Hindu nationalist forces in India have leveraged a combination of financial resources, institutional authority, and ideological messaging to dominate media spaces, thereby engineering a condition of symbolic inequality. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of three newspapers in local Hindi language during the 2024 General Elections, this paper identifies three constitutive dimensions of this phenomenon. First, symbolic excess denotes the overrepresentation of one political force at the expense of others. During the election period, Hindu nationalist actors and narratives enjoyed disproportionate visibility, crowding out alternative political presences. Second, symbolic absence refers to the systematic invisibilization of opposition actors. This was particularly pronounced in paid political advertising and campaign coverage, where non-ruling parties were markedly underrepresented. Third, symbolic negation operates through the discursive delegitimisation of political adversaries. Opposition parties were frequently framed as “anti-national”—a label wielded instrumentally by Hindu nationalist figures to foreclose dissent and moralise electoral competition. The paper argues that the contemporary political struggle over Hindu nationalism is, in significant part, a symbolic one. The symbolic order shaped by Hindu nationalist discourse has acquired such hegemonic force that its dominance is increasingly perceived as natural, even inevitable. No comparably potent counter-symbolism has emerged to challenge this asymmetry. The endurance of Hindu nationalist hegemony, therefore, lies not merely in electoral majorities but in the durable alignment of political power with symbolic inequality—an alignment that resists easy displacement.

Authors:
Anand Raja, Prof. Rajendra Singh (Rajju Bhaiya) University, India

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Anand Raja is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Prof. Rajendra Singh (Rajju Bhaiya) University, Prayagraj, India. I am interested in Social Theory, Political Phliosophy and Semiotics.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

Bookmark