Intellectual decay:
Hindutva, Mob Politics and the Capture of India's Democratic Imagination
How majoritarian nationalism can turn culture into political propaganda, normalise vigilantism and weaken the public's capacity for independent thought.
There is a form of political decay more dangerous than ordinary corruption. It does not merely steal public money, manipulate elections or weaken the opposition. It gradually alters how people understand reality, whom they regard as fellow citizens, what they consider acceptable behaviour and whether they are still capable of questioning the political movement they support.
This is the deeper danger posed by the institutionalisation of Hindutva politics in India.
The term brain rot, used here in a political and intellectual sense, describes a deterioration of critical reasoning, public discourse and the willingness to question authority. It is not a clinical diagnosis of individuals, nor a claim that Hindu religious belief itself produces intellectual decline. The concern is the systematic political exploitation of identity, historical grievance, cultural symbolism and fear.
The argument is that the RSS-led Hindutva ecosystem has helped build a model of political mobilisation in which religious identity can be placed above constitutional citizenship, ideological loyalty above independent judgement, and the perceived defence of culture above the rights of fellow human beings.
The important question is not whether Hindu culture deserves protection. Every culture deserves the freedom to flourish. The question is what happens when a political project claims exclusive ownership of a culture and uses that claim to demand obedience, justify exclusion and silence criticism.
1. From religious identity to political obedience
The first transformation occurs when a diverse religious civilisation is presented as a single political identity that must be defended against permanent enemies.
Hindu traditions contain competing philosophical schools, sceptical traditions, devotional movements, regional practices and radically different interpretations of social life. Hinduism cannot be reduced to one organisation, one political party or one interpretation of Indian history.
Hindutva, however, is a political ideology of nationhood associated with the idea of India as fundamentally a Hindu nation. Scholars including Christophe Jaffrelot have examined how Hindu nationalism developed into a mass political force and how its organisational networks have reshaped Indian politics.
The distinction matters. A Hindu who questions a political leader is not betraying Hinduism. A Hindu who defends a Muslim neighbour is not betraying Indian civilisation. A citizen who questions a religious procession, a historical claim or a government policy is exercising the intellectual freedom necessary for democracy.
Yet, within polarised political discourse, legitimate questions can be reframed as insults to religion, attacks on national identity or evidence of disloyalty.
This is an effective mechanism of political control. Instead of answering criticism with evidence, the movement can redefine the critic as an enemy.
The debate then shifts from Is the claim true? to Whose side are you on?
Once that shift becomes normal, critical thinking begins to lose its place in public life.
2. The machinery of ideological reproduction
The RSS is not simply an electoral organisation. It has an extensive network of affiliated and ideologically aligned organisations working across social, educational, cultural and political spheres. The BJP operates as a political party within this wider environment, although the organisations have distinct structures and activities.
That distinction is important: ideological alignment does not prove that every affiliated organisation takes orders for every action from a single central command. Nevertheless, an interconnected organisational ecosystem can help reproduce a shared worldview across different areas of society.
This is where the concept of cultural hegemony, associated with the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, becomes useful.
Political dominance is not sustained through coercion alone. It can also be sustained by making a particular worldview appear natural, patriotic, morally unquestionable and common sense.
Consider how such a process may work:
- A selective account of history becomes a story of collective victimhood.
- Collective victimhood becomes a permanent sense of threat.
- A permanent threat creates demand for a strong political protector.
- Loyalty to that protector becomes a test of patriotism.
- Criticism of the protector is reinterpreted as support for the enemy.
The result is a political environment in which citizens may begin to defend a movement against evidence that should cause them to question it.
This is not unique to Hindutva. Comparable mechanisms have operated in religious nationalisms, ethnic nationalisms and authoritarian movements across the world. The Indian context, however, has its own constitutional, historical and social characteristics.
The central concern is that an organised ideological ecosystem can make political beliefs self-reinforcing, even when their consequences are harmful to democratic institutions.
3. When culture becomes a shield for propaganda
Culture is a source of meaning, belonging, beauty and collective memory. Political propaganda works differently: it selects cultural symbols to advance a political objective.
The two become entangled when a government, political party or ideological organisation presents its preferred interpretation of history and tradition as the only legitimate one.
A question about a policy becomes an attack on religion. A defence of minority rights becomes appeasement. A criticism of a political leader becomes anti-national behaviour. A demand for equal treatment becomes an insult to the majority.
This is a form of sacralisation of politics: political objectives acquire the moral authority of sacred commitments, making ordinary democratic scrutiny appear illegitimate.
The political usefulness of this strategy is obvious. A policy can be debated, measured and challenged. A sacred identity, once mobilised politically, can be much harder to question without provoking an emotional reaction.
But no democratic institution, political leader or organisation should be exempt from scrutiny simply because it invokes religion or tradition.
A civilisation confident in its intellectual heritage should be able to tolerate questions. A political movement that treats questioning as hostility risks turning culture from a living inheritance into an instrument of conformity.
4. Rewriting the past to narrow the future
Historical education is another arena in which ideological projects compete for influence.
India's history is complex. It includes ancient intellectual achievements, religious and philosophical diversity, caste oppression, regional kingdoms, the Delhi Sultanate, Mughal rule, colonial exploitation, social reform, anti-caste movements and the struggle for independence.
No serious history can be reduced to a permanent conflict between a unified Hindu past and a uniformly hostile Muslim presence.
Yet controversies surrounding changes to NCERT textbooks have raised questions about the selection, omission and presentation of historical material. In 2023, revisions affecting history, political science and other subjects prompted criticism over the removal or reduction of material relating to particular historical figures, events and political controversies. The details vary by textbook and edition, and textbook revisions are not unique to one political party. The relevant question is whether changes improve historical accuracy and educational quality or selectively privilege a political narrative.
Research by Krzysztof Iwanek, published by Oxford University Press in Endless Siege: Education and Nationalism in Vidya Bharati Schools, compares historical narratives in Vidya Bharati educational materials with those in NCERT and other textbooks. His analysis identifies substantial differences in how history is represented.
This is a valuable area of study because education does more than transmit facts. It teaches students what counts as evidence, how to evaluate conflicting accounts and whether the past should be understood through inquiry or inherited political loyalties.
When historical education becomes a mechanism for manufacturing collective grievance, students may learn to inherit resentments rather than investigate their origins.
A child taught to see an entire religious community as a historical enemy is being deprived of the opportunity to understand history as a discipline.
The purpose of education should be to develop citizens who can interrogate even the most emotionally powerful national narratives—not merely repeat them.
5. Vigilantism and the politics of manufactured threat
One of the most disturbing consequences of majoritarian politics is the normalisation of informal coercion.
Across India, incidents of violence and intimidation have been reported in contexts including cow protection, interreligious relationships, religious conversion, communal processions and allegations involving the consumption or transport of beef. Responsibility varies from incident to incident, and the facts must be established in each case. It would be inaccurate to attribute every such act to the RSS or to assume that every vigilante group is centrally directed.
Nevertheless, the broader pattern deserves serious scrutiny: when sections of society are encouraged to believe that they are authorised to police the behaviour, relationships or religious practices of other citizens, the boundary between law and private coercion begins to erode.
The problem is not merely the physical violence itself. It is the message conveyed when a crowd acts as investigator, prosecutor and executioner, while the victim is treated as presumptively guilty.
In a constitutional democracy, allegations must be investigated by lawful authorities, evidence must be tested, and punishment must follow due process. No religious sentiment gives a private group the authority to suspend these principles.
The political danger becomes especially acute when provocative rhetoric is rewarded with attention, when perpetrators appear to enjoy impunity, or when authorities respond inconsistently depending on the identity of the victim and the accused.
These conditions can create a perception that some citizens possess a greater entitlement to public space and legal protection than others.
That is not cultural preservation. It is a challenge to equal citizenship.
6. Digital propaganda and the manufacture of communal hostility
Modern ideological mobilisation does not depend on public meetings and printed pamphlets alone. Messaging platforms, short videos, memes, influencer networks and algorithmically amplified content can distribute emotionally charged political narratives at extraordinary speed.
Research published in PNAS Nexus in May 2025 provides particularly relevant evidence. The study, Online speech and communal conflict: Evidence from India, analysed approximately 22.4 million posts on Koo and data concerning attacks on religious minorities between 2020 and 2022.
The researchers found that the frequency of hashtags carrying Hindu-chauvinist connotations was associated with increased attacks on Muslims and Christians. In contrast, hashtags signalling interreligious amity were associated with fewer attacks. The reported relationships survived robustness checks, and the researchers also examined internet outages as part of their analysis.
These findings are significant, but they should be interpreted precisely. The study identifies evidence consistent with online speech influencing offline harm; it does not establish that every post causes violence or that the RSS centrally orchestrated the attacks examined.
Its deeper insight is that dangerous political communication need not always contain an explicit threat or a demonstrably false factual claim. Cultural signals and expressions of group solidarity can also reinforce hostility when they are embedded in a polarised environment.
This challenges the simplistic idea that misinformation can be solved merely by fact-checking individual statements.
A society may be flooded with technically ambiguous messages that collectively teach people to regard a minority as dangerous, disloyal or undeserving of equal rights.
When that narrative becomes socially acceptable, an individual may participate in discrimination while believing that they are defending their community.
The consequence is a politics in which emotional conditioning can become more influential than evidence.
7. Institutional capture and the shrinking space for dissent
Democracy requires more than elections. It requires institutions capable of restraining those who win them.
Courts, universities, public broadcasters, regulatory bodies, investigative agencies, civil society organisations and independent journalists perform different functions, but they share an essential responsibility: they must be able to question power.
When institutional appointments are perceived as rewards for political loyalty, investigative agencies are accused of selective enforcement, journalists face intimidation, or academics fear professional consequences for controversial findings, the public has reason to worry about institutional independence.
Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2025 report classified India as “Partly Free” and documented concerns involving civil liberties, pressure on journalists and nongovernmental organisations, minority rights, academic freedom and the treatment of political opponents. Freedom House is an independent democracy-monitoring organisation, not a court of law; its assessments should be considered alongside other sources and its stated methodology.
These findings do not establish that every Indian institution has been captured or that every government action is politically motivated. India continues to have competitive elections, opposition parties, independent reporting, civil society activism and judicial contestation.
The concern is instead cumulative erosion.
Institutional independence rarely disappears in one dramatic event. It can weaken through repeated appointments, selective enforcement, intimidation, self-censorship and the normalisation of political interference.
This is why institutional capture is so consequential. It changes not only who exercises power, but also whether society retains the means to hold power accountable.
When people stop expecting institutions to act impartially, they may begin to seek protection through partisan loyalty or community power. That further weakens the idea of universal citizenship.
8. The psychology of conformity: why people defend what harms them
Why do individuals defend political narratives that appear to contradict their own experience or the evidence before them?
Social psychology offers several explanations.
Motivated reasoning describes how people evaluate information in ways that protect existing beliefs and identities. Evidence supporting one's political group may receive generous scrutiny, while contradictory evidence is dismissed or subjected to impossible standards.
Confirmation bias encourages people to seek or remember information that supports what they already believe.
In-group and out-group bias can make people more forgiving of wrongdoing by members of their own group and more suspicious of identical conduct by outsiders.
Pluralistic ignorance can arise when individuals privately doubt a dominant narrative but incorrectly assume that most others accept it. They may remain silent, making the apparent consensus look stronger than it is.
These are established concepts in psychology and social science. They are not proof that every supporter of Hindutva is irrational or that these mechanisms operate only among Hindu nationalists. They help explain how political conformity can become self-reinforcing in any polarised society.
The political significance lies in how these ordinary human tendencies can be exploited by organised movements.
When a political identity becomes central to a person's sense of belonging, admitting that the movement has acted wrongly may feel like admitting that their community, family or personal history is wrong.
It becomes easier to reject the evidence than to revise one's identity.
Over time, public debate can become less about discovering what is true and more about protecting the emotional boundaries of a political tribe.
This is one defensible meaning of political brain rot: not a lack of intelligence, but the gradual surrender of independent judgement to identity-protecting habits.
9. Why the RSS-Hindutva question matters beyond one organisation
Criticism of Hindutva should not be confused with hostility towards Hindus, Hindu religious practices or Indian cultural traditions. Nor should it assume that every RSS member, BJP voter or Hindu nationalist holds identical views.
The analytical question concerns political power and its consequences.
The RSS has a long organisational history and an explicit ideological relationship with Hindu nationalism. The BJP has governed India for much of the period since 2014. Scholars and civil society organisations have examined the ways Hindu-nationalist ideas, political institutions and social mobilisation interact.
It is reasonable to scrutinise this ecosystem when examining majoritarian rhetoric, minority insecurity, educational narratives and the treatment of dissent. It is equally necessary to distinguish documented organisational links from allegations of direct coordination in a particular incident.
That distinction strengthens the argument rather than weakening it.
The central issue is whether political actors are building a system in which one religious identity becomes the presumed owner of the nation, while others are tolerated only conditionally.
If citizenship becomes hierarchical, constitutional equality is reduced to a formal promise.
If culture is monopolised by a political movement, cultural belonging becomes a test of obedience.
If dissent is labelled treachery, democracy becomes an electoral ritual without its essential culture of accountability.
And if public reasoning is replaced by permanent suspicion of an imagined internal enemy, society loses the ability to address its actual problems.
10. The ultimate cost: a society less capable of thinking for itself
A nation can possess advanced technology, world-class scientists, skilled engineers and a large educated population while still experiencing a deterioration in public reasoning.
Education and intelligence do not automatically protect a society from propaganda. Indeed, educated people can become highly effective at rationalising the beliefs of the groups to which they belong.
The question is not whether Indians are intelligent. It is whether the political environment encourages citizens to use their intelligence independently.
Can a citizen question a historical claim without being called anti-Hindu?
Can a Hindu defend the rights of a Muslim without being branded a traitor to the community?
Can a Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Dalit or atheist participate in public life without being asked to prove their loyalty to a majoritarian definition of the nation?
Can a journalist investigate the powerful without fear? Can a scholar publish an inconvenient finding? Can a court, university or public institution make a decision without having to satisfy an ideological constituency?
These are not marginal questions. They are tests of democratic health.
The most successful form of political control is not one that forces every citizen to agree. It is
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