“A Place of Paramount Peace”: The Unofficial Nationalism of an Officially Peaceful Movement

In this paper, I argue that despite the Sanstha’s official message of peace, ecumenism and tolerance, the group’s rhetoric and activities reveal an unofficial side of the Sanstha that may foster intolerance, fundamentalism, and, possibly, a Hindu nationalist agenda. This connection is not to be found at an official, or even public, level. In order to accurately assess the movement’s role as a transnational Gujarati Hindu movement, we must reach a middle ground between the currently polarized scholarship, and critically, but empathetically, examine the Sanstha’s objectives as a global movement