The idea conveyed by the book Spectacle State: How Hindutva Shapes Feeling and Culture’s subtitle works both ways. The Hindutva ideology shapes feeling and culture in today’s India because the Bharatiya Janata Party, more so Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is the political hegemon. When viewed inversely, Modi and his party were able to secure political power in 2014 and further consolidate it over several national and state elections, (with exceptions at both levels, most categorically in 2024), because people’s feelings and their culture furthered the stranglehold of Hindutva as the dominant ideology in contemporary India. Spectacle State: How Hindutva Shapes Feeling and Culture, Brahma Prakash, HarperCollins, 2026.The belief’s sway over people’s mind is not a post-2014 phenomenon, but grew steadily from the 1980s with the rising support for the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation for constructing a Ram temple at Ayodhya.At the outset, Brahma Prakash states that his book is “about the heart, about the feeling of ‘Hinduness’. Some elements of myths and cultural beliefs were already there. Hindutva wants to make them appear or seeable through the power of spectacle.” He further adds to the multiple characteristics of Hindutva – it is “about the feeling and sensation of ‘Hinduness’. It is a matter of hurt, heart and art.” Because of its framework, this book secures a permanent space on the bookshelf by being a critical cultural companion to political analysis. Throughout the book, the author is focused on how aesthetics is embedded in processes, structures, and techniques through which authority is exercised, maintained, or manipulated within a political or social system. The book elucidates how ideology travels beyond speeches and party manifestos into soundwaves, streets, and everyday emotional moments. No Indian, still rooted in the home soil, or based in consciously chosen better pastures, would have been able to avoid the ‘full’ performances of Modi when he takes to the proscenium, which he does this often. While writing and analysing about the theatres of Hindutva, Prakash details how over the past several episodes (sic), the Kumbh Mela, over different venues, first became a show with micro-detailing over pliant news television and then became a spectacle. “They have their focus on shows,” he says and continues, “and more shows. If they cannot manage the shows physically, they put them on radio and display sets. Remember Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’.” Recall now the monthly TV coverage of the radio show. A carefully selected and choreographed bunch of people, stationed at a chai shop or a park and collectively listening to the radio, strategically placed in the centre of the circle of people who are united, ostensibly, solely in their zeal to listen to their leader. “That is Hindutva theatre – an event that many would otherwise pass by, but in this instance, various elements convey the power the performance holds.”Also read: India is Now Ready to Move Towards a Post-Hindutva PolityEvery performance has a purpose: if Mann Ki Baat is all about demonstrating the leader’s varied interests and curiosity, the bulldozer which rolls down the central avenue in a specifically chosen locality, evokes cheers of one lot of people, committed behind power, and a sense of horror among the other lot who are concerned about “processes” not being followed before sending the demolition brigade to raze “illegal structures” to the ground. Even if it is the aesthetically jarring H-Pop, meticulously scrutinised and written some years ago by journalist Kunal Purohit, or the ‘angry’ Hanuman sticker pasted on rear windshields of cars that cut across lanes, Prakash explains, this too is Hindutva. The ideology no longer needs a leader delivering a speech, which either elevates anger and hatred or generates the fear of the other. In its place, these multiple fountains of Hindutva, possesses the mind and claims the body through rhythm, noise, and visual dominance.Also read: At the Heart of the Soundtrack of Hindutva, that Spreads Hateful Anti-Minority MessagesBesides the introduction, the book chooses seven ideas, objects, instruments or even a hate crime – “lynching as an art installation,” to argue that mass mobilisation relies on engineered feelings – fear, pride, victimhood, and collective euphoria. Some elements or facets of these Hindutva spectacles that Prakash delves into, have been tracked previously by writers and reporters, like the reviewer. For instance, the earliest H-Pop numbers did not come via YouTube or over WhatsApp, but they first surfaced and did the rounds from the late 1980s as the Ayodhya agitation gained ground. Produced and made available on cheap audio cassettes, produced by a well-known company which launched itself with pirated products initially, this genre of political music mobilized support for the Vishwa Hindu Parishad-led movement. Back then too, saffron-clad sadhvis sang and danced along and the audience perceived much more than the lyrics, that were often much more than hateful. Implicit sexuality has been embedded in the political campaign to secure support for Hindutva. Just as graffiti from the late 1980s – Main Babur Ka Damaad Hoon, expressed hankering of Hindu activists to sexually possess Muslim women, Prakash argues that bulldozers and phallic imagery go hand-in-hand. He rightly contends that in the majority of instances, tattoos in essence are used to enhance sex appeal. So when the tattoos used are based on Hindutva imaginations, they “are not just about the insignia but also about sex appeal.” The book contends that Hindutva has drawn much more from fascist ideology and practice from the West than is believed. Because of the narrative of victimhood that has been used to foster Hindutva, there has been the need to drive masculinity of the community that is taking ‘revenge’ or settling the score.Also read: Fascism-Forward: Into the Shadows with Hindu NationalismThe bulldozer, the manner it has been deployed by various state governments, is seen as a carrier of Hindutva’s hegemonic masculinity and in its movements on the streets and while razing avaid (illegal) buildings, it is perceived as embodiment of aggressive, virile Hindu men whose masculinity is expressed through vigilantism. The bulldozer, the book asserts, becomes the brutal machine which too is a vigilante, one who needs no shadows on the streets but can operate in broad daylight given the state sanction in its operator’s pocket.Re-engineering of religious festivities and public spaces is nothing new and can be traced back to the 1890s when Bal Gangadhar Tilak popularised public Ganesh festivals. Violence during such celebrations gradually became routine and it is now passed off as celebration. The book underscores how the character of public rituals have been consciously altered from the devotional to competitive gatherings, boundary-marking displays of territorial dominance and boisterous celebrations depicted as devotional music. High-decibel soundscapes that are an integral part of the kanwar yatras radiating through the planes of northern India after originating from Haridwar, are also little but to claim the highways for a few days in the Hindu month of Saawan. These enactments by grim looking youth, with a mixture of ash and paint smeared over their faces, are presented as the nouveau devotional. Prakash correctly dissects how sound acts as a sonic fence, claiming physical space and provoking confrontation under the guise of festive music. The book rightly contends that Hindutva’s continued survival depends on maintaining an elevated sense of fear and hate among its target audience, the Hindus. For this there can be nothing better than creating a spectacle of everything that draws attention and audience. The only blemish of the book is not the author’s. Notes and index, important part of this book, are not part of the printed copy in hand and instead available over a device through a QR code. The reasons are fathomable, but still, readers will be left with a grouse.Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay reported and wrote on the Ram temple agitation from the 1980s. He authored The Demolition: India At The Crossroads (1994) and The Demolition and the Verdict (2021), updated in 2024.