Is Bathou Hindu? Consolidated Hinduism and assertions of a traditional religion among the Boros of Assam

Abstract This article is an attempt to understand the vexed question of how the Boros of Assam have come to define and realize their ‘traditional’ religious identity amid contemporary assertions of Hindu nationalism in India. Since the early twentieth century, shaped by colonial anthropology and the consolidation of Hinduism, there have been attempts to categorize the Boros as either Hindus or animists. Subsequently, there have been efforts on the part of the Boros themselves to assert and consolidate their ‘traditional’ religious practices into a unified religion called Bathou. 1 The process has continued in the complex arena of Boro identity assertion. As this article demonstrates, contemporary efforts at the consolidation of Hinduism by the Sangh Parivar and of Bathou by the Boros have often coincided and, at times, collided with each other, therein producing intricate transactions between traditional religionists and the votaries of Hindutva.