Let’s Talk Hindutva — Essay 0: Why study Hindutva?
Dismantling Global Hindutva conference
In these past few days, we have heard tell of a conference being held in several universities in the US. It was called Dismantling Global Hindutva. Now, this was obviously going to be entirely different than any scientific or technological conference. This was a political conference, though strangely still academic because universities and professors were involved. I, myself, do not have as little patience for such conferences as many of my more scientifically inclined friends. I am quite interested in keeping abreast of what goes on in the world.
My attention was grabbed by the quite provocative title itself.
It implies that Hindutva, whatever it is, has a global agenda, that the organizers, participants, and attendees want to counter.
I was under the impression that the opponents of Hindutva saw its objective as making India a Hindu Rashtra, or at the most, wanting to reclaim what is known as Akhanda Bharat. These supposed global ambitions of Hindutvavaadis were new to me and these kind souls wanted to stop that from materializing. This, to me, would be like actually preparing against the resurrection of Imhotep from The Mummy franchise.
Needless to say, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the conference, and I find it almost impossible to determine how much of it was manufactured by the organizers themselves. Many people had a lot to say about it. Hundreds of professors, academics, students, scholars, and political activists issued statements in support of it, from dozens of universities, departments, centers, NGOs, all over the world.
The motivation behind this series of essays
This would otherwise have prompted me to go over the sessions held in this conference and dissect the arguments, possibly even write rebuttals. But, of late, I have been trying to think beyond rebuttals and responses. So, what I decided to do was to go the other way. I want to do a summary and commentary of Hindutva itself. I realize that I am no expert on the topic, nor have I been formally educated in social sciences beyond school level, but I propose this:
I have previously read Hindutva by Veer Savarkar and I would like to believe that I have a reasonable understanding of the text. Why don’t I go over that text again and write down my thoughts about it? I am perfectly aware that the term Hindutva itself was not coined by Veer Savarkar, but by Shri Chandranath Basu, about 30 years before him. But hardly anyone who talks about (mostly against) Hindutva seems to talk about him, most people talk about Veer Savarkar’s Hindutva. Hence, that document.
Since I am starting to write again after a substantial gap, I am treating this project as a writing exercise. The book has close to 30 chapters. My plan is to write on all of those chapters, with my opinions on them. This is not any sort of authoritative commentary or a translation, but a humble attempt at interpreting the text as I think about it. Hence, I have decided to name this series Let’s Talk Hindutva.
The idea is to unpack the ideas and conceptions about Hindutva and answer several questions people may have. Questions like what it means to be a Hindu, is Hindutva synonymous with Hinduism, is Hindutva a casteist philosophy, does Hindutva preach hatred for other religions, is Hindutva compatible with a liberal democratic setup can be answered by a simple reading of Veer Savarkar’s book. But in order to understand any of this, one must also understand the context in which the book was written and published.
Background of Veer Savarkar’s book Hindutva
By the late 19th century and early 20th century, the socio-political situation of British India had gained a considerably communal color. Several Muslim leaders had vowed their loyalty towards the British and denounced and condemned even the Indian National Congress. Leaders like Sir Syed Ahmed and Muhammad Ali demanded that India should not have a representative electorate since Muslims were only about 20% of the Indian population and that the Hindu majority could not safeguard the interests of the Muslims in such a system. In fact, they demanded that Muslims receive a greater share of electorates than their population because they had ruled India for 700 years before the British, which would actually be accepted in the first decade of the 20th century.
In fact, Sir Syed Ahmed even proposed a theory popularly known as the Two-Nation Theory which essentially argued that Hindus and Muslims were so different from each other that even if they existed in the same geographical area, as a part of the same political entity, they were two separate nations.
“Is it possible that under these circumstances (of the British leaving India) two nations — the Mahomedans and the Hindus — could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable.” — Sir Syed, speaking in Meerut in 1888.
The Khilafat movement and the Moplah massacre
In an effort to defuse the tensions among Hindus and Muslims and prioritize Indian independence, the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League, which was the culmination of the hitherto scattered but strong regional Muslim movements, struck a compromise where the Congress agreed to the disproportionate electorates and Muslim League agreed to oppose the British rule in India. This was the essence of the Lucknow Pact of 1916. This paved the way for the Khilafat movement in India in 1919, which the Congress, under Gandhi, wholeheartedly supported.
This would prove to be a tragic disaster, almost instantly. In Aug 1921, there were the infamous Moplah massacres of Malabar Hindus, in Kerala. These Moplahs were fanatical Muslims who lived along the coast in Malabar. They harbored resentment against the Malabar Hindus for many reasons, some religious, some economic. The Moplahs were mostly laborers and tenants while the Hindus owned lands. Using the Khilafat movement as the cover fire, Moplahs ran amok in Kerala and massacred Hindus, destroyed their temples, raped Hindu women in front of their relatives, even mutilated pregnant Hindu women.
An incensed Maratha
Meanwhile, Veer Savarkar had been shifted from the Cellular Jail in Andaman to Ratnagiri jail in Maharashtra. He learned of these events and lamented the situation of Hindus in their own country, how they had suffered humiliation and violence. The Congress, that sought to represent them, was almost apathetic. Gandhiji even asked Malabar Hindus themselves to introspect about how they had so far excluded the Moplahs from being considered their own.
Veer Savarkar condemned the Moplahs for their actions and even Gandhiji for his submissive approach to their inhuman actions. By 1923, he had written several essays and articles about the issue and warning Hindus that this was to repeat, urging them to denounce the Khilafat movement. He realized that the impression of unity that Muslims of India present to non-Muslims is actually nothing more than a facade and that there were deep theological differences among Muslims themselves.
He then decided to articulate an intellectual response to this entire situation, that would be understood by Hindus, not just the Marathi-speaking Maharashtrians, but all. Therefore, he wrote this book, Hindutva, in English, while still under a strict watch, under a pseudonym, A Maratha. This is the book that I plan to analyze, dissect and comment on. Hence starts the discussion on the book.