Between the lost childhoods of our parents and the infantile public of the Hindu Rashtra: A personal take

Weaving personal history into a reflection on the escalation of communal politics and rhetoric under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this article foregrounds the importance of childhood as a concept that can illuminate the nature of Hindutva fascism – its particular appeal to the adult followers of this ideology and the consequences for children. Briefly, while childhood is increasingly denied and taken away from Muslim children, Hindutva followers are forming into an infantile public utterly supplicant in its devotion to authoritarian figures. Against the Hindutva project and its infantile public is the memory of Partition and the anti-colonial dreams of an egalitarian, socialist society – a history remembered by adults for the sake of children.