Despite being in the majority in India, Hindus continue to have a minority mentality and lack brotherhood, French journalist Francois Gautier has said.

Based in India, Gautier is in the US to raise funds for the Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Museum of Indian History set up by him in Pune, Maharashtra. He also attended the Art of Living's World Culture Festival 2023 in the US capital.

“The lesson (from history) is that Hindus should fight. Even today, Hinduism is under attack everywhere in the world, whether it is Pakistan or Afghanistan, whether it is conversions by Christian missionaries, which is a really big problem in India now, especially in the South and even in Punjab, or whether it is the westernisation of India, which is happening through cable TV,” Gautier told PTI in an interview.

Gautier said most Western Indologists are very hostile towards Hindus.

“Everywhere in the world Indologists are often fed by the governments to enlighten people about India, which is a very far and difficult country to understand, and these people are hostile to Hindus,” he said when asked about the status of Hindus globally.

“These are the people who keep saying Hindu fundamentalism is as dangerous as Islamic fundamentalism, which is absolutely untrue. Because Hinduism never went out of India to conquer the world and put its own religion like Christianity did in South America and wiped other civilisations or like Islam went and conquered Egypt and wiped out the Egyptian civilisation,” he said.

“But Hinduism never tried to impose, even today, Hindus never say, you should convert, or I will send a missionary to convert you,” the journalist added.

Based in India for the past several decades, Gautier has served as the South-Asia correspondent of Journal de Genève, a Geneva-based newspaper, and Le Figaro of France.

He has established the Foundation for Advancement of Cultural Ties (FACT) which organises various exhibitions and the Pune museum.

Observing that Hindus are a “majority” in India with a 1.3 billion population and Hinduism is the third biggest religion in the world, he said Hindus are very peaceful people.

“But, they have a mentality of a minority. That is the biggest problem. Even in India, though they're the majority, they have the mentality of a minority,” Goutier said.

Speaking about the Shivaji Maharaj Museum, he said, “I honour him (Shivaji Maharaj) because his courage was extraordinary, that courage with that intelligence even much.”

“But Hindus have been persecuted so much, they have been so brutally invaded and killed and raped that there's a fear mentality in Hindus today,” he added.

Goutier strongly refuted the increasing reporting in the Western media about the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been reaching out to people from all religions.

“That's stupidity. Hindus are the most tolerant people in the world. Even today we see it with Mr. Modi that he reaches out to everybody, the Muslims, the Christians, the westerners. So, whoever says that (rise of Hindu fundamentalism) … it is absolutely untruth. It's a false accusation that is meant to demean and debase one of the greatest religions in the world,” he said.

Gautier said this was the reason why he built the museum as it shows dharma and the true history of India.

“I came to the US because we really need money. Entrance is free, we won't charge anything. A lot of schoolchildren are coming now. So, I need money to continue. Every month, I have to pay USD 3,000 in salaries because we have a big staff in the museum now,” he said.