Hijacking Himachaliyat: How Hindutva pop is reshaping the idea of Himachal

These achievements owe much to Himachaliyat, a lived ethic of belonging, hospitality, coexistence, regional pride, and the joy of shared festivals. Yet, even as the Western Himalayan state is celebrated nationally and internationally, the very inheritance that supports this spirit feels increasingly fragile, raising pressing questions about whether Himachal’s long-cherished inclusiveness can endure over time.

When cultural markers are reworked into instruments of political power, they change how people live together: who is welcomed, who is treated with suspicion, and what rights ordinary citizens can expect over land, resources, and social life. Today, Himachaliyat — the state’s lived, plural ethos — is being contested, appropriated and repackaged into what has come to be known as Hindutva pop. The stakes are both local and national. But what exactly is Hindutva pop? It can sound abstract, almost academic, until you see it in everyday life.

The politics of identity

Think of it this way. A formal message invites reflection. A law enforces behaviour. But a song, a chant, or a viral video drifts quietly into your routine. You hear it at a neighbourhood procession, over festival loudspeakers, in WhatsApp forwards, or from someone’s phone at a tea stall. You hum along absent-mindedly. You repeat it without meaning to and slowly, without argument or debate, the message settles in.

That is how Hindutva pop works. It is politics dressed up as culture. Ask yourself: when was the last time you debated a song? That’s precisely the point. When politics fades into the margins, it no longer needs convincing, it just starts surrounding. It simply offers ready-made emotions that make inequality or policy failures harder to see, redirecting attention from human security issues towards cultural anxieties about belonging and threat. Meanwhile, the everyday concerns that actually shape lives slip into the background hum.

Start with a fact that should matter to everyone who cares about plural citizenship: Himachal Pradesh is overwhelmingly Hindu according to the last national census, about 95 per cent of the population. That numerical reality, however, does not negate Himachal’s layered cultures, linguistic heritage, caste formations, regional practices, and histories of coexistence; it simply means majoritarian politics can cloak itself in a plausible claim to popular culture. This is precisely what makes the politics of identity in Himachal so dangerous: a simple religious majority can be presented as the only legitimate grammar of belonging even when the lived culture is complex and syncretic.

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In the 2022 Assembly elections, the Congress sought to push back with an explicit idea of regional belonging. Its manifesto, titled Himachal Himachaliyat aur Hum, attempted to frame the state’s identity in terms of plural histories, ecological relationships, and local solidarities rather than a narrow religious arithmetic. This resembled the way Congress and its allies have in recent years framed electoral narratives in India’s far-northern regions, whether through Punjabiyat in Punjab or Kashmiriyat in Kashmir. In this context, the politics of place positioned Himachaliyat as a syncretic, inclusive counter to the hyper-national and religiously hegemonic Hindutva narrative of the BJP.

That counter-narrative mattered. Congress won a clear mandate in 2022, signalling that an appeal to regional pluralism could still move voters in Himachal. But electoral success does not end the battle for meanings. The very salience of Himachaliyat made it a target. The Hindutva ecosystem, adept at cultural mobilisation, has since sought to co-opt and saffronise Himachaliyat in response to perceived threats to Hindutva hyper-nationalism, recasting it through selective religious markers and a majoritarian imagination. In practice, this strategy foregrounds slogans and symbols that appear cultural but function politically, while amplifying social media content through local broadcasters and influencers that promote a narrow Hindutva-centric vision of Himachaliyat.

Updesh Vatsyan, who runs the platform “The Himachali Podcaster”, which first gained recognition due to its emphasis on regional culture in Himachal Pradesh. As one of Himachal’s earliest professional podcasters, Vatsyan blended traditional symbolism, most notably by wearing the traditional Pahari cap during most of his podcast sessions, and by discussing issues relating to regional language and music. As the platform evolved, its focus expanded to include ideological discussions on Hindu unity and the importance of the RSS, with a noticeable rise in appearances by BJP leaders such as Kangana Ranaut, often associated with polarising religious discourse.

Also, the social media platform News4Himalayan’s rise in the state was driven by its cultural storytelling through a short-form reel series titled “Himachaliyat”, originally centred on folk traditions and regional festivals. As the platform grew, it increasingly reflected a Hindu majoritarian perspective in parts of its content. Geeta Thakur, a prominent face of the broadcaster and a frequent host of “Himachaliyat”, in September, 2024 also expressed support on X for the controversial Sanjauli Masjid protests. These protests, described by various observers and media reports as involving Hindutva far-right groups, included calls for the demolition of a mosque.

Culture as a mechanism of exclusion

Then influencer Rohit Katwal, who runs the popular Facebook page “We Are Himachal”, initially through his content focused on ecological issues such as illegal mining in the state, framing such incidents around the need for greater citizen participation in preserving Himachaliyat and the state’s ecological heritage. Over time, his messaging evolved to associate Himachaliyat with Hindu majoritarian values and Sanathan principles. Katwal has also repeatedly expressed support for the far-right Devbhoomi Sangharsh Samiti and the Rashtriya Devbhoomi party, organisations that have in recent years polarised the state along caste and religious lines, notably through their involvement in the Sanjauli Masjid protests and the Swarn Aayog movement, through which they advocated for a commission for upper castes.

Why does this appropriation matter so much? Because of the way culture now travels. What once was myth became prayer; prayers turned into hopes, and then naturally, hope took on the malice of insecurity. On flags, at rallies, even coming from leaders on all sides. At the same time, mobs are forced to chant it. What happens when devotion turns into a partisan weapon?

We are living through the rise of what can be called Hindutva pop: the packaging of an ideological project into the textures of popular culture. It is as simple as it gets. The phrase “Jai Shree Ram” has outgrown its original meaning. It has become a symbol of Hindutva triumphalism, with dangerous consequences for India’s secular, pluralist ideals, and regional diversity. Slogans such as this no longer operate solely as rallying cries on the street; they have become cultural shorthand, a phrase, an Instagram post, a casual greeting, that signals belonging. That familiarity makes them effective.

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When a political slogan moves into everyday culture it loses some of its overtly political sting and gains the power of normality. Worse, when self-proclaimed “progressive” leaders or so called “neutral” bureaucrats treat such slogans as harmless cultural currency, occasionally repeating them, sharing images, or refusing to debate their implications, they help naturalise a political grammar that then goes largely unchallenged.

Cultural appropriation and regulatory change combine in a toxic manner when social media and regional media outlets streamline identity into consumable, viral narratives. Local programmes and influencers can package Himachali symbols, like the Pahari cap, regional festivals, or even a familiar phrase, to promote exclusionary politics under a “cultural” guise.

When influencers and local broadcasters adopt these signs to mobilise sentiment against particular political actors or policies, they create a feedback loop: cultural sentiment fuels political claims, which in turn justifies further cultural policing. The net effect is a narrowing of public discourse; dissent becomes culturally suspect, and policy debates are reduced to questions of identity. This is not an abstract fear. We already see social media pages and platforms that, in their content choices, repeatedly blur cultural pride with political partisanship, sometimes explicitly, sometimes through innuendo. Those who sceptically note the trend must ask themselves: when does culture stop being culture and start being a mechanism of exclusion?

The democratic pluralism

There is also a moral dimension. The normalisation of majoritarian symbols as cultural common sense shifts moral imagination. It privileges the majority’s historical claims and marginalises other forms of belonging that were sustained by reciprocal relations, interdependence, and shared vulnerability. When the moral vocabulary of a society is narrowed to a singular divisive narrative, institutions designed to protect plural interests, local councils, cooperative land arrangements, inclusive cultural calendars, lose legitimacy. Democracy, at its moral core, is the practice of making room: for minorities, for dissent, for difference. When culture is converted into a political loyalty test, that moral practice is eroded.

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Finally, there is the national risk. Himachal is not an isolated laboratory. If regional plurality can be repackaged and captured in this way in a small Himalayan state, the playbook can be, and often is, transferred elsewhere. The larger danger is not just majoritarian policy wins; it is the slow, quiet shifting of what constitutes the normal terms of belonging. That shift is harder to reverse than any single bill or electoral upset because it is woven into everyday life, into greetings, school assemblies, local media streams, and the casual choices of what we consider “culture.”

So where do we go from here? First, we need a clearer civic grammar that distinguishes culture from coercion. Celebrating local dialects, festivals, or food must not become shorthand for ideological conformity. Second, political leaders across the spectrum must recognise that adopting majoritarian cultural signs for convenience is a short-term gain with long-term cost. Opposition complicity, whether by silence or mimicry, is part of the problem. Third, policy debates about land, development and governance must be opened where those who live with the consequences, local communities, panchayats, marginalised groups, have a decisive voice.

We began with a question about an inclusive slogan. Let us end with another question: what do we want our communities to be, spaces where culture is living, contested, and democratic, or where it becomes a convenient tool to settle political scores? If Himachaliyat means anything, it is the understanding that belonging is forged in the give and take of everyday life, a process that shapes the idea of Himachal more than any imposed script. Upholding this ethos is not merely a local task; it is a defence of the idea of India and the democratic pluralism it once promised itself.