The New Indian Express Magazine (Nov 1, 2026) article Hindutopia: A Neo-Orientalist Fantasy critiques a term coined by Portuguese scholar João Pedro Oliveira in 2025 – Hindutopia, Hindu + utopia. Oliveira argues Indian myth-fiction writers are lumped into one Hindu box to serve new middle class after 1991. The Express article says this itself is lazy neo-Orientalism: Europe supplies explanation, India supplies story.
But Goanology asks: what did Hindutopia have to stop meaning to become Hindutopia, and what makes it slide into Hindudystopia?
1. The ordinary seme of Utopia:
Utopia = ou-topos-no-place, Thomas More 1516. Imagined perfect place that critiques present. Hindu ordinary = people acrros a river, customs, duties , as earlier. Hindutopia ordinary should therefore mean: imagining a perfect place using Hindu archive – Ram Rajya, or Hindurasthrya – to critique present.
To become Oliveira’s Hindutopia, it had to be hollowed:
– It had to stop meaning … Ideal rule or nation (.Ram Rajya or Hindurastra) and start meaning ideological program. When Amish Tripathi or Devdutt Pattanaik or Kavita Kane re-imagine Shiva or Sita, they are doing katha, story. To make them political, you must hollow out katha as play and fill it with propaganda. The writer becomes propagandist.
– It had to stop meaning many Hindu utopias and become one Hindu utopia. Adivi Bapiraju’s Hindu utopia is Dravidian, a Goan Shenvi’s utopia is Gomantak( konkan kashi) with Saptakoteshwar restored, a Nagpur RSS utopia is Akhand Bharat. These have contradictions. To make one Hindutopia, you must hollow out contradiction.
This is the first anasemic work Oliveira identifies. Correctly.
2. Second hollowing: From literary Hindutopia to political Hindudystopia – the Right Wing turn:
But the Express article stops at neo-Orientalism. Goanology must continue: how does utopia, even if falsely lumped, become lived dystopia? Here anasemic analysis shows right wing hate politics does a second hollowing.
Hindutopia as utopia promises: safety for Hindus, pride, cleanliness, order. Like Portuguese ..Descobrimento…promised order. To keep that promise in a diverse country, what must be hollowed?
a) Muslim and Christian Goan must be hollowed out of citizen into threat.
Ordinary citizen = neighbour who lives next door, shares water and living space and even genes. To make Hindutopia pure, that neighbour must stop meaning neighbour and start meaning invader, leftover of Conquista or of colonizers or Jihad. That is the work of hate speech, of bulldozer, of “love jihad”, of VHP call to restrict Navratri entry reported by Indian Express itself in Sept 2026.
To say “Hindu Garba is threatened”, you must hollow out that Garba was celebrated with Muslim dhol players in Baroda. You must make music = threat.
Residue: The dhol player returns. In 2026, after ban calls, many Garba organizers quietly called Muslim artists because without them sound fails. Resist the Dystopia.
b) Hindu must be hollowed out of dharma into hurt sentiment.
Ordinary dharma = duty to protect guest, to argue, to accommodate. Dharmashastra allows vada- debate. To make Hindutopia mobilizable as hate, dharma must stop meaning duty and start meaning hurt. “Hindu sentiment hurt” becomes legal-political tool. To be hurt, you must be hollowed of kshama- forbearance, which was core to dharma.
Thus Hindutopia, which began as imagined perfect Hindu place, now requires constant feeling of being insulted. Utopia that needs to feel hurt is already dystopia. U-topos becomes Dys-topos – bad place.
c) Future must be hollowed into past.
Utopia ordinarily imagines future. More’s utopia is future. Hindutopia claims to be future (Vishwaguru, 2047) but constantly refers to past – Ram Mandir as recovered past, Kashi corridor as recovered past, NCERT textbook making 1000-1700 CE as “Resistance and Resilience” against foreign invaders, obscuring Rajput-Mughal alliance, as reported in Express Oct 2026. To make future speak, you must hollow out future and fill it with past.
When future = past, time collapses. That is dystopia: no future.then a past is given a future
Goanology lesson:
Today’s Hindutopia to Hindudystopia follows same anasemic chain:
Literary katha hollowed into ideology (Oliveira’s critique) -ideology hollowed into hurt sentiment (right wing hate) -> hurt sentiment hollowed into bulldozer and ban -> ban hollowed into silence of Garba without dhol -> silence is not utopia.
The word Hindutopia had to stop meaning “imagined good place from Hindu stories” to mean “India where one community feels constantly victorious over another”. When victory needs daily lynching video, that is not topos, that is trauma.
Residue that returns: Libia Lobo Sardesai, 102-year-old Goan Catholic who broadcast in Konkani for liberation, who is both Lobo and Sardesai. She is living proof that Goan utopia was never pure Hindu or pure Christian. It was Lobo + Sardesai. Forest radio, not pure land.
That impure, mixed, forest voice is what Hindutopia must hollow out to become Hindudystopia. But forest voice, like communidade tank, still collects water.and we have the challenge to allow it to bloom
