Hindutva femonationalism vilified Muslims under garb of gender justice. The judiciary quietly aided this.
The Hindu far-right abused gender justice rhetoric to entrench discrimination against Indian Muslims, even as it remained an inherently conservative movement. The contradictions of Hindutva feminism resemble sociologist Sara Farris’ conception of ‘femonationalism’, and the Indian higher judiciary has been extensively complicit.
Published on: 24 June 2025, 05:29 am
HINDUTVA HAS SIGNIFICANTLY SHAPED the Indian state and politics over the past decade. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Hindu Right* has not only consolidated power but also strategically employed gender justice rhetoric to further its majoritarian objectives. Despite its inherently conservative stance that resists progressive reforms and curtails women’s rights, the Hindu Right paradoxically portrays itself as a champion of Muslim women’s emancipation. This contradiction is most evident in its selective advocacy, where it claims to "rescue" Muslim women from the supposed oppression of Muslim men while remaining silent or complicit in broader gender injustices within Hindu society.
This article examines the Hindu Right’s contradictory approach through the lens of femonationalism—a framework analysing how right-wing movements exploit feminist rhetoric to justify exclusionary politics. I argue that the Hindu Right’s engagement with gender justice lacks genuine commitment to Muslim women’s rights, instead serving as a means of legitimising Hindutva’s supremacist project and vilify the Indian Muslim community.
Crucially, I highlight how constitutional Hindu biases—deeply embedded in India’s legal architecture—have been exploited by the Hindu Right to advance its agenda. This strategy is most visible in landmark decisions like Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017) and Aishat Shifa v. the State of Karnataka (2022) which reveal the Indian judiciary’s alignment with Hindutva’s national meta-narrative, prioritising majoritarian politics over constitutional norms and principles.
Despite its inherently conservative stance that resists progressive reforms and curtails women’s rights, the Hindu Right paradoxically portrays itself as a champion of Muslim women’s emancipation.
Hindutva and Femonationalism
The Hindu Right’s vision of a Hindu Rashtra—a nation-state privileging Hindu identity—relies on constructing Indian Muslims as the “Other” while enforcing cultural assimilation and patriarchal norms. Hindutva ideology entrenches traditional hierarchies that marginalise women and gender minorities.
Historian Charu Gupta writes, “In India, the Hindu right particularly has been a master at creating panics around expressions of love, be it Valentine’s Day, homosexual love, or inter-caste and inter-religious romance, posing them as one of the biggest threats to cohesive community identities and boundaries.”
The Hindu Right’s opposition to gender justice within Hindu society is evident in its resistance to equality-promoting legal reforms. Two key examples illustrate this contradiction.
First, the Hindu Code Bill (‘HCB’), aimed at granting Hindu women rights in property, inheritance, and marriage, was fiercely opposed by the Hindu Right, which called it an attack on “Hindu culture”. It strategically pushed for a Uniform Civil Code (‘UCC’) to conflate Hindu and minority personal laws, thereby stalling reforms. The backlash led to B.R. Ambedkar’s resignation as law minister.