The Hindu Phenomenon

I recently came across this remarkable book called "The Hindu Phenomenon" by Girilal Jain. Girilal Jain was the editor of the Times of India during 1978-88. Surprisingly he was a supporter of Hindu nationalism. He was one of the few intellectuals who welcomed the Ayodhya movement of the late 1980s. "The Hindu Phenomenon", a collection of six of his essays, was published in 1993.

The work, though slightly disjointed in some places, is impressive. Ambitious in its scope, it tries to understand Hindu nationalism (a modern ideology) by placing it in the context of the last 1000 years of India's history. Throughout the book the author makes many loaded statements, without giving detailed facts and arguments to support them (possibly due to the posthumous nature of the work). Still, his conclusions are very insightful and offer a lot of food for thought. The breadth of the author's reading is also quite impressive.