Hindu nationalism, Muslim separatism, and secularism, the official ideology of the Indian National Congress during the nationalist movement and of the Indian state since Independence, have existed side by side in Indian politics since the late nineteenth century. Although the three ideologies and the political organizations and movements they have spawned from time to time have always been perceived as mutually antagonistic, they have shared common goals. Before Independence, they all sought to unite either the entire population of the country or one of the two largest segments of it into united wholes to contest for power at the center of the Indian political system. Moreover, these are the only possible bases for uniting the vast heterogeneous populations of the Indian subcontinent, divided amongst language, caste, tribal, religious sectarian, and many other groupings.

Hindu nationalism has offered the prospect of uniting the country around the idea that all those who consider themselves “Hindus,” whatever their sect, language, or caste are joined in fact by systems of beliefs, philosophical principles, and rituals going back to the Vedas, that they share a common history preceding both the British and the Muslim invasions, and that, as the “majority” population of the country, their beliefs and history ought to provide the ideological basis for an Indian state properly conceived as a Hindu state. Muslim separatists took the position that all the Muslims of South Asia constituted one nation different from the Hindus and that the two nations could only live together as equals, sharing power in a single state, or they would have to part and live in separate states. Secular nationalists argued that these very differences emphasized the need to remove religion and sense of community from the center of Indian politics and to establish the independent Indian state as a neutral force standing above these two antagonistic forces, preventing them from tearing each other and the Indian state apart, and recognizing all citizens of India, Hindus, Muslims, and others, as entitled to equal rights as individuals without reference to their religion or communal affiliation.