The nation and its emigrants: analysis of the contemporary Hindu nationalist discourse on the \Hindu ultramarine community\

Author(s)

Mirian Santos Ribeiro de Oliveira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2012-08-30

Examining board members

Paulo Roberto Arruda de Menezes; Maria Helena Oliva Augusto; Helion Povoa Neto; Angelo de Oliveira Segrillo; Frank Usarski

• Advisor: Antonio Flavio de Oliveira Pierucci

Abstract

Distinct social organizations within modern nation-states seek to redefine their roles, strategies and perceptions of nationhood as contemporary globalization processes deepen. This thesis examines the construction of cultural identities in contexts significantly affected by international migrations. More precisely, we investigate transnational relations between nationalist organizations and emigrants. Since our objective is analyzing contemporary Hindu nationalist discourse on emigration, which is elaborated within the sending-society, India, we focus on the influence of national processes over the construction of transnational identities. In this connection, we examine the process of (re)construction of Hindu identity as a transnational identity by a particular nationalist organization: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organization, RSS), active in India and in receiving-societies with significant amounts of Indian migrants. We concentrate on the analysis of the official discourse of National Volunteers Organization, that is, on the exam of books and pamphlets published by such Hindu nationalist organization. Documentary research was done in India, from December, 2010 to May, 2011. Hindu nationalist documents selected for analysis can be divided in two categories: narratives on Hindu nation only partially related to emigration matters, and discourses on emigration properly speaking. Both categories highlight: (i) the reinterpretation of perceptions of emigration (more precisely, the construction of positive images of emigrants and emigration); ii) the (re)construction of symbolic linkages with emigrants (i.e. the reformulation of the idea of national belongingness, in order to include the emigrant in national narratives). The investigation of processes of identity construction, undertaken by the RSS, is crucial to the analysis of the very creation of institutional channels that intend to realize the symbolic linkages between sending-society and emigrants, once the foundation of Hindu nationalist overseas branches was legitimated and encouraged by the organizations discourse on emigration. Moreover, the analysis presented in this thesis reveals that the (re)construction of linkages with emigrants, from the homeland, furthers the transnationalization of nationalist ideologies. Thus, the representation of Hindu identity as a transnational identity, linking resident and non-resident Indians to a broad sociocultural entity, the Great Hindusthan, implies: i) the assertion of prevalence of the belongingness to the Hindu nation over alternative identifications constructed by the emigrants; ii) the attempt of reterritorialization of transnational relations between the parts, that is, the intention of depicting Indian society as the core of transnational networks formed during emigration processes. (AU)