From DNA to Demography: The Holy Science of Hindutva Nationalism

Part One

Part Two

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Genomics, Caste, and the Myth of an Aryan Homeland

Another stunning chapter delves into the biopolitics of the human genome. Here, the author reveal how the cutting-edge science of genetics is being twisted to serve the age-old political project of rewriting history. Hindutva ideologues are deeply invested in “proving” through DNA that the so-called “Aryan” people—whom they identify as the progenitors of upper-caste Hindus—were indigenous to India, not migrants from Central Asia, as mainstream historical and genetic evidence suggests. This “Out of India” theory is crucial for their nationalist narrative, as it allows them to claim that Hindus are the sole authentic, indigenous inhabitants of the land, while casting Muslims and Christians as descendants of foreign invaders.

Holy Science navigates the messy politics of these DNA studies, showing how “the genomic bionationalism in India connects race (phenotype) and caste to genetic factors, hence naturalizing this social structure and ideas of pollution and impurity” (p. 4). The book reveals the intense struggle over the meaning of the Indian genome. On one side are Dalit activists and scholars who use genetic evidence of European links among upper castes to challenge the myth of purity and the foundations of the caste system. On the other are Hindutva-backed scientists who selectively interpret data to erase histories of migration and syncretism, attempting to forge a single, unified genetic narrative for all Hindus. In this contested space, “The Indian genome becomes a site for contesting power, where science is wielded to either challenge or reinforce social hierarchies” (p. 165).

The authors expose the bitter irony of this “pharmaceuticalization of life,” where the nation invests in massive, high-tech genomic projects to validate myths while neglecting dire public health crises—such as the 2.5 million deaths from pollution in a single year.

Policing the Body: Sexuality, Surrogacy, and the National Womb

The book provides a vital feminist critique, exposing how Hindutva’s “holy science” is fundamentally patriarchal. It is used to promote an idealized vision of a chaste, fertile, and submissive Hindu womanhood, rooted in a mythical Vedic past. Scientific and medical discourses are marshalled to control women’s bodies, their reproductive choices, and their sexuality, positioning them as biological vessels for the nation’s future.

A powerful chapter unpacks the debates surrounding Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a colonial-era law that criminalized non-heteronormative sex. Subramaniam  shows how Hindu nationalists, in a moment of profound historical irony, embraced this Victorian-era law—rooted in Judeo-Christian notions of “unnatural” acts. They defended it with pseudoscientific justifications about public health and natural order, seeking to reinforce patriarchal and heteronormative norms as essential to the Hindu nation.

This biopolitical control extends to the womb itself. The book’s analysis of the surrogacy industry in Gujarat under Narendra Modi’s governance is another standout case study. It details how the bodies of lower-class Indian women became reproductive factories for an international market—a process where colonial eugenic anxieties were inverted into a neoliberal economic opportunity. Yet this “development” was also framed within a nationalist discourse about the fertility and vitality of the “Indian womb.” This case exemplifies the broader argument: that Hindu nationalism’s embrace of science is often a mask for entrenching deep inequities of gender, class, and caste.

The anxieties over “genetic purity” and the moral panic surrounding “Love Jihad”—an Islamophobic conspiracy theory alleging that Muslim men are seducing Hindu women to convert them and alter the country’s demography—are revealed as potent biopolitical strategies to police women’s intimate lives and secure the boundaries of the imagined Hindu community.

Demography as Destiny: The Biologized ‘Muslim Threat’

Directly connected to the control of women’s bodies is the demographic panic that lies at the heart of Hindutva biopolitics: the existential fear that Hindus are being systematically outbred by a rapidly multiplying Muslim population. This is not presented as mere political rhetoric; it is framed as a grave biological threat to the survival of the nation’s body.

The authors dissect how this fear is manufactured and sustained through the selective use and distortion of demographic data. The spectre of the “Muslim threat” is thus biologized—transformed from a political or social concern into a matter of species survival. RSS leaders Vinayak Savarkar, Keshav Hedgewar, and Madhav Golwalkar carefully constructed their writings and speeches to emphasize the ferocity of Muslim men and women, the weakness of Hindu males, and an ever-present Muslim threat to Hindus and Hinduism. Taken together, these provided a powerful call for Hindu revival, a potent incitement for retaliation against Muslims, and pre-emptive sexual violence against Muslim women (p. 122).

This biologized fear has profound policy implications. It is used to justify population control measures that often implicitly or explicitly target minority communities under the guise of national health and resource management. Furthermore, it provides the emotional and “scientific” fuel for exclusionary citizenship laws, like the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which are designed to redefine who belongs to the national body—and who can be purged from it.

Sanctifying the Landscape: From Vedic Architecture to Mythical Bridges

The project of “holy science” extends beyond human bodies to the very land itself. The authors explore how even fields like architecture and archaeology are co-opted. Vaastushastra, an ancient system of architecture, has been resurrected by BJP-led governments and promoted as a “Vedic science,” with its principles being incorporated into public building projects to bring “success along traditional religious lines.”

Similarly, the book examines the controversy over the Setusamudram Shipping Canal Project—a proposed channel that would dredge a passage through a chain of limestone shoals known as Adam’s Bridge or Ram Setu. Religious nationalists, claiming the shoals are the remnants of the mythical bridge built by Lord Rama’s army as described in the Ramayana, fiercely opposed the project. They found unlikely allies in some environmental groups, creating a “greening of Hindu nationalism” (p. 134), where ecological concerns and religious myth were fused to halt a major infrastructure project.

In both cases, the landscape is imbued with sacred, scientific, and nationalistic significance, making its alteration an act of sacrilege against both God and the nation.

Epistemology, Narrative, and the Possibility of Resistance

Beyond its brilliant case studies, Holy Science makes a profound contribution to our understanding of how these ideological projects function at an epistemological level—that is, at the level of what counts as knowledge, and how we know what we know.

The author argues that Hindutva science does not necessarily seek to win a head-to-head debate with mainstream global science. Instead, it thrives on creating what they brilliantly term an “epistemological murk” (p. 176). This is a strategy of deliberate confusion. It works by blurring the lines between established scientific facts, speculative interpretations of ancient texts, outright fabrication, and deeply held faith. By framing its claims as an “alternative” or “indigenous” science, it demands equal time and space alongside—or even above—modern scientific consensus in textbooks, museums, and public policy debates.

This tactic creates a relativist fog where any critique can be deftly deflected. A critic who points out the lack of evidence for cow urine curing cancer can be dismissed as a “Westernized” colonial stooge, a “pseudo-secularist” hostile to Hindu culture, or an “intolerant” voice unwilling to respect “alternative ways of knowing.” This strategy is chillingly effective in a post-truth media environment. It erodes the very foundations of shared, evidence-based reality, making rational public discourse impossible. When ideology is presented as science, disagreement is no longer a debate—it is heresy.

Speculative Futures: The ‘Avatars for Lost Dreams’

In one of its most innovative and hopeful moves, the book does not stop at critique. Interspersed between the dense analytical chapters are short, evocative works of speculative fiction—“techno-poetic myths” that Subramaniam calls Avatars for Lost Dreams. These narrative interludes are not mere artistic flourishes; they are, as the authors explain, an exploration of how stories are generative and allow new nature-cultural possibilities (p. 40). They are thought experiments that challenge the monolithic, patriarchal, and linear narratives of Hindu nationalism.

In one story, The Story of Neram, she imagines a world where time is fluid and cyclical, not linear and progressive: “In Neram’s world, time did not march forward but danced in cycles, embracing multiplicity and refusing singular truths” (p. 160). These stories propose alternative ways of knowing and being, grounded in India’s genuinely pluralistic and syncretic pasts. They imagine futures that embrace impurity and hybridity, offering a powerful contrast to the sterile, puritanical vision of Hindutva. They are an act of radical imagination—a refusal to let the nationalist project have the final say on what India’s past, present, and future can be.

A Nuanced Stance: Reclaiming Hinduism from Hindutva

Crucially, the book is not a critique of Hinduism. On the contrary, Subramaniam is fierce in her refusal to cede Hinduism to Hindu nationalism (p. 216). The author carefully distinguish between the vast, diverse, and often progressive traditions within Hinduism and the narrow, rigid, and exclusionary political ideology of Hindutva. Subramaniam is, in her own words, “fiercely critical of the current configuration of political Hinduism [Hindutva] … but rather than reject India or Hinduism,” the author wish to embrace “them in their more progressive and imaginative possibilities” (p. 8).

This nuanced stance is vital. It avoids throwing the baby out with the bathwater and instead seeks to rescue and amplify the pluralistic traditions that Hindutva seeks to erase. The analysis shows how the nationalist project relies on a “nativist and nostalgic view of ancient India” (p. 131) that grossly oversimplifies a complex history.

A Global Alarm Bell

Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism is a landmark study. It is an essential read not just for scholars of South Asia, science studies, or political theory, but for any global citizen concerned about the rising tide of nationalist populism and the worldwide erosion of evidence-based reasoning. The tactics it so brilliantly dissects—the scientizing of ideology, the creation of epistemological murk, the use of biology to define national belonging, and the pathologizing of minorities—are not unique to India. We see echoes of these strategies in authoritarian and fundamentalist movements across the globe, from climate change denialism and anti-vaccine movements in the United States to ethno-nationalist projects in Europe and beyond.

As the author soberly conclude, the allure of using science to ground cultural supremacy, national identity, and political legitimacy is powerful and widespread (p. 200).

While some critics have noted that the book could have delved even deeper into the violent praxis of Hindutva—such as the direct role of laboratories in rationalizing lynching—or found its prose occasionally dense, these are minor points in a work of such staggering ambition and insight. Subramaniam  writes with clarity, rigor, and a palpable sense of urgency. She avoids simplistic condemnation, offering instead a nuanced, meticulously researched, and profoundly unsettling analysis of how the fusion of science and religious nationalism operates as one of the most powerful tools of biopolitical control in our time.

In an era of “alternative facts” and culturally weaponized science that threatens democratic foundations and basic human rights, Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism is more than a book—it is a powerful alarm bell and an indispensable field guide. It reveals that the great struggle of the 21st century may not be a simple clash between science and religion, but a more insidious battle between evidence-based reasoning on one side and the deliberate, politically motivated corruption of science on the other.

For those who wish to understand and resist this corruption, this book is not just essential reading—it is a vital part of the intellectual toolkit for survival. It challenges us to “let go of our quest for universal truth” (p. 214) and instead focus on how “circuits of power” (p. 211) create and marginalize others. In doing so, it provides a hopeful—if challenging—blueprint for imagining a more inclusive, plural, and truly scientific future.

The end

Cover Image: A rally by RSS members. Courtesy: The Telegraph