“In the spirit of the constitution” : A study of Amit Shah’s rhetoric on immigration and Indian identity

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to analyse how India’s Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, constructs the image of minorities and refugees in articles, speeches, and on social media platforms. The analysis is performed with the method of qualitative content analysis within a theoretical framework of propaganda put against the backdrop of Hindu nationalism. The main analysis is divided into four categories, based upon Jowett and O'Donnell’s model of analysing propaganda, going into the themes of: context surrounding the speech; communalism; values; and target audience. This paper argues that Amit Shah’s speech in the upper house of the parliament of India, is a part of a larger Hindu nationalist campaign concerning questions of Indian identity that dates back to, at least, the early 20th century.