IN PRAISE OF HINDUTV
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
Thursday, June 4, 2009
In Praise of Hindutva
By Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
After the BJP's electoral defeat there has been no shortage of
articles from pandits and India watchers advising the BJP to abandon
Hindutva if it is to remain relevant on the Indian landscape. This
advice coming both from well wishers and opponents is rather
premature and does not take into account the importance of Hindutva
in maintaining the democratic fabric of the Indian polity and one
which makes it unique to the Indian subcontinent, and distinguishes
Indian political life from that of its neighbours.
To understand Hindutva in its proper context one must go back to its
definition by the much maligned and much misunderstood Damodar
Savarkar who defined quite clearly what the word Hindutva means (The
Essentials of Hindutva, 1922). Hindutva is the shared culture of all
inhabitants of Hindustan and Hinduism is the faith practised by some
of the inhabitants of Hindustan. Thus Hindutva and Hinduism are not
identical though related.
The Mahomedans (as the British called them), Savarkar argued, may not
consider Hindustan their Punyabhumi (sacred land) since Saudi Arabia
would fill that role for the Muslim community. The Hindus consider
Hindustan their Punyabhumi. However, in independent India, after the
departure of the British, Muslims would enjoy equal rights as equal
citizens of independent India.
At the time that Savarkar wrote, the subsequent development of the
Hindu Code Bill had not come into play. The use of the word 'Hindu'
was unfortunate since it suggests that it is a piece of communal
legislation, when in fact, it was a common civil code for the Hindu
population, with progressive legislation both in regards to women's
rights and property rights etc. Hence, the phrase Common Civil Code
or Uniform Civil Code would have been in keeping with the content and
intent of the bill.
However, the Nehru government erred in not adopting this terminology
and compounded the error by further making special Personal Law for
both the Muslim and Christian communities. This would set back for
decades to come, the cause of women's rights in the minority
communities, notably the Muslim community, and it would also
inaugurate the divisiveness of communal politics.
The Nehru government hailed as the inheritor of the freedom struggle
against colonial rule enjoyed the popularity of most of the
population and it would have been relatively easy to pass a Common
Civil Code or the Unifrom Civil Code. It failed to do so and
generations of Indians are suffering from the effects of this
failure. At this stage, therefore, the BJP has the responsibility to
work for the Uniform Civil Code. Suggestions such as having a Muslim
Code Bill at this late hour (MJ Akbar in Times of India, May 31,
2009, 'Muslim Code Bill for India ?') are counterproductive and will
only further encourage communal divide.
And here the philosophy of Hindutva would be an inspiring and useful
tool. Far from being a divisive element it will , in fact, strengthen
the national spirit and allow disparate elements in the body politic
to integrate in one common cause, the modernization and integration
of the body politic. No longer will the BJP or any other political
party have to feel apologetic for being a Hindustan where all
communities share their culture to a lesser or greater extent,
depending on the locale or individuals. Mohammed Ali Jinnah had
famously(infamously!) said that Muslims and Hindus do not have a
shared culture, that they are different in their customs, religion
and social practice. For him this was the raison de'etre for the
creation of Pakistan and the logic behind the Partition.
Muslims do not need to think of Hindustan as a Punyabhumi, however,
they can and probably should rejoice in India's ancient history which
predates Islam by several millennia. Such was the milieu where most
of the freedom fighers worked in (with some exceptions). Writings of
Muslim poets and writers reflect this pan Hindustan approach
(Bewildered India by Rasheeduddin Khan, 1994).
Despite the depredations of conquest , Hindu India was prepared to
forget and forgive, and the divisiveness and tragedy of Partition had
also receded from people's minds. Neverthless, international events
would preciptate new hostilities and this clearly originated from
Pakistan's sense of insecurity vis a vis India. Hindus began to ask
why the governments of the day both in New Delhi and in the states
would discriminate against Hindus. An example of this would be the
appropriation of temple funds by the government while neither the
Muslim nor the Christian mosques and churches were touched.
The Sachar Commission Report was seen by many Hindus as
discriminatory since the absolute number of Hindus who were
impoverishd or deprived was obviously greater than that of the
minority communities. A frustrated Hindu community was ready for an
issue and this came in the blatant hostility towards Hinduism by the
Christian missionaries, the many Islamic terrorist attacks from
outside the country, the DMK's strident anti Hindu positions. The
beleagured Hindu community saw the Ayodhya theme as a rallying point
for Hindu reaffirmation. Soon came the defence of Ram Setu, a must
not only for Hindus but for the larger environmental cause, against
the greed of developers and corporations.
This writer believes that the civilisational continuity of India,
with suitable modernization, is best expressed by Hindutva . The
Sangh Parivar's motto Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the family of the Earth
is perhaps the most modern statement both of the environmental theme
of protecting the Earth and as well the unity of humankind. The
Sanskrit word 'vasudha' means the Earth. Hence, the Earth Family.
Commentators, both friendly and hostile, see the BJP as merely
another political party out to secure votes and win elections. R.
Balashankar (Editor of Organiser) has rightly pointed out that good
governance and security issues are the requirements of all
governments, but the party with a difference, has to have some noble
ideological foundation (Deccan Herald, June 4, 2009 debate on
Politics of Ideology). And both from an ideological and pragmatic
point of view, the BJP without its Sangh Parivar moorings would be a
carcass, as Balashankar points out.
Hence, a vigorous restatement of Hindutva is an obligation for all
patriotic Indians, especially Hindus, who have the civilisational
advantage of being able to relate to a noble universal ideal, as
opposed to narrow particularism. Upholding Hindutva is not only the
task of the BJP. Those who have Hindustan's interests at heart must
work to spread the ideal amongst the general population.
(The writer taught Political Philosophy at a Canadian university)
End of forwarded message from Ashok Chowgule
Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
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hari....@indero.com
Hindutva if it is to remain relevant on the Indian landscape. This
advice
coming both from well wishers and opponents is rather premature and does
not take into account the importance of Hindutva in maintaining the
democratic fabric of the Indian polity and one which makes it unique to
the
Indian subcontinent, and distinguishes Indian political life from that
of
its neighbours."
It has also taken on the responsibility and identity of terror, as in
2002
and 2008. Indian citizens want no more of it, and voted accordingly.
The
hindu majority voted for a hindu majority government instead of radical
agenda.
"Savarkar who defined quite clearly what the word Hindutva means (The
Essentials of Hindutva, 1922). Hindutva is the shared culture of all
inhabitants of Hindustan and Hinduism is the faith practised by some of
the
inhabitants of Hindustan. Thus Hindutva and Hinduism are not identical
though related."
Yes, india is not hinduism and hinduism is not india. India is defined
by
the constitution and it was adopted and until now maintained by a hindu
majority. Because constitution is the measure all citizens regardless of
ethnic membership have full and equal rights. If one is a citizen those
rights come automatically to all citizens.
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
1. Mahatma Gandhi:
"Hinduism has made marvelous discoveries in things of
religion, of the spirit, of the soul. We have no eye for
these great and fine discoveries. We are dazzled by the
material progress that western science has made. Ancient
India has survived because Hinduism was not developed
along material but spiritual lines.
"India is to me the dearest country in the world, because
I have discovered goodness in it. It has been subject to
foreign rule, it is true. But the status of a slave is
preferable to that of a slave holder."
2. Henry David Thoreau:
"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous
and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in
comparison with which our modern world and its literature
seems puny.
"What extracts from the Ved I have read fall on me like
the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes
a loftier course through purer stratum. It rises on me
like the full moon after the stars have come out, wading
through some far stratum in the sky."
3. Arthur Schopenhauer:
"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and
so elevating as that of the Upanishad. It has been the
solace of my life -- it will be the solace of my death."
4. Ralph Waldo Emerson said this about the Gita:
"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita. It was as
if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but
large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old
intelligence which in another age and climate had
pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which
exercise us."
The famous poem "Brahm" is an example of his Vedant
ecstasy.
5. Wilhelm von Humboldt pronounced the Gita as:
"The most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical
song existing in any known tongue ... perhaps the deepest
and loftiest thing the world has to show."
6. Lord Warren Hastings, the Governor General, was very
much impressed with Hindu philosophy:
"The writers of the Indian philosophies will survive,
when the British dominion in India shall long have ceased
to exist, and when the sources which it yielded of wealth
and power are lost to remembrances."
7. Mark Twain:
"So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left
undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most
extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds.
Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
"Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of
human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of
tradition. The land that all men desire to see and having
seen once even by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse
for the shows of the rest of the globe combined."
8. Rudyard Kipling to Fundamental Christian Missionaries:
"Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle
the Hindu brown for the Christian riles and the Hindu
smiles and weareth the Christian down; and the end of the
fight is a tombstone while with the name of the late
deceased and the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here who
tried to hustle the east".
9. Jules Michelet, a French historian, said:
"At its starting point in India, the birthplace of races
and religions, the womb of the world." This is what he
said of the Raamyana in 1864: "Whoever has done or willed
too much let him drink from this deep cup a long draught
of life and youth .. . Everything is narrow in the West -
- Greece is small and I stifle; Judea is dry and I pant.
Let me look toward lofty Asia, and the profound East for
a little while. There lies my great poem, as vast as the
Indian ocean, blessed, gilded with the sun, the book of
divine harmony wherein is no dissonance. A serene peace
reigns there, and in the midst of conflict an infinite
sweetness, a boundless fraternity, which spreads over all
living things, an ocean (without bottom or bound) of
love, of pity, of clemency."
10. Shri Aurobindo:
"Hinduism.....gave itself no name, because it set itself
no sectarian limits; it claimed no universal adhesion,
asserted no sole infallible dogma, set up no single
narrow path or gate of salvation; it was less a creed or
cult than a continuously enlarging tradition of the
Godward endeavor of the human spirit. An immense many-
sided and many staged provision for a spiritual self-
building and self-finding, it had some right to speak of
itself by the only name it knew, the eternal religion,
sanaatan dharm...."
11. Will Durant would like the West to learn from India,
tolerance and gentleness and love for all living things:
"Perhaps in return for conquest, arrogance and
spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and
gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the
unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit,
and a unifying, a pacifying love for all living things."
12. Joseph Campbell:
"It is ironic that our great western civilization, which
has opened to the minds of all mankind the infinite
wonders of a universe of untold billions of galaxies
should be saddled with the tightest little cosmological
image known to mankind? The Hindus with their grandiose
Kalpas and their ideas of the divine power which is
beyond all human category (male or female). Not so alien
to the imagery of modern science that it could not have
been put to acceptable use.
"There is an important difference between the Hindu and
the Western ideas. In the Biblical tradition, God creates
man, but man cannot say that he is divine in the same
sense that the Creator is, where as in Hinduism, all
things are incarnations of that power. We are the sparks
from a single fire. And we are all fire. Hinduism
believes in the omnipresence of the Supreme God in every
individual. There is no 'fall'. Man is not cut off from
the divine. He requires only to bring the spontaneous
activity of his mind stuff to a state of stillness and he
will experience that divine principle with him."
13. Sir Monier-Williams:
The Hindus, according to him, were Spinozists more than
2,000 years before the advent of Spinoza, and Darwinians
many centuries before Darwin and Evolutionists many
centuries before the doctrine of Evolution was accepted
by scientists of the present age.
14. Carl Sagan, (the late scientist), asserts that the
dance of Nataraj signifies the cycle of evolution and
destruction of the cosmic universe (Big Bang Theory). "It
is the clearest image of the activity of God which any
art or religion can boast of."
15. Sarvepalli RadhaKrshnn, a professor of Eastern
Religions at Oxford and later President of India:
"Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the union of reason
and intuition that cannot be defined but is only to be
experienced. Evil and error are not ultimate. There is no
Hell, for that means there is a place where God is not,
and there are sins which exceed his love."
hari....@indero.com
Jay stevens,aka dr. jai etc. remains confused.
As the original article established, india is not hinduism and hinduism
is not india. Hindutv is an imaginary place, unless one refers to the
map the brits made when taking pen to paper and creating india.
The often attached idea of some kind of ethnic purity is silly. Neither
history nor biology nor culture nor even the patchwork collections of
what is called hinduism speaks to such purity.
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
> Parivar's motto Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the family of the Earth is
The "Vasudhaiva ..." is not a "Modern Statement". Accepted.
So, is "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" Hindutva or Integral Humanism?
If Parivar (read as RSS leaders) motto is "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam",
then what the Hindu spiritual leaders say is the same. They quote
directly from vedic chants. All the world environmentalists are then
Hindutvavadis. Veer Savarkar hasn't told any thing different.
And, what Vajapeyee or Advani said, and saying in the Parliament and
outside the Parliament is the the same, i.e., "Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam". What Obama said yesterday in Cairo is the same, i.e.,
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. So, Obama is also Hindutvavadi.
Adishankar says it it the same Atma in allcreatures, so he is also
Hindutvavadi. Or, he is the first founder of Hindutva.
No physical bondury and no mental barrier, and no nationhood. Thats
what Mohammed says, and muslims believe in one earth, and one
brotherhood. They don't believe in nationhood, they don't believe in
Gangamata, Jamunaamata, or Bharatmata.
But, as per "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" definition, they all are
Hindutvadis.
Whether RSS leaders, who coined "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" accept this?
For a while let us not discuss about what BJP has to do, what
should be it's ideology, etc.
-nagaraj
End of forwarded message from Nagaraj Patil
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
Hindutva needs to be explained to the Dalits and OBCs. Because they
have not understood it, Hindutva and BJP have not suceeded to the
extent desired. The biggest question therefore remains 'How can
Dalits and OBCs have a stake in Hindutva?'
End of forwarded message from shiv ram
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
In Praise of Hindutva
Actually, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam could be a goal for an individual,
but not for a society or a state.
Secondly, the term Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam appears in our ancient
literature at couple of places.
a) It occurs in Hitopdesha, where a slimy cat tries to woo his non-
violent "friend" saying proclaiming the idea of "vasudhaiva
kutumbakam" and non-violence. THe vulture, conned by cat's "noble"
intentions lets him into his house. And very soon, the cat devours
the vulture. So much for "vasudhaiva kutumbakam".
b) It also occcurs in Panchatantra, where another slimy character
fools his "friend" by preaching Vasudhaiva kutumbakam.
c) Amongst Shastras, it comes in maha-upanishad, where the context is
about moksh. So, once you are on a path of moksha, you start
treating the enture world as one family. So, even in the realm of
individual progress, vasudhaiva kutumbakam is the end, and not a
means.
It has been a fundamental error of Hindutva orgs (both of Sangh and
non-Sangh types) to use vasudhaiva kutumbakam as the guiding
principle for nation building. Individuals seek liberation. Nations
and societies are not aspiring for liberation. Great nations use
strength to protect the weak, and deliver justice.It would be
suicidal to use Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam as the guiding principle for a
nation.
nachiketa
ps: To get a good understanding on this issue, please visit:
http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/Hoax-Called-Vasudhaiva-Kutumbakam-I-Hitopadesha/blog-148.htm
and read the article, THe Hoax Called Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
End of forwarded message from Nachiketa Tiwari
hari....@indero.com
what the Hindu spiritual leaders say is the same. They quote directly
from vedic chants."
Then jay stevens,aka dr. jai etc. insults vedic chants. Here is rss
view:
THE HATE-MINORITIES MESSAGE OF THE `RSS BIBLE'
"The foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture
and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu
religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the
Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must loose their
separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the
country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing,
deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment -- not
even citizen's rights. There is, at least, should be, no other course
for them to adopt. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations
ought to and do deal, with the foreign races, who have chosen to live
in our country".
-- Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar's, We or Our Nationhood Defined
hari....@indero.com
have not understood it, Hindutva and BJP have not suceeded to the
extent desired. The biggest question therefore remains 'How can
Dalits and OBCs have a stake in Hindutva?'"
Or a better interpretation is that they saw forthemselves the terror
programs of 2002 and 2008.
They then correctly thoughtthat the best defence of themselves is
tofirst defend their neighbor.
If terrorists can assult neighbor for some reason the radicals do not
like, then radicals can choose to assult them also.
If neighbor is free to live as chosen then they can make same choice to
live as they choose.
If radical is enemy of freedom to neighbor then raical is enemy of
freedom for all.
craoi...@gmail.com
girls looking like Shilpa and Shamita, I guess they deserve praise.
If not, I think I prefer Bollywood.
António Marques
started by the Dr. It *really* is that simple. For instance, if it
weren't for 'hari.kumar' insisting on replying to the Dr, I wouldn't
have read a word written by the Dr for more than a year now. I'm
reminded of those greek thinkers who we only know from the writings of
their opponents.
--
António Marques