Action rituelle ou réaction politique ? L'invention des processions du nationalisme hindou dans les années 1980 en Inde

Ritual Action or Political Reaction? The Invention of Hindu Nationalist Processions in the 80s—India. J. Assayag. The production of cultural meanings and social practices fosters the historical formation of national identities. And religion was and is still one of the principal purveyors in this construction. This observation is verified in India in the case of public rituals which have played a critical role for the construction of an unified national consciousness, especially since the 1980s. The purpose of the type of ritual activity represented by mass processions is to demarcate the spatial extension of hinduness, to show the extent of its authority, to build its sovereignty, and to distinguish its members in a manner both concrete and symbolic most of the time against Muslims. Deployed over the public space which they at the same time "saffronise ", these solemn rituals attest to the sharing of an immemorial identity, determined at the outermost bounds of a culture and the race: hinduness rather than indianness, but also space rather than territory, mystagogy rather than history, rite rather than contract, ethnic community rather than civil society, autocracy crossed with monarchy against democracy. So the hinduness is elective in a double meaning: the nation of Ram is a political reaction, in form of ritual action, which Hindus alone periodically renew in order to be what they are.Assayag Jackie. Action rituelle ou réaction politique ? L'invention des processions du nationalisme hindou dans les années 1980 en Inde. In: Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales. 52ᵉ année, N. 4, 1997. pp. 853-879