Mind Migration: Assam’s easy transition from ethnonationalism to Hindutva – By Praveen Donthi

It took a week after the results of the Assam assembly election last month for the Bharatiya Janata Party to name the state’s chief minister. In a polity dominated by numerous tribal and ethnic groups, the party chose Himanta Biswa Sarma, a Brahmin, over the incumbent Sarbananda Sonowal, from a small ethnic Assamese community.

Having returned to power at the head of a victorious alliance, the BJP called the result what it was: a resounding consolidation of pro-Hindutva forces in a state long known for its politics of jatiyotabad—ethnonationalism….

MS Prabhakara, a former Assam correspondent for The Hindu, wrote back in 2009 that, in essence, “these movements of ethno-nationalism are no different from Hindutva movements that too are animated by fear and hatred of the ‘Other'”….

https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/assam-hindutva-nationalism-himanta-sarma-bjp-rss-miya-muslim-nrc