Racialised nationalism(s): Understanding Hindu and Australian nationalism in relation to Cronulla riots of 2005 and the Gujarat riots of 2002

ebates surrounding conflicts among Hindus and Muslims in India have variously beendescribed as religious nationalism or ethno-nationalism (Jaffrelot 1996; van der Veer 1994).In the Australian context, the relationship between the Muslim other and the dominantcommunity has been explained from the standpoint of white multiculturalism (Hage 2003) orethnicised (Poynting et al. 2004) racism. Most of the writings in both the contexts emphasise the primary nature of religion or ethnicity as the basis of discrimination especially against th eMuslim other. Though ethnicity and religion are signifying markers of conflict, the rise of large scale nationalist movements targeting, particularly the Muslim other in the Indian and Australian contexts leads us to ask to the question: Is nationalism an inherently racist concept which seeks to create, sustain and reproduce differences between the dominant and the dominated other. The paper will examine this question firstly by outlining the development of the idea of race and racism. Secondly, it analyses how nationalism, ethnicity and the problem racism are interconnected to create racialised structural realities that impact the growth of nationalism in the Australian and Indian contexts.