On the evening of 5 January 2020, a group of masked people entered Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi and attacked students and staff with iron rods, hockey sticks, lathis and stones. Often, on these excursions, I heard these women wishing they could do more physical harm on their ‘walks’ and plan out scenarios of escalated brutality. This ritual of violence both marked and claimed a territory as Hindu and tried to terrorize those who were seen to be outsiders, and therefore unwanted, dangerous and deviant. When satisfied with the disruption they had caused, they would leave, filled with excitement, energy and laughter. Screaming slurs against Pakistan and slogans about Kashmir belonging to India, they pelted stones and banged on doors. Warning them that India was and will remain a Hindu nation, they exhorted Muslim ‘traitors’ to leave the country.
They usually didn’t physically attack individuals, but created a ruckus around the inhabitants of these spaces. Small groups of women from Hindu nationalist organizations drove to what they identified as Muslim neighbourhoods, sometimes with sticks and stones, always with loud chants and shouts. During my doctoral research in 20, my Hindu right-wing research interviewees in suburban Mumbai and Thane made me aware of their practice of ‘daily walks’.
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