Contribute to this blog

This blog is an attempt to document RSS, Hindutva Terror and its collaborators in India and abroad. You can participate in this attempt by submitting information about all those who work for Hindu fanaticism.

Debating Hindutva

To start debating Hindutva it is indispensable to go back to 1882 when a novel called Anandamath was written by real founder of Bengali novel as well as serious Bengali discursive literature on political theory, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (otherwise known as Bankim Chatterjee). Bankim was one of the first systematic expounders in India of the principles of nationalism. As Anandamath is set in the background of sanyasi rebellion in late 1700 I would like to mention specificity of the epoch from 1770 to 1882, when the book was published. From 1763 to 1856 there were more than 40 major and hundreds of minor rebellions. The establishment of British rule in India was a prolonged process involving gradually conquest and consolidation. This process produced dissatisfaction, anger and resistance at every stage. Disposed Rajas, Nawabs and uprooted Zamindars and landlords often led a series of rebellions during first 100 years of British rule. Peasants, ruined artisans, demobilized soldiers and discontented people formed the backbone of rebellion. The civil rebellions began as British rule was gradually established in Bengal and Bihar and occurred in area after area as it was incorporated into colonial rule. There was hardly any year without an armed rebellion in one part or other part of the country. One of the major rebellions was the sanyasi rebellion of Bengal, which is depicted in the novel Anandamath. This novel is the background from where a clear divide between the Hindus and Muslims in Bengal began.

This is was first step in sowing seed of communal ideological framework in India. The next two phases were consolidation of ideological view viz, Hindutva and the third phase is delving and devising of programmatic part of it. So Bankim obviously gets the credit of sowing the seed of communalism in that this significant epoch with his novel Anandamath, as novel latter became largely the foundational text of Indian nationalism, which in fact is Hindu nationalism.

In Bankims Anandamath Muslims are villains, the Hindus victims of Muslims and the British the saviour of the Hindus. Every Hindu has to follow the eternal code to save the mother from foreigners, aliens, intruders, treacherous, cowardly, lazy, bearded renegades which are Bankims categorization of Muslims. Mother according to Bankim is in despair it needs brave children to save the mother. Bankim categorizes Muslims also as rulers which itself depict the kingly politics as only kings are categorized and people are considered as puppets. According to Bankim the imagined Hindu nation can’t, even in the imagination be made and ruled by agents which are male or upper caste. According to Bankim Muslims brought neither material nor spiritual to India. They have mere emasculated and defeated Hindus.

After Bankim the cord was carried by the likes of Vivekananda, Aurobindo ghose. Vivekananda thought Hinduism was the mother of all religions, so all other religions were infantile before Hinduism. Aurobindo considered Hinduism as a manly and martial faith. For Aurobindo the only remedy for Muslims was the concept of assimilation. For assimilation he always believed that it is necessary that a change in Mohammedan mentality should come. Aurobindo thought political institutions of Muslims as semi barbaric. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar carried strings from Bankim, Vivekananda and Aurobindo, Hindutva which was not yet established as a political ideology neither in theory nor in practice was first instigated in the writings of Savarkar.

Savarkar remains the first and most original prophet of extremism in India. Savarkar was 12 years old when he led a march of his schoolmates to stone the village mosque. After returning Savarkar says

“We vandalized the mosque to our hearts content and raised the flag of our bravery on it. We followed the war strategy of Shivaji completely and ran away from the site after accomplishing our task”.

Savarkar categorized Hindus and others into self and non self. His universe is strictly divided into friends and foes, us and them, Hindus and Muslims. Mohammedans constituted the primary definition of the non self. Latter English Christianity, Mahatma Gandhi also he added to his rogues’ gallery of non selves. From Savarkar the focal organization connected with the project of Hindu nationalism was RSS (Rastra Swyamsevak Sangh). RSS was founded in Nagpur in 1925. In succeeding years around it were formed the family (parivar) of front organizations namely VHP (1965 as a quasi militant body), BJP (1980, its predecessor being the Bhartiya Jana Sangh). The first leader of RSS Dr. Keshav Baligram Hedgewar was influenced by Savarkar. The stress on the centrality of Hindu culture as defining element of both religion and nation was given by Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar. According to RSS, “Hindu coincides with Rastra or nationality and therefore Hindus are automatically true nationals. Members of other religions, if they denied they are Hindus were also denying that they were Indians.”