The real nature of Hindutva nationalism can be grasped only by understanding who would be the progenies of the Hindu Rashtra. Will it be a country of Hindus alone? If so, who among the Hindus will have dominion in the country?

The Sangh has doubtlessly clarified that Bharat would be a land of the Hindus. Justifying the cause of Hindu nation, Golwalkar writes: “For it is the forefathers of the Hindu people that have set up standards and traditions of love devotions for the motherland … It is they who shed their blood in defence of its sanctity and integrity. That the Hindu people alone have done all this is a fact to which our history of thousands of years bears testimony. It means that only the Hindu has been living here as the child of this soil.”

Who are the people included in the category of Hindus? The answer is clear in Savarkar’s book “Hindutva, who is a Hindu?” which is the basic text for all the Hindutva philosophers? Savarkar points out three characteristics to demarcate who a Hindu is. a) Hindu is the one who considers India as his motherland and homeland, b) He is the one who partakes in the lineage of the Hindu race, c) Hindu is the one who respects, recognizes and considers as his own the Hindu culture, history, heroes, art, literature, customs, festivals and sacraments that prevailed in India. But Savarkar gives also an additional fourth condition also to become Hindu: He is the one who considers Bharat not just as the homeland but also as the holy land. By this he excludes all those who are converted to Islam and to Christianity from Hinduism because they can never see India as their holy land.

Savarkar admits that many a Muslims in Kashmir and other parts of India as well as the Christians in South India observe the caste rules to such an extent as to marry generally within the pale of their castes alone. Though their original Hindu blood is almost unaffected by an alien adulteration, they cannot be called Hindus in the sense, in which that term is actually understood. He writes: ‘That is why in the case of some of our Mohammedan or Christian countrymen who had originally been forcibly converted to a non-Hindu religion and who consequently have inherited along with Hindus, a common Fatherland and a greater part of the wealth of a common culture – language, law, customs, folklore and history – are not and cannot be recognized as Hindus. For though Hindustan to them is Fatherland as to any other Hindu yet it is not to them a Holy land too. Their Holy land is far off in Arabia or Palestine’.

Coming to the question which categories of Hindus will have the hegemony in the Hindu nation, we have an indication in the comment made about the term Hindu by Golwalkar in Bunch of Thoughts. To him, the Hindus are those who had originated from the Virat Purusha: The Brahmins from his head, Kshatriyas from his hands, Vaishyas from his stomach and Shudras from his feet. In short, Hindus are those who are spread throughout the four varnas and ashrams. Subsequently, it means that the backward and low castes are, strictly speaking, out of the genuine Hindu community as envisioned by the Hindutva intelligentsia.

kundu1962@gmail.com