A Hindu right wing day out

My PhD research examines public space and the politics of women in India’s Hindu right wing movement. Clad in saffron, the colour of the movement, millions of women embrace the violent and cultural/ethnic nationalist politics of the populist project, bringing it into their homes and classrooms. My photograph, A Hindu Right Wing Day Out, depicts a young boy and his schoolmates, dressed up by their mothers as revered founding Hindu nationalist leaders. It examines how right wing women ritually appropriate history and mythology and manipulate political/religious discourse in continuity with a constructed glorious ‘Hindu’ past. More importantly, as the young boys dress up as if for a school play or a costumed day out, the photograph aims to begin a conversation about the gendered transformation of political public space in a site of leisure, pleasure, and recreation.