Hindutva

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Template:Hindu politics

For Veer Savarkar's book, see Hindutva (book).

Hindutva ("Hinduness", a word coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 pamphlet entitled Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? ) is used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism. The word, a compound of the Persian word "Hindu" and the Sanskrit suffix "-tva"., was coined by the right-wing revolutionary Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as a descriptor for "Hindu-ness".

The former ruling party in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is closely associated with a group of organizations that promote Hindutva. They collectively refer to themselves as the "Sangh Parivar" or family of associations, and include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Hindutva has played a major role in Indian politics since the late 1980s.

Organizations

Main articles: Sangh Parivar and National Democratic Alliance

The first Hindutva organisation formed was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, founded in 1925. A prominent Indian political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is closely associated with a group of organisations that advocate Hindutva. They collectively refer to themselves as the "Sangh Parivar" or family of associations, and include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad. Other organisations include:

Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh - a trade union confederation
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad - A student union
Bharatiya Kisan Sangh - A farmer's union
Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh - the overseas wing of the RSS.

The major political wing is the BJP which was in power in India's Central Government for six years from 1998 to 2004 and is now the main opposition party. It is also in power in the five states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Uttaranchal. It is an alliance partner in the states of Orissa, Punjab, Bihar and Karnataka.

Political parties pertaining to the Hindutva ideology are not limited to the Sangh Parivar. Examples of political parties independent from the Sangh's influence include Praful Goradia's Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh and Uma Bharti's Bharatiya Janshakti Party. The influence of these groups is relatively limited.

The controversial Maharashtrian political party, the Shiv Sena, converted its ideology to the Hindutva one in recent times. It has been very influential in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The party is not part of the Sangh Parivar but is electorally allied to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Definition

In a judgment the Indian Supreme Court ruled that "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."

Hindutva is commonly identified with the guiding ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in particular, which itself calls its version of Hindutva integral humanism. While opponents and critics usually view Hindutva as a nationalist identity based solely on the Hindu religion and ethos, these organizations portray it as a nationalist identity based on the traditions and cultural heritage of the Indian sub-continent, contending that in many respects it is a syncretic ideology, despite the fact that it draws freely from the Hindu scriptures and holds Hindu historical and religious figures up as inspirational examples.

Central concepts

The Indian subcontinent (which includes the area south of the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush or Akhand Bharat is the homeland of the Hindus.
"Hindus" are those who consider India (Bharat) to be their fatherland (pitribhumi) as well as their holyland (punyabhumi) (definition as proposed by Savarkar).
emphasizing historical oppression of Hindus by invading forces like the Muslims (see Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent) and the Christians (see Goa Inquisition) and the call to "reverse" the influence resulting from these intrusions.
denunciation of British colonialism and Communism alike for a perceived weakening of Hindus.
The irredentist call for the establishment of a "Hindu Rashtra" to protect Hindus and revive Hindu culture

Philosophy

Hindu nationalists have the stated aim of uniting the consituent elements of 'Hindu' society; thus they havem for example, stated their intention of allotting leadership positions to Dalits in their organizations.

India's Muslim minority, has been encouraged to participate in the political wing of Hindutva; both the BJP and the more militant Shiv Sena have invited Muslims to join.."

Outside observers, on the other hand, describe Hindutva philosophy as fundamentalism: Muslims and Christians are seen as foreign elements in the subcontinent, which rightly belongs to Hindus. The RSS leader M. S. Golwalkar, like his contemporary Islamist counterpart Mawdudi, has expressed admiration for the Nazis and their ideas about national purity: in 1939 he wrote that "Germany has shocked the world by purging the country of the semitic race of the Jews, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by".

Ruthven (2007:108) recognizes an element of religious fundamentalism in Swami Dayananda's "elevation of the Vedas to the sum of human knowledge, along with his myth of the Aryavartic kings", but identifies its consequences as nationalistic, since "Hindutva secularizes Hinduism by sacralizing the nation". Mezentseva (1994), however, rejects any necessary connection being made between Dayananda and Hindu nationalism, demonstrating that his interpretation of 'Aryavarta' is not to be identified with the concept of the Indian nation as utilized by Hinduvta groups.

Views on other faiths

Main article: Uniform Civil Code Main article: Pseudo-secularism

The advocates of Hindutva often use the term pseudo-secularism to refer to laws which they believe are biased against Hindus. The implementaion of the Constitutional provision for a Uniform Civil Code, which would remove special religion-based provisions for different religions from the Indian legal code, is thus one of the main political planks of Hindutva.

A further demand is the conversion of disputed historical monuments into temples.

Views on Indian History

Further information: Indigenous Aryans and Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies)

The RSS' worldview is that India is the "fount of human civilisation", from where its knowledge spread to the rest of the world. Since this view it challenges many contemporary historic notions such as the Indo-Aryan migration, and the influence of Babylonic cultures and ancient Central Asian civilizations, on the development of the language, culture and religions of India, these claims are considered pseudocience in peer-reviewed academia.

Defenders of this worldview have propounded theories in line with its central ideas, such as the "out of India" theory. Largely uncontroversial in academia, the "Aryan Invasion" debate in India is thus politically charged.

Symbolism of Historic Hindu Figures

Hindu nationalists set up historical military figures such as Ahilyabai Holkar, Prithviraj Chauhan and Shivaji as archetypal defenders of India, and thus Hinduism. The Shiv Sena in particular reveres, and attempts to emulate, the Maratha emperor Shivaji.

Political rise

Main article: Ayodhya dispute

Hindutva rose to prominence in the late 1980s, when two events occurred that caused an upturn in the fortunes of the BJP. The first of these events was the Rajiv Gandhi government's use of its large parliamentary majority to overturn a Supreme Court verdict that had angered some Indian Muslim organisations. The second was the dispute over the 16th century Mughal Babri Mosque in Ayodhya — built by Babur after his first major victory in India, allegedly by razing a Hindu temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu God-king Rama. This came to a head with the razing of the mosque by a Hindu mob in 1992 and subsequent communal riots.

Alleged Fascistic nature

Main article: Fascism in India

The Hindutva movement has sometimes been described by academics and commentators as a form of "Hindu Fascism" or "Indian Fascism". For example, economist Prabhat Patnaik has written that the Hindutva movement as it has emerged is "classically fascist in class support, methods and programme". Patnaik bases this argument on the following "ingredients" of classical fascism present in Hindutva: the attempt to create a unified homogeonous majority under the concept of 'the Hindus'; a sense of grievance against past injustice; a sense of cultural superiority; an interpretation of history according to this grievance and superiorityl; a rejection of rational arguments against this interpretation; and an appeal to the majority based on race and masculinity.

Christophe Jaffrelot's analysis, in which he argued that Hindutva draws on the cultural nationalism of Bluntschli, rather than the racial nationalism of the Nazis themselves have been criticized by former philosophy lecturer and Times of India commentator Jyotirmaya Sharma as a "simplistic transference has done great injustice to our knowledge of Hindu nationalist politics"

Academics Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta reject the identification of Hindutva with fascism, because of Hindutva's embrace of cultural rather than racial nationalism, because of its "distinctively Indian" character, and because of "the RSS’s disavowal of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in civil society". They instead describe Hindutva as a form of "revolutionary conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism"..

References

For use of the suffix -tva to form neuter abstract nouns see p. 145 of A Sanskrit Manual: Part II by R. Antoine (Xavier Publications: Calcutta: 1970)
Jana Sangh promises to make India Hindu nation
Uma launches new party
Organize under Dalit leadership: RSS
Bharatiya Janata Party Official Website Hindutva: The Great Nationalistic Ideology
The Rediff Election Interview/Bal Thackeray,Rediff.com
Ruthven (2007:10ff.)
A World of Vedic Truths: The Life and Teaching of Swami Dayananda O.V. Mezentseva, Soviet Institute of Philosophy (1994)
About Hindu Unity
"the great majority of linguists... seek the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans in Asia somewhere to the north of their later historical seats." Mallory, J. P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames and Hudson. p. 65. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
"The Fascism of Our Times" Social Scientist VOl 21 No.3-4, 1993, p.69
Profile, Jyotirmaya Sharma
Hindu Nationalist Politics,J. Sharma Times of India
Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 23 Number 3 May 2000 pp. 407–441 ISSN 0141-9870 print/ISSN 1466-4356 online

External links

Videos

Film on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits.

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