In view of the recent controversy over Hindutva as to its being the national identity of India as triggered by what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat averred, it is interesting to note what Hindutva as an ideology epitomises. “Hindustan is a Hindu nation. Hindutva is the identity of our nation and Hinduism can incorporate others (religions) in itself,” Bhagwat remarked at an event in Mumbai.
Hindutva as it is now understood began its journey after Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (May 1883 – February 1966) came up with ‘the classical text on the ideology of Hindutva’ in 1923. We need not get into the details here of how the freedom fighter became ‘swatantraveer’ or ‘Veer Savarkar’ in recognition of his peerlessly daring exploits against the colonial rule. What is important here is that he did not join the Congress, though he was a strong nationalist since his childhood. He had remained associated with a relatively unknown outfit known as Democratic Swaraj Party that professed by the concept of Swaraj as propounded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. later, he joined the Hindu Mahasabha and soon became its president. He remained so till 1945 when he went into a sort of self-imposed exile. He had propounded the concept of Hindu Rashtra as a product of his peculiar concept of Hindutva that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh later adopted as its core ideology.
A strong nationalist as he was, he was naturally ill-disposed to the British rule which was, in his view, responsible for the all-pervasive decline of the Hindu civilisation and culture. But he was inimical rather more to the Muslim rule that had preceded the British advent. He viewed his ‘Hindustan’ as rightfully belonging to the Hindus who were inclined to consider the land as not just ‘pitribhu’ (fatherland) but as ‘punyabhu’ (holy land). He was against recognising either the Muslims or the Christians as Indians on the argument that they, though not disinclined to accept India as fatherland, were not too eager to recognise India as holy land.
His view of Akbar was typical. Though he was not averse to concede the particular Mughal Emperor’s relative greatness as compared to other Muslim rulers of India he was nonetheless categorical that Akbar was, from the Hindu point of view, a foreigner, belonging to another religion and mean-minded and thus he should be decried by the Hindus.
“The Hindus do not want a change of masters, are not going to …fight and die only to replace an Edward by an Aurangzeb simply because the latter happens to be born within the Indian borders, but they want henceforth to be masters themselves in their own house, in their own land,” is the view he remained invincibly committed to. Now the question is are there differences between the Hindu nationalism that was an integral part of the philosophy of the Extremist School- the group that had emerged in course of the nation’s collective disenchantment with the Moderate School’s professed and persistent policy of mendicancy as regards the colonial regime- and the idea of Hindutva vis-à-vis the Hindu-Muslim questionIJ
The important proponents of the Extremist School espoused Hindu culture as the fount of the Indian nationhood. The view is that Sanatana Dharma (perennial Hinduism) and Indian nationhood are identical. Bipin Chandra Pal, an Extremist stalwart, believed that Hinduism is the fundamental core of Indian nationhood. Tilak was convinced that Hinduism is the principal cementing force that can bind together the myriad identities that India as an entity embodies.
lala lajpat Rai was a staunch follower of Arya Samaj which views Vedas the divine revelation. He was one of the leading lights of the Suddhi Movement the focus of which was trained on re-converting those who had got converted from time to time to non-Hindu religions, particularly Islam, back to Hinduism.
While welcoming the formation of Muslim league, Aurobindo Ghosh wrote in Vande Mataram, “We do not fear Mohammedan opposition so long as it is the honest Swadeshi article and not manufactured in Shillong or Simla. We welcome it as sign of life and aspiration…In that faith, we are ready, when the time comes to us, to meet in the political field, to exchange with the Musalman, just as he chooses, the firm clasp of the brother or the resolute grip of the wrestler. India’s new nationalism is not afraid of Pan-Islamism or any signs of the growth of a special Mohammedan self-consciousness, but rather welcomes them.”
But the important thing about them all is that they all dreamt of the growth of a composite Indian culture in course of time which, though professing by Hindu core of the Indian civilisation, would assimilate the non-Hindus, particularly, the Muslims, into a common, indivisible and robust nationhood.While the Hindutva school, at least in theory, remained un-reconciled to having the Muslims assimilated into the cultural mainstream of India as long as the Muslims were disinclined to consider India as punyabhu (holy land) the nationalist stalwarts belonging to the Extremist School were, on the other hand, of the view that the Muslims were the children of Mother India as much as the Hindus and they would have to be conciliated in the long run, not, of course, by flattery or cajoling or cowardice, but by making Hinduism inherently strong and inclusive on both the spiritual and material planes.