The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was much more than an ordinary electoral phenomenon: it brought to the fore two contrasting views of nationhood: between those who saw modern India in terms of secular republicanism and on the other hand were those who sought to blend technological modernity with the country's Hindu inheritance. The Right's ascendancy and the debates that accompanied it, anticipated many of the concerns that find reflection today in the United States and Europe.

The phenomenon of Hindu nationalism was also a profound intellectual challenge to the loose Left-liberal consensus that had prevailed in India since Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister in 1947. The idea of Hindutva and the political character of the BJP have been closely scrutinised by scholars, and the impulse has been to view India's Right-wing politics as either a variant of fascism or merely a collection of sectarian prejudices.

In fact, the inspiration for the Right in India has come from multiple and often contradictory sources, including the influence of individuals such as Sarvarkar, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, not to mention the Arya Samaj movement.

This collection is an attempt to showcase the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism in terms of how it perceives itself. Many of the concerns that drive the Indian Right are located in the country's nationalist culture. In trying to locate some of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that define the Indian Right, Awakening Bharat Mata also seeks to identify the nature of Indian conservatism and identify its similarities and differences with political thought in the West.

This book is not about Hindu nationalism in power but as a social and political movement and its aim is to encourage a more informed understanding of an idea that will remain relevant in Indian life far beyond victories and defeats in elections.

印度人民党（BJP）的崛起不仅仅是一个普通的选举现象：它带来了两种截然不同的民族观：一方面是那些从世俗共和主义角度看待现代印度的人，另一方面是那些试图将技术的现代化与国家的印度教遗产相融合的人。右派的崛起和与之相伴的辩论，预示着今天在美国和欧洲发现的许多问题。

印度教民族主义现象也是对自1947年尼赫鲁担任总理以来在印度普遍存在的松散的左派-自由主义共识的深刻的思想挑战。学者们对印度教民族主义的思想和印度人民党的政治特征进行了仔细的研究，其冲动是将印度的右翼政治视为法西斯主义的变种或仅仅是宗派偏见的集合。

事实上，印度右翼的灵感来自于多个往往相互矛盾的来源，包括萨尔瓦卡、班金-钱德拉-查特吉、斯瓦米-维韦卡南达和斯里-奥罗宾多等人的影响，更不用说阿里亚-萨马吉运动。

这套书试图从印度民族主义如何看待自己的角度来展示它的现象。推动印度右派的许多关切都位于该国的民族主义文化中。在试图定位定义印度右派的一些想法、态度和信仰时，《觉醒的巴拉特马塔》还试图确定印度保守主义的性质，并确定其与西方政治思想的异同。

本书不是关于印度民族主义的权力，而是作为一种社会和政治运动，其目的是鼓励人们对一种思想有更多的了解，这种思想在印度生活中的意义将远远超过选举中的胜利和挫败。