Nationalist leaders deliberately restage sacred-history narratives as political pilgrimage

Evidence

The following year, President Lal Advani of the BJP took his chariot caravan on a pilgrimage (rath yatra) across northern India, promising along the way to start building the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Advani started his pilgrimage in Somnath, fabled site of yet another great Hindu temple destroyed by Muslim marauders. “For the sake of the temple,” he declared en route, “we will sacrifice not one but many governments” (Chaturvedi and Chaturvedi 1996, 181–82). Advani’s followers had fashioned his Toyota van into a version of legendary hero Arjuna’s chariot, an image familiar from Peter Brook’s film Mahabharata. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 409

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 409
• XREF: connects to: Nationalists borrow others’ sacralized land narratives as strategic templates — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 184; Educational and administrative pilgrimages forged national identity; Nationalist movements reconstructed authentic ancient pasts through folklore and folk arts — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 616 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Educational and administrative pilgrimages forged national identity #exemplifies (0.88)
• Sinhalese nationalist identity rests on a manufactured sacred history. #exemplifies (0.85) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 71
• Nationalists borrow others’ sacralized land narratives as strategic templates #expands (0.82) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 184
• Nationalists borrow another movement’s sacred-claims template to justify land conquest #expands (0.80) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 184
• Barred pilgrimages, not ethnic pluralism, fractured national community #exemplifies (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 529
• Nationalist movements reconstructed authentic ancient pasts through folklore and folk arts #expands (0.78) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 616
• Political groups adopt nationalist rhetoric opportunistically #expands (0.75) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 159
• Too much insider knowledge of Oriental politics kills the pilgrimage narrative #complicates (0.72)