The word ‘co-optation’ for cultural assimilation is used by Kancha Ilaiah in his work Why I Am not a Hindu way back in 2005 itself. He used it in an instance to illustrate the neo-Hindutva forces trying to culturally appropriate the Sramana traditions of the subaltern for creating a Hindu Majority. The cultural project initiated in the backdrop of greater electoral politics was just a tip of an iceberg in its cause and effect.

The grand project of creating a Hindu nation out of a secular India became evident with the ‘Ratha Yathra’ of L K Advani coming into the fore in 1990s. The political mobilisation of the masses using the narrative of Rama Rajya infiltrated even to the cultural realms of South India  thereafter. The RSS founded with the obvious agenda of creating a Hindu Rastra is on the threshold of achieving its cherished dream as it enters the 99th year of its foundation. The consecration ceremony of Ayodhya Ram Temple by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a great milestone in a project than begun 100 years ago on reaching 2025.

Making use of the Hindu nationalism propagated by Tilak during the time of Indian National movement, the Union Government is using the govt machinery to propagate the idea of Hindu cultural nationalism. The emphasis on the name ‘Bharat’ over India is an example.

^{RATHA YATHRA OF L K ADVANI | PHOTO: WIKI COMMONS}
The subversion of the modern democratic framework along with its secular background is achieved through the strategy of ‘othering’ of a section of people by making them a common enemy. Muslims and Christians have been made as common enemies of the Hindu. The above trope requires the support of the majority since the Hindu Savarnna rooted in Chatur Varna tradition is a numerical minority.  

The political mobilisation of the subalterns otherwise considered as Mlechas thus becomes an essential component of the majoritarian Hindutva agenda. The subaltern traditions of religious faith and practices different from Vaishnavite and Shaivite traditions are being uprooted by Brahmin pantheon of Gods and Goddesses in a systematic manner over the years. Kerala is a good example of following Sramana- Dravidian tradition till the ninth and tenth centuries when we look at history.

Their belief system was overshadowed and erased through hegemonic practices by Brahminical Hinduism. The ‘Hindu’ political majority is a creation through such cultural appropriation. In other words, cultural and political hermeneutics of the subaltern has been taken over through Hindutva infiltration and co-optation.

The way Buddha became an avatar of Vishnu in Ayodhya Temple and the wheel of Dhamma Asoka in the national emblem installed on top of the new parliament building bearing ferocious lions instead of the calm and serene iconography in Sarnath are clear manifestations of this distorted hermeneutics.

^{REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE | WIKI COMMONS}
The subaltern majority coming under the sway of the Savarnna Hindu fold is a recent phenomenon. The newly introduced EWS reservation needs to be read in parallel with the inherent duplicity of assimilation of Hindutva politics. In a way it assimilates the subaltern for upholding the majoritarian logic and marginalises the religious and ethnic minorities. Moreover, it denies the proportional representation of the Subaltern in higher education and employment. To conceal this dubious game, they nominate harmless members of the Subalterns to symbolic positions of power to trumpet the virtues of ‘Inclusive Hinduism’. ‘The British officials had used Hinduism as a term of convenience, having inherited it from Christian missionaries who used it as a negative concept to identify those who were neither Christians, Jews nor Muslims’ (Trivedi, 6). As per the 1921 report of British census commission, the majority Indians never identified them as belonging to a religion named Hindu, except a few educated upper caste men. Thus, the Dalit Bahujans were not Hindus and they were Hinduized as part of a majoritarian political dictum. The coinage of Subaltern Hindu in itself is an oxymoron. Sadly, that is the reality of today's India. The people who once tried to emancipate themselves from the graded inequality and untouchability of Hinduism are now turning a blind eye to the great efforts of people such as BR Ambedkar, Sree Narayana Guru, Jyotirao Phule, Periyar etc. The new generation needed to unshackle themselves from the confines of the misleading and manipulative epistemology to overcome the new versions of the Savarnna hegemony.