| Summary/Abstract |
This essay examines some aspects of Hindutva and Zionism, taking a comparative approach that underlines the ubiquity—i.e. the comparability—of fascisms in the articulation of modernity. It focuses on the imaginary of race, place and peoplehood in each ideology, the roles of majorities and minorities in the formulation of national well-being, and possible exit strategies from violently exclusivist statecraft. It explores, also, an intellectual prehistory in which Indian nationalists cultivated a fascination with Jews and Zionism as part of their understanding of a race constituted by historical damage and the imperative of repair. It argues, first, that the comparative study of fascisms is not only valid, but necessary to the politics of democracy. Second, it argues that because Indian fascism is less racialised than the Israeli version, it is more open to contestation and mitigation by the deployment of alternative imaginaries of ethnicity and nationhood.
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