterpoint to this. If January 22, 2024, was the new “August 15” of Bharat as many said, perhaps June 4, 2024 will have to be remembered as an equally significant counterpoint too. Just as 1947 had the euphoria of independence twinned with the despair of Partition, I believe that the 2024 election now carries the seeds of both hope and dismay.

Seeds of Destruction

My pessimism, strangely enough, seems to exist regardless of the actual results. A total loss would have perhaps hastened it, and an overwhelming win merely facilitated it through complacence and a new channel. For now, politics is what it is. My bigger fear is that the seeds of destruction that have been planted right under the nose of the foolishly distracted Hindus and their vainly self-absorbed political leaders these ten years, will bloom in steel and shrapnel sooner or later. The great mass of Hindus temporarily alleviated from both poverty and cultural indignity in these past few years, will find themselves, and their gods, tested more horribly than ever before. The propaganda war is in full swing. The real war is lurking about too in the margins. It may not be obvious or even immediately absolute. But its effects will unfold, slowly, steadily. Just as we lost nature these last three decades of unregulated, greedy, economic growth, we will lose culture too, with our self-obsessed distraction from reality under the spell of propaganda.

Again, do I exaggerate? Well, if you look at the existential-extinction projects of the past, those were always clear.

For a thousand years, groups of people who lived in India in villages in extended clans organized around deities, temples, kshetra-ecologies, festivals, rituals, elders and grandchildren, saw any threats to every one of these elements for what they were, as threats. If someone came to your door with a sword and said “smash your gods, change your name, follow some new rules,” you would, if you could, pull your own sword out and shout, “Never.”

You won sometimes, you lost sometimes. But your sacrifices and struggles made the present we have today possible.

But what have we done with this gift from our gods and our ancestors who adored them?

Weakened in mind, spirit, body and natural ecology, we now live in scattered and shattered times. We cannot see the swords at our throats and the bulldozers at our deities’ feet in their temples, for what they are. We do not see imminent destruction, or even danger. At best, some of us see a smattering of problems here and there. We complain about “rival” religions who hate us, or “andolanjeevis” who want us “reformed” beyond sanity. Irritants, here and there.

The “Unity” Myth

But we have no big picture. We continue to accept the times we are in as normal, believing that life is about studying, working, earning, maybe marrying and starting a family. But mostly, Hindu life in the 21st century is all about “adjusting” to other peoples’ visions and stories and plans, never creating any of our own. In between our work and entertainment though, when we occasionally worry about some bigger issue like the future of Hinduism, we are told to just “unite” behind our “leaders.”

Vote, we are told, and all will be well.

But after this election, after these past ten years, one thing is clearer than ever. “Vote” may well be the last word the last Hindu says when the invisible sword tip pressing on his throat finally breaks the bonds.

I am not against democracy. Not at all. But the truth should be obvious. The Parliament is not a temple. The Constitution is not the Vedas or Upanishads or Sastras or thousands of songs, stories, tiny, local, lineage-sustained cultural traditions that make us who we are and help us live as we have done for millennia. The leaders we proclaim (or self-proclaim) as leaders or messiahs or kaarana-janmas or avatars, are not a substitute for rishis, pandits, cultural figures, gurus or avatars. They may have a bit of good in them, and do some good here and there. But as long as we do not see the big picture, as long as we consume the propaganda that has been fed to us now by “them” and increasingly by “our own side,” we will never change. We will not see what was done to us. Our children will never even know what was taken from them, from their past, and by consequence, their future.

But, again, I am slightly hopeful. It is not too late. I take the peculiar, unexpected, outcome of this election result as a gift from our gods (as every day, every moment, every breath ought to be). There are lessons for everyone here, but more so I believe for all of us who brought the name of Rama into this modern theater of interaction called democracy. Our opinions on this matter are perhaps as diverse (“divided” is an overused word) as our gods want them to be. Avatar-adjacent adulators have turned into ardent critics of Ayodhyavasis. Social media has exploded with spiteful jibes: “He gave you a temple, an airport, hotels, and yet you betrayed him?”

Another side of social media is showing not this online rage but the real-life tears. Who did the driveways and runways and malls displace? Who was telling the truth and who was being punished for doing so?

Referendum on “Development”

The Ayodhya result was perhaps not a referendum on Rama or Modi but on the present model of “Development” itself.

Millions, hundreds of millions of lives in India are on the edge (and not just the human ones). Are the poor better off than twenty years ago? Some economists say, yes. And my time in India also makes me agree. Almost everyone here, Hindus, Christians, “Upper caste,” “Lower caste,” laughs and says they voted for the “old man.” They get the benefits a welfare state promises them. Others, more in tune with TV and WhatsApp and spirituality, are also happy. They love the fact their leader loves Hinduism. But beyond these appearances, there is reality. Urbanization is a nightmare. Baby hospitals, gaming arcades, everyday a fire. Road rages. Drunk-driven Porsches killing people on the roads. All this too, is the nitty gritty of “development.” That word, that idea, that ideology, is a monstrous nightmare you will see only if you see the change in the body of the goddess, the Mother, that is Bharat Mata, or more broadly, Bhu Devi.

You will not see it as long as your mind perceives only the work-day, the week, the month, the year, the span between job and paycheck and vacation. You will see it only when your mind, and heart, drift back and forth in long haul multi-janma or at least multi-generational time, in the land and blue sky and clean air and water your grandparents once knew, and your children may not. When you see it, you will realize what this battle is all about. It is not just the “Hindu identity.” Or a tourism-oriented temple or mall. No. It is a battle for the sanctity of the gods, where they are in their most powerful form, their devasthanas and kshetras, but also in every tree, river, rock and hill elsewhere too.

Hinduism is More than an Election

What “rearming Hinduism” means to me, and I believe, to many of its readers, is not just a token victory of one identity or “club” or political party like one IPL league over another. It is a battle for life to restore itself, worldwide.

What I mean, or hope, by all this, perhaps will be clearer when you read my book. For now, in this essay, I will return from these broad stakes and strokes to my domain of professional expertise; media, and propaganda.

My new Afterword offers a summary of key moments in anti-Hindu propaganda and violence from 2014-2024 and concludes that we need to study and confront anti-Hindu propaganda with all the focus and clarity of Arjuna focusing on his target-bird’s eye. What I did not address there though, and wish to briefly end with here, is a different kind of propaganda that has to be sorted out too: this is not the propaganda of “anti-Hindu” actors or forces, many of whom also happen to be foreign actors, but the propaganda within.

The Propaganda Within

Never has this problem surfaced as much as it has in this heated summer of the election campaign. And never have the consequences of its unchecked growth seemed so ominous as they are now. Hindus have turned against Hindus online after June 4th, viciously, and ironically, under the name of “unity.” Disappointed after months of seeming invincibility imagined (or projected skillfully) around the figure of their leader, they have proceeded to blame other Hindus for not being “united” enough to give the BJP 400 seats. “Hindus deserve extinction” is the refrain.

Now this too, is, in my view, a propaganda problem. It’s not like we didn’t see it coming (and it was bad at least on one major occasion before, the Covid second wave in 2021, when people tweeting about the crises they were facing in real life would find themselves getting scolded as liars and “anti-nationals”), but it deserves more attention now before relations, and goodwill, are lost even more.

I do not wish to call it a simple problem of “Trads” versus “Raitas” or “Right Liberals” or some such short-cut social media framing. Most Hindus who think, act, indeed, vote “as Hindus,” are worried by the “external” propaganda and hatred and violence aimed at us from multiple sources. But then, after ten years of relentless inflexibility in communication by a ruling party and its apologists, it is also time to call this attitude, this phenomenon what it is. This too, is propaganda. Unfortunately, given the close overlap in external threat perception among different Hindus varyingly associated or invested in the ruling party, it is hard to recognize that some of our fellow Hindus’ online behavior is best explained as the effect of propaganda, the effect of organized, strategic, relentless, persuasive (and occasionally censorship) activities.

Three Steps to Escape Propaganda

So my main take-away after the election campaign of this year is that Hindus need to train themselves to recognize propaganda, not only from “outside,” but also within. We need to rid ourselves of delusions and deceptions that have been instilled within us by organized actors, and maintain a healthy skeptical distance between who we are and what matters to us on the one hand, and distant groups and leaders whose image has been sold to us effectively and we have fallen inexorably in love with over time.

I offer below three simple, concrete steps for recognizing how much propaganda has misled Hindus and how to take a bigger view:

Step One: Be a Hindu, not just a “Hindu Voter”

Just as traditional Hindus observe a period of ritual solemnity after a death and then end it formally, it is important for us to firmly declare that the “maila” of election-mania has ended. This is extremely important in my view because there are thousands of people in our heads (through our phones that is) squirming, squawking, screeching away in permanent political mode because it is their job, or at least their personally chosen rewarding hobby to do so. Each party has built its own army of media and social media propagandists. Their job is to keep you in the mood they want you in; angry about “left liberals” one day, proudly triumphant about something another day. Think critically and don’t sink into their comforting rhetoric. For example, if the TV anchors yell that the brave PM has finally shown “left liberal” intellectuals the door, how come two successive governments of his have used the same Civics textbooks the “left-liberals” wrote back in 2005 to brainwash millions of school children into becoming “andolanjeevis”?

Be skeptical of exaggerated claims no matter how special they make you feel. You do not need validation frankly from strangers on TV as an empowered or “new, confident” Hindu through the figure of any leader. Just recognize that the way you need to be a “Hindu” to your family and children (and online friends) is NOT the same as how an “IT cell” or celebrity SM influencer who has built a career promoting a personality wants you to be.

Recognize also that there is a paucity of narratives on “being Hindu” in modern society; schools, colleges, celebrities, and most of all even Hindu religious institutions have not figured it out. At best, some of them will give you a few moral and spiritual insights, and self-help camps which tell you that through Gita or Ramayana you can be a better “manager” or employee. Everyone producing Hindu “narratives” today has their own limitations, if not motivations.

You have to be razor-sharp in viveka before you hit share, RT, like, or forward. Every word, image or meme has been engineered by someone to capture your feelings through Pavlovian stimuli. But who sees your Forward or your own commentary might be someone who matters in real life. So be an author of your own Hinduism with every small thing you do on social media (my e-book Writing Across a Cracked World: Hindu Representation and the Logic of Narrative might be of use to you on this). And again, doing that means separating your role as a Hindu from your role as a Hindu voter or campaigner. The narratives your kids need from you are NOT the narratives a party’s social media stars or bots fling at you.

2 Aim for the Cultural Mainstream (it’s not what’s on your phone, it’s real life, and your kids have to swim in it)

The gap between mainstream, respectable, civil discourse of the kind that is expected in schools, colleges, and workplaces (which is where you will spend most of your real-life in, and where consequences for mis-speaking can go far more than a mere “block” or “unfollow” on social media) and online “RW” ranting (including some big-ticket media personalities) is the single biggest communication challenge Hindus have to recognize and overcome.

The best example of this is the media (or propaganda) success story of the summer – Dhruv Rathee’s YouTube videos. There is a good chance that if you are a reader of this magazine, you are not persuaded by them, and you are also aware of all the alleged shadowy international networks that propped up his projects. But, to any objective observer, it is clear that his videos are very carefully tuned into the standards of today’s cultural mainstream.

His much-talked about “Brainwashing” video, for example, was scrupulously careful in expressing its respect for Hinduism and Hindus (but couldn’t resist a cheap shot at Sadhguru of course). He quotes Gita and Upanishad, and to an average modern Hindu teenager today who can barely begin to doubt that even the premier “mythologist” of our era may be misinformed, it is virtually impossible to demonstrate anything like “Hinduphobia” in some of these videos.

As a media researcher, I can grant that video its due, but also point out quite easily where the propaganda techniques are kicking in (for example, presenting Nazi antisemitism ahistorically as a “majoritarianism” problem rather than simply the modern phase of a two-millennia-old phenomenon rooted in Christianity). That kind of precise, careful analysis and rebuttal is what children who are overwhelmingly surrounded by fans of his videos need to be exposed to.

Unfortunately, since the so-called Hindu or “RW” media machine is in “vota and gotcha” mode, it resorts to cheap shots, not the education of Hindu children to resist and defeat the global Hinduphobic cultural mainstream. Palki Sharma’s episode on “German cockroaches” may have got some laughs, but will live forever in infamy for using notoriously dehumanizing tropes on a rival media personality (unless there was some more context I am missing – which is also a problem with social media fragmentation where we cannot assume everyone has a full context).

Any average Hindu teen growing up today watching Rathee and then witnessing adults, including parents, failing to come up with anything better than recognized dehumanization tropes like “cockroaches” or “rats” (which I sadly saw on WhatsApp groups too) will pick Rathee as the decent human being. That’s the harsh truth our online RW Modi defenders need to recognize. If you want to avoid forcing your children between you and your politics, avoid nasty stuff, even if it appears that everyone (you know) on SM is saying it.

3 Own Your Story, Forget the “Statue-latry”

The most important duty you have as a Hindu today is as an intergenerational guide through the modern world to your children. Teaching them about history, traditions, and festivals is fine, but “Hinduism” alone will not provide them answers to the questions that the pervasive, intrusive, cultural mainstream discourse today which is commandeered by Dhruv Rathees, NCERT caste-inequality lessons, American university-produced identity-politics, and so on.

For that, you need to work on the information you need to tell them a counter-story about the world today. Such a story, unfortunately, will not come from the political propaganda machine. After winning in 2014, and in 2019, they could have actually matured from their old role as a campaign-mode party to a new role as a popular government of a globally rising civilizational state but failed to do so.

Why this failure is a difficult question to answer. Die-hard fans will say there was no failure and ordinary citizens should not presume to tell the great leaders how to do their job. Hardened critics will of course say that the problem is not just of incompetence but actual malintent, that “pseudo-secularism” is now replaced by “pseudo-Hindutva” as the main danger to Hindus.

My opinion, as a professional media commentator and educator (teaching not only twenty plus cohorts of American 18-22 year olds in liberal arts setting, but also of late, Hindu parents and children in my 1984 class), is that each family has to learn to immunize itself from propaganda at the micro-level, and while children need more help in learning to detect mainstream anti-Hindu propaganda, parents must make the effort to learn to detect “in-house” so-called “Hindu Unity” propaganda. I have nothing against “unity” but frankly what you and I and we all need first is intergenerational unity as Hindus in each of our own families; achieving “voting unity” from Ayodhya to Kanyakumari is someone else’s job, not yours.

But this is not to say you should be oblivious to politics. To become a pressure-driver, or at least opinion-shaper, have the clarity to see and say where the political communication machine is going wrong. I have one simple theory for that: the Modi government and BJP have flopped on seizing the mainstream narrative and are bending themselves and Hindus as their proxies into the “Idea of India” narrative that was already built before them. They can say “narrative” a lot, or even put a “New” behind the “Idea of India” phrase and tweet it from the Prime Ministerial pulpit. But it has not changed a thing.

But where there is hope for Hindus, on the communication front, is that the seeds of the stories we need actually do exist. The problem is that most of us interact in the mixed, and mixed-up world of social media, where the very different priorities of commercial media, political party IT cells, politicians, social media attention-seekers, educators, polemicists, everything is mixed up. Each of us should recognize which stories would help us engage with mainstream narratives best.

The single biggest blunder in my view for the BJP as early as 2014 itself was its seeming disavowal of its own Integral Humanism heritage as a promising narrative-seed. The BJP’s intellectuals perhaps failed to see how “mainstream” the “humanism” of this document already was and how easily it could have been boldly made their global face. Instead, they retreated into statue-latry. Their Deen Dayal ji got statues and street names, while his words and ideas simply vanished. On the other hand, their other major statue-latry object, who had nothing to do with Sangh or Jan Sangh, could have still got his statues and much sincere respect, but his (selectively and painstakingly selected) words frankly needn’t have been made the guiding document for this party, its favored social media propagandists, and of course their leader and his vast, adoring fan-base which has now been herded into mass “double-think” (in the Orwellian sense) of accepting an ideology of Hindu-annihilation as the antidote to possible Hindu-annihilation!

A writer-scholar who knows this subject once told me, around 2018 or so, that “they are trying to co-opt a poison,” for his ideas simply cannot be co-opted in any kind of Hindu survival project. And so we have what we have today in 2024, a new, historical third term, yes, but the same-old and perhaps even worse as far as a story for the new global-Hindu generation is concerned.

Finally, to conclude, remember these three things again:

-Be a Hindu, nota vota!

-Be in the same mainstream culture your kids are in (don’t call people cockroaches).

-Be a story-maker, not just a statue-gazer.

(And please do read the new edition of Rearming Hinduism, ready to pre-order here: https://www.amazon.in/Rearming-Hinduism-Nature-Hinduphobia-Intelligence/dp/B0D63P5NKM?)