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The Hindu Right’s dangerous dream of empire
Every year, the descendants of Nathuram Godse gather in a parking lot to honor the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi and renew his dying wish: that his ashes not be scattered until the Indus River flows through a united Hindu India. Behind the ritual is one of the most enduring and least understood ideas in modern Indian politics: Akhand Bharat, an “Undivided India” that would include all or part of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and even Afghanistan.
Once dismissed as the ethno-racial fantasy of an extremist movement, Akhand Bharat has steadily moved from the margins toward the center of political life with the rise of the Hindu Right. In Assassin’s Ashes, veteran journalist Dhirendra K. Jha traces how the dream of Hindu rule over a vast imagined empire passed quietly through generations of the far-right organization RSS and survived scholarly debunking and the death of Gandhi’s assassin. It ultimately found expression at the highest levels of the Indian state under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when it was invoked by senior government figures, displayed in Parliament, and taught in RSS-backed schools.
Based on archival research, rare documents, interviews, and on-the-ground reporting across the region, Assassin’s Ashes shows how a century-old vision of a Hindu empire has returned as a political force with profound implications for India, its minorities, its neighbors, and the future of democracy and peace in the subcontinent.
Every year, the descendants of Nathuram Godse gather in a parking lot to honor the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi and renew his dying wish: that his ashes not be scattered until the Indus River flows through a united Hindu India. Behind the ritual is one of the most enduring and least understood ideas in modern Indian politics: Akhand Bharat, an “Undivided India” that would include all or part of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and even Afghanistan.
Once dismissed as the ethno-racial fantasy of an extremist movement, Akhand Bharat has steadily moved from the margins toward the center of political life with the rise of the Hindu Right. In Assassin’s Ashes, veteran journalist Dhirendra K. Jha traces how the dream of Hindu rule over a vast imagined empire passed quietly through generations of the far-right organization RSS and survived scholarly debunking and the death of Gandhi’s assassin. It ultimately found expression at the highest levels of the Indian state under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when it was invoked by senior government figures, displayed in Parliament, and taught in RSS-backed schools.
Based on archival research, rare documents, interviews, and on-the-ground reporting across the region, Assassin’s Ashes shows how a century-old vision of a Hindu empire has returned as a political force with profound implications for India, its minorities, its neighbors, and the future of democracy and peace in the subcontinent.
Price: $18.00
Pages: 128
Publisher: Columbia Global Reports
Imprint: Columbia Global Reports
Publication Date:
January 26, 2027
Trim Size: 7.50 X 5.00 in
ISBN: 9781967190225
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Nationalism & Patriotism, Nationalism and nationalist ideologies and movements, HISTORY / Asia / Southeast Asia, RELIGION / Religious Intolerance, Persecution & Conflict, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Asian, RELIGION / Hinduism / General, Religious and theocratic ideologies and movements, Religious intolerance, persecution and conflict, Asian history
“Dhirendhra Jha is the foremost historian of India’s Hindu nationalist movement. Everything he writes is essential to understanding modern India.” —Basharat Peer, author of A Question of Order: India, Turkey, and the Return of Strongmen
“A brilliant, blistering account of a century-long expansionist project by one of India’s finest journalists.” —Siddhartha Deb, author of The Light at the End of the World
“A sharp and concise history of the Hindu right’s frightening ambition to bring much of south Asia into the borders of a ‘united’ India—a project conceived out of anger, advanced through violence, and now housed at the heart of India’s government.” —Samanth Subramanian, author of The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables that Connect Our World and Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast
“In this very concise but comprehensive book, Dhirendra K. Jha explores facets of Hindu nationalism that have been neglected by historians, including the role of RSS before and after 1947 and the impact of Hindutva on India’s neighbors. A very important addition to the existing literature and most topical book!” —Christophe Jaffrelot, professor of South Asian politics and history at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and author of Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy
“Dhirendra Jha’s Assassin’s Ashes provides a sweeping and yet concise account of the rise and growing normalization of extremist ideas about the political project of ‘Greater India.’ Beginning with the story of Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, and the miscalculated effects of his tragic undertaking to remove the one person he thought obstructed the creation of an undivided Hindu India, Jha narrates with power and insight the changing fortunes not just of Godse’s legacy but of the civilizational language that is used to unite political power, territorial ambition and majoritarian intolerance.” —Nicholas Dirks, author of Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India and The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain
“With great economy and precision, Assassin’s Ashes traces the century long journey of the expansionist concept of a larger and ‘unbroken India’ (Akhand Bharat) from political obscurity to the center of Indian political life in Modi’s India. Jha shows, arrestingly, how this journey is mirrored by the recent veneration of the legacy and ashes of Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin, who saw himself as a defender of Akhand Bharat. A great and enlightening book, reminding the reader of Hindutva’s roots in the global authoritarian currents of the early 20th century.” —Thomas Blom Hansen, Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University
“A brilliant, blistering account of a century-long expansionist project by one of India’s finest journalists.” —Siddhartha Deb, author of The Light at the End of the World
“A sharp and concise history of the Hindu right’s frightening ambition to bring much of south Asia into the borders of a ‘united’ India—a project conceived out of anger, advanced through violence, and now housed at the heart of India’s government.” —Samanth Subramanian, author of The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables that Connect Our World and Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast
“In this very concise but comprehensive book, Dhirendra K. Jha explores facets of Hindu nationalism that have been neglected by historians, including the role of RSS before and after 1947 and the impact of Hindutva on India’s neighbors. A very important addition to the existing literature and most topical book!” —Christophe Jaffrelot, professor of South Asian politics and history at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and author of Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy
“Dhirendra Jha’s Assassin’s Ashes provides a sweeping and yet concise account of the rise and growing normalization of extremist ideas about the political project of ‘Greater India.’ Beginning with the story of Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, and the miscalculated effects of his tragic undertaking to remove the one person he thought obstructed the creation of an undivided Hindu India, Jha narrates with power and insight the changing fortunes not just of Godse’s legacy but of the civilizational language that is used to unite political power, territorial ambition and majoritarian intolerance.” —Nicholas Dirks, author of Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India and The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain
“With great economy and precision, Assassin’s Ashes traces the century long journey of the expansionist concept of a larger and ‘unbroken India’ (Akhand Bharat) from political obscurity to the center of Indian political life in Modi’s India. Jha shows, arrestingly, how this journey is mirrored by the recent veneration of the legacy and ashes of Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin, who saw himself as a defender of Akhand Bharat. A great and enlightening book, reminding the reader of Hindutva’s roots in the global authoritarian currents of the early 20th century.” —Thomas Blom Hansen, Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University