Political Hinduism, known as Hindutva, is the definitive political agenda that will determine India’s future. This book, spanning more than a thousand years of Indian history, provides an accessible introduction to this little-known and often feared ideology.

This is the first intellectual history of political Hinduism from its medieval origins to current-day India. It provides the ideological context of India’s rise economically and politically in the world in the last decade, illustrating not only where political Hinduism comes from, but more importantly, where it seeks to go. It provides an intellectual framework not only to understand the rise of Narendra Modi and his politics in the world’s largest democracy, but also India’s political, economic, and diplomatic choices as it negotiates its space as a rapidly rising, billion-strong democracy in a fluid and precarious world order.