Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has recently launched a broadside against Hindutva. Speaking at Zee Jaipur Literature Festival last week, Tharoor said Hindutva is like “Hindu wahibiism”, adding that Hinduism cannot be left to Hindutva.
Echoing Tharoor’s words, elite fiction writerNayantara Sahgal – who had led the pack of award wapsi writers – said Hindutva has “divided us into Hindus and others”. Emphasising the “difference” between Hindutva and Hinduism Sahgal said, “The basic difference between Hindutva and Hinduism is that the former believes in violence.” Calling Hindutva a “complete distortion” of Hinduism, Sahgal went on to dub it as an “extension of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s philosophy”.
In India, much of the intellectual discourse on the words Hindu, Hinduism and Hindutva are conducted without even understanding their real meaning. Moreover, Hindutva is the victim of sustained politically motivated misinterpretations, much to the chagrin that those who identify them with the term are unfairly being branded as “communal”. Hence it is important to get the right perspective about Hindu, Hinduism and Hindutva.
Who is a Hindu?
Hindu is an old Persian word coined during the medieval era. The word owes its origin to the Sanskrit word Sindhu, another appellation of the Indus River. Historically, those living to the east of the Sindhu River were geographically referred to as Hindus. Hence the word Hindu thus refers to a nativity rather than a faith or a religion.
Biswakabi Rabindranath Tagore wrote:
“Hindu is a term for the consummation of the Indian nation… From long ago has it come down to us, passing through centuries and the same sunlit horizons, carrying along with it the same rivers and forests and mountains, and saturated with that sequence of attacks and responses which constitute the history of our mundane and spiritual lives.”
One of the most striking descriptions of the term Hindu was given by nationalist Odia poet and social reformer Utkalamani Gopabandhu Das. Gopabandhu wrote:
“Nija swartha lagi jata nuhen Hindu,
Biswa hite Hindu prati rakta bindu”
(A Hindu is not born for self interest. Every drop of his blood is meant for the wellbeing of mankind.)
As MS Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak of RSS, in his book ‘Bunch of Thoughts’, vividly described:
“The word Hindu has a national character. It is tantamount to the word Indian – i.e. pertaining to a people living beside the river Sindhu. It connotes the entire culture and civilisation of the Indian people from pre-historic times developed on Indian soil through millennia.”
What is Hinduism?
Hinduism, which is also known as Sanatana Dharma, is considered as the oldest religion of the world. It is described as a “complex, organic and multi-levelled tradition”. Hinduism, which goes beyond human origins, is a synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions having diverse roots.
In 1816, it was Raja Ram Mohan Roy – the father of Indian Renaissance – who first introduced the word ‘Hinduism’ into English language. In 1873, Rajnarayan Basu – who is often described as the grandfather of Indian nationalism – wrote Hindu dhormer srestotto (The superiority of Hinduism) to elucidate the significance of Hinduism vis-à-vis other religions of the world.
It was Swami Vivekananda who gave Hinduism a whole new clear cut identity. Before Vivekananda came in, Hinduism was basically a confederation of different sects. He was the first Hindu leader who spoke about the need of a common ground for all the Hindu sects and thereby successfully brought in a unification of Hinduism. According to Vivekananda, Hinduism has diversity in many forms, but there is an essential unity. He presented Hinduism as a man-making religion at the international stage and successfully positioned it as the most revered religion of the world.
In 1893, at the Parliament of World’s Religions in Chicago, Swami Vivekananda explained – with great clarity –what does Hinduism exactly signify.
“I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.”
In his famous Uttarpara Speech in 1909, Sri Aurobindo described Hindu religion as a “universal religion”. Aurobindo said:
“But what is the Hindu religion? What is this religion which we call Sanatan, eternal? It is the Hindu religion only because the Hindu nation has kept it, because in this peninsula it grew up in the seclusion of the sea and the Himalayas, because in this sacred and ancient land it was given as a charge to the Aryan race to preserve through the ages.
But it is not circumscribed by the confines of a single country, it does not belong peculiarly and forever to a bounded part of the world. That which we call the Hindu religion is really the eternal religion, because it is the universal religion which embraces all others. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. This is the one religion that can triumph over materialism by including and anticipating the discoveries of science and the speculations of philosophy.”
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second President of India, defined Hinduism as a “rationalistic and humanistic religious experience.” Emphasising on the fact that Hinduism is a “scientific religion”, Radhakrishnan stated:
“A true religion remains open to experience and encourages an experimental attitude with regard to its experiential data. Hinduism more than any other religion exemplifies this scientific attitude.
The Hindu philosophy of religion starts from and returns to an experimental basis.
What sets Hinduism apart from other religions is its unlimited appeal to and appreciation for all forms of experience. Experience and experimentation are the origin and end of Hinduism.”
For Mahatma Gandhi, Hinduism was not an “exclusive religion”. Gandhi explained:
“In it there is room for the worship of all the prophets in the world. It is not a missionary religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has no doubt absorbed many tribes in its fold, but this absorption has been of an evolutionary, imperceptible character. Hinduism tells everyone to worship God according to his own faith or Dharma and so it lives at peace with all the religions.”
Unlike Abrahamic religions which propose to divide the world between believers and Kafirs or believers and Heathens, Hinduism believes in the unparallel philosophy of Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah (May all become happy, May all see what is auspicious).
What is Hindutva?
Renowned Bengali scholar Babu Chandra Nath Basu is perhaps the first to articulate the term in his book titled ‘Hindutva’ in 1890s. In that book – written in Bengali – Babu Chandra Nath beautifully defined the Hindu articles of faith, brought out the noblest doctrines of Hinduism and compared it with the other religions of the world in a dispassionate spirit.
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay gave Hinduism a sense of history. Bankim Chandra’s writings show how Hinduism and nationalism criss-crossed at the horizon of Hindutva. It was Bankim Chandra’s teachings on Hindutva that gave birth to Anushilan Samiti in the opening years of the 20th century. This was an era in which Hindutva, cultural nationalism and socialism had a rare blend at the focal point of revolution against the British Raj.
Bankim Chandra’s novel Anandamath — published in 1882 — was instrumental for the rise of Hindutva in India’s freedom movement. The novel, which depicts the story of an army of sages fighting against the British soldiers, kindled the flame of revolution against the colonial British. His poem Vande Mataram (Hail to the Motherland) — loaded with the essence of Hindutva — was the hymn for India’s freedom movement.
In 1923, in his book ‘Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?’, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar described:
“Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be … but a history in full … Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole being of our Hindu race.”
A careful study of the life and times of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose clearly suggeststhat Hindutva
“Subhas Chandra Bose had grown up in the first two decades of the twentieth century in Bengal, where, owing to the influence of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda, there was a fusion of religion and nationalism, so that the nationalist feeling had a pronounced Hindu complexion and Hinduism a pronounced political character.”
To preach the grand vision of Hindutva and apply it in selfless service to the nation, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar formed Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925.
Syama Prasad Mookerjee saw Hindutva as an instrument to awake the national spirit. It was Dr Mookerjee who took the first step in applying Hindutva in Indian politics post-Independence by forming Jan Sangh in 1951.
1995 Supreme Court judgment
A 1995 judgement on Hindu, Hindutva and Hinduism reads:
“….no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms Hindu, Hindutva and Hinduism; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage.
Unlike other religions in the World, the Hindu religion does not claim any one Prophet, it does not worship any one God, it does not believe in any one philosophic concept, it does not follow any one act of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not satisfy the traditional features of a religion or creed. It is a way of life and nothing more.
Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism … it is a fallacy and an error of law to proceed on the assumption … that the use of words Hindutva or Hinduism per se depicts an attitude hostile to all persons practising any religion other than the Hindu religion … It may well be that these words are used in a speech to promote secularism or to emphasise the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos.”
Post Script: Hindutva is a way of life. It is the common thread which binds the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Hindustan (now known as India) through a shared heritage of many centuries. It is the essence of India’s rich civilisation and its syncretic culture. It carries the message of universal brotherhood. Hindutva is the reason why hundreds of years before the word ‘secularism’ introduced in modern Indian Republic, India was never a theocratic state.
India’s adherence to Hindutva is a matter of its historical experience and rationality and that cannot be dismissed as irrelevant in modern times. Hindus as a race have a right to exist with dignity and in peace. As many as 95 per cent of the Hindus of the world live in the Indian subcontinent where incidentally they are under threat. India, the native land of the Hindus is hemmed between two large chunks of landmasses that have gone under Islam – from Morocco to Pakistan on one side and Bangladesh to Indonesia on the other. India incidentally has the world’s largest Muslim population after Indonesia. The Hindu will to survive is rather justified.
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