A Restatement of Religion: Swami Vivekananda and the Making of Hindu Nationalism

In this third installment of his comprehensive history of “India’s religion” and reappraisal of Hindu identity, Professor Jyotirmaya Sharma offers an engaging portrait of Swami Vivekananda and his relationship with his guru, the legendary Ramakrishna. Sharma’s work focuses on Vivekananda’s reinterpretation and formulation of diverse Indian spiritual and mystical traditions and practices as “Hinduism” and how it served to create, distort, and justify a national self-image. The author examines questions of caste and the primacy of the West in Vivekananda’s vision, as well as the systematic marginalization of alternate religions and heterodox beliefs. In doing so, Professor Sharma provides readers with an incisive entryway into nineteenth- and twentieth-century Indian history and the rise of Hindutva, the Hindu nationalist movement.