The word Hindutva entered our contemporary political vocabulary nearly two decades ago, along with the movement to liberate the Ram Janmabhoomi. Since then, it has been a loaded concept, infused with negative connotations imposed by its opponents who have failed to comprehend, much less appreciate it, but have nonetheless obliquely associated it with a kind of majoritarian tyranny. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In its most pristine form, Hindutva simply means Hindu-ness, the essence of being Hindu. Of course, its existence in the public domain has also given it a political dimension, which again is abused rather than understood by its adversaries. Hence I would like to state unequivocally that Hindutva in the public realm implies a Hindu-centric polity, consistent with the nation’s Hindu-majority character. This, to my mind, would also be the proper meaning of that much-maligned concept, Hindu Rashtra.
Every nation has a core culture and identity centred round the native traditions and dharma of the majority community, and all groups position themselves vis-à-vis this core. This does not mean that minorities are second-class citizens, but in no viable social or political system can minorities logically determine a nation’s identity and ethos. A polity held to ransom by minority interests is a diseased polity; it must either cure itself or perish.
India’s civilisational identity and ethos rests on her concept of Dharma, that is, Sannatan Dharma, the Eternal Tradition. This ancient Hindu faith is not a codified creed in the manner of the monotheistic religions. It is both a religion and living civilization, a unique blend of spirituality and practicality, inspired by the ideal of universal welfare of all beings, both human and other creatures. Dharma is natural (cosmic) law, rta. It takes on a formal structure, creed and ritual, but is never captive to absolutism. Indian tradition recognizes even the atheist as morally valid, and does not deny him space on the religious-spiritual spectrum. This is because sannatan dharma is all-embracing : it is righteousness, duty, and the eternal law that is not fixed (in time or space) but eternally renews itself in response to changing times and provides for as many paths to salvation as there are souls who seek it.
Dharma is not a static notion fixed in time or space; but is characterized by movement and change. Hindu dharma grew on the banks of rivers where the movement of waters is constant and sacred. Waters flow because of the banks of rivers; without banks the waters would slush into marshes. In the spiritual universe, banks are our maryadas (sense of the sacred, sense of limits). But Dharma also promotes Consciousness (realization, sadhna) as opposed to a fixed revelation; that is why our samskaras vary with each epoch (yuga dharma). Dharma changes because humanity is an end, never a means.
Dharma respects all faiths as valid attempts to comprehend the Divine. It holds that each individual soul must chart its own evolutionary course and no human agency should arbitrate a final truth for all mankind. Hindus believe the Vedas are ‘revealed’ truth that was ‘heard’ by the Vedic rishis (Sruti). Yet, they are not to be imposed upon the world by human regents. Hence, despite the belief in One Supreme Being (paramatma, parabrahma), non-monotheism has been the hallmark of our tradition. Western secularism is no match for this depth of spiritual understanding, and it is precisely because the profoundest truths that our civilization arrived at are universally applicable, that many seers have called Hindu dharma universal.
Ancient India’s polity and innate secularism flows naturally from these beliefs, and it is little wonder that centuries ago Aristotle observed that the Hindus were the only people in the world to have successfully made dharma the basis of their public life (Politics). The dharmic (righteous) ordering of public life is thus the basis of Hindu Rashtra and the true meaning of Hindutva.
Sanatana Dharma does not naturally view other faiths as threatening or unacceptable. When the Parsi community fled Persia, they were given protection by the local Hindu ruler in Gujarat and specially invited to build a Fire Temple for their worship and rituals, so that they could transmit their unique culture to succeeding generations. This courtesy was extended to the Dalai Lama and his followers when they arrived in India some decades ago, and India now has a very substantial Tibetan refugee population. Later, when the Bahai community fled persecution in Iran, India opened her doors and the world famous Lotus Temple in New Delhi is eloquent testimony to the grandeur of India’s universalist vision and its realization. Today, the richest Buddhist temple in India is controlled by the Tibetan Karma Kagyu sect, whose Karmapa arrived in the country some years ago after an amazing escape.
Christian and Muslim communities fleeing persecution established beachheads in India several hundred years ago, as did the Jews. Religious persecution is unknown to the Hindu ethos. Swami Vivekananda famously remarked that a Hindu fanatic may burn himself on a pyre, but he will never light the fire of Inquisition under another being. If this historical reality has been somewhat modified in recent years, we must pause to think how much the pacifist Hindu has been goaded to come to this pass.
Our political culture has always been sensitive to the need to accommodate all groups living within the country. When the wounds of Partition are still fresh and bleeding and refugees were pouring in from two frontiers, the first cabinet of independent India included Maulana Azad. Harijans, the most depressed sections of Hindu society, were represented through Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. When one considers that it has taken the United States more than 200 years to have a Jewish running-mate for President, I think this is not a small achievement.
One of the most ancient and distinguishing features of dharma or Hindu civilization is its overarching sense of the sacredness of the land. This permeates the local, regional and pan-India ethos, and under this notion, more and more groups were assimilated and integrated into a socio-spiritual-cultural continuum whose individual components merged into one civilisational ocean, giving us the unique unity and continuity of Indian civilization. That is why in the colonial era itself, Indians rejected the hypothesis of an Aryan Invasion and countered that the idea of India as a distinct entity existed in the minds of its people from very ancient times. The Vedic poets expressed a deep love of the soil, linked inextricably with pride in a distinct Arya (noble) culture. The extension of this culture through spiritual-cultural linkages and a community of worship, rather than political conquest, engendered the idea of the nation (rashtra).
Geography was infused with spirituality and embraced all groups, even immigrants, provided they embraced this spiritual unity. For it was culture, and not ethnicity or language, that created a social unity around which a group consciousness emerged and permeated all units. It is in this context that the refusal by some members of a religious minority to sing the Vande Mataram on the centenary of its adoption has caused deep hurt to the inclusive psyche of the Hindu people.
Yet India’s unique civilisational ethos has learnt to seek accommodation with ethnic, racial, and religious groups that do not desire to be assimilated to its dominant culture, but seek to negotiate political space while maintaining a distinctive presence in society on the plea of preserving their unique culture. This is a situation the West is trying to comprehend under pressure from groups challenging its most cherished values.
Since the end of the Second World War, the public discourse in western democracies has been dominated by the concept of ‘cultural pluralism’ or ‘multi-culturalism.’ This originated in the immigrant cultures of Canada and Australia, but became an international intellectual fashion after it entered the United States. Many Indians have been seduced by its apparent egalitarianism, though it is actually an artificial construct aimed at imposing western mores on societies seeking to define themselves in terms of their own genius.
Today, however, secular, multi-cultural Europe is under stress on account of its non-integrating Muslim population. Europe is beginning to feel that it cannot co-exist with the adamant aloofness practiced by Muslim communities. Queen Margrethe of Denmark (14 April 2005, Reuters) felt compelled to urge Muslim immigrants to learn Danish to feel more at home. In a statement in her official biography, she goes so far as to say that society should show limited tolerance of radical Islam: “We are being challenged by Islam these years. Globally as well as locally. We must take this challenge seriously. We have simply left it flapping around for far too long, because we are tolerant and rather lazy.” She urged that “We should not be content with living next to each other. We should rather live together.” This clearly reflects the growing unease over the impact of immigration in hitherto homogenous societies of newcomers who are incompatible with the older and dominant community’s ethos.
It is thus natural for every majority community in the world to desire a socio-political environment conducive to its own welfare, where its natural aspirations are not distorted by minority veto. In India, however, decades of pusillanimous votebank politics have facilitated illegal immigration of minorities from neighbouring Bangladesh, with a deleterious impact upon national demography. Census Commissioner J.K. Banthia’s decision to release data on religious demography in September 2004 provoked a furious nation-wide debate on the issue, triggering Hindu fears of Muslim domination through over-breeding and illegal immigration. The Census revealed that the population of indigenous religious groups has steadily fallen in percentage terms from 1881 to 1991; a trend which accelerated after Partition. In 1951, Hindus were 85 percent of the population; in 2001 they were just 80.5 percent. In contrast, Muslims who were 9.7 percent in 1951, rose to 13.4 percent in 2001.
The growing political insecurity of Hindus in India needs to be understood in the context of India’s neighbourhood. In 1941, Hindus and Sikhs were jointly 19 percent of present-day Pakistan; they were one percent by 2001. In 1941, Hindus were 29 percent of present-day Bangladesh; they were 10 percent in 1991. Dhaka’s sustained ethnic cleansing of the past few years can only have accelerated this trend. Our region is being Islamized, and this has obvious implications for national identity and security. Illegal aliens are estimated at 1.5 crores by former Home Secretary Madhav Godbole. Interestingly, Bangladesh census chief Sharifa Begum has detected a ‘missing’ population of 1.4 crores in her country, thus corroborating Indian estimates of intruders.
Hindutva thus naturally involves the protection and preservation of the Indian landmass for the Hindu people, who are the autochthonous people of this land. In the present environment, the concerns of Hindutva would thus appear to be specific to the Hindu people. Yet it is undeniable that the great truths and the foundational ethos of the Indic civilization have a universal appeal and can be gainfully adapted by other civilizations and cultures to serve their specific needs. This is, however, an issue for them to decide, rather than for Hindus to propagate. I emphasize this because often Hindus promoting the universal applicability of Hindu thought and culture end up denying the Hindu-Indian origins of our philosophy and traditions like yoga and ayurveda, leaving us open to poaching and theft of intellectual-cultural property by the more market-savvy West. It is a trend that needs to be seriously discouraged.
For special issue, Samadhan, 1 September 2006