6.9.2023
Essentials of Hindutva - by V.D. Savarkar
(Sometime between 1921-22 Veer Savarkar completed his historic book “Essentials of Hindutva” while still in Andamans. This was later published under the pseudo name ‘A Mahratta’)
Important Points
Page 3
Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.
By an 'ism' it is generally meant a theory or a code more or less based on spiritual or religious dogma or creed.
Hindutva embrases all the departments of thought and activity of the whole Being of our Hindu race.
Pagse number?
Now we are fairly in a postion to try to analyse the contents of one of the most comprehensive and bewilderingly synthetic concept known to human tongue. Hindutva is a derivative word from Hindu, we have seen that the earliest and the most sacred records of our race show that the appellation, Saptasindhu or Hapt-Hindu was applied to a region in which the Vedic nation flourished. The geographical sense being the primary one has, now contracting, now expanding, but always persistently been associated with the words Hindu and Hindusthan till after the lapse of nearly 5000 years if not more, Hindusthan has come to mean the whole cotinental country from the Sindhu to Sindhu from the Indus to the Seas. The most important factor that contributes to the cohesion, strength and the sense of unity of a people is that they should possess an internally well-connected and externally well-demarcated ' local habitation,' and a ' name ' that could, by its very mention, rouse the cherished image of their motherland as well as the loved memories of their past. We are happily blessed with both these important requisites for a strong and united nation. Our land is so vast and yet so well-knit, so well demarcated from others and yet so strongly entrenched that no country in the world is more closely marked out by the fingers of nature as a geographical unit beyond cavil or criticism, as also is the name
Hindusthan or Hindu that it has come to bear. The first image that it rouses in the mind is unmistakably of our motherland and by an express appeal to its geographical and physical features it vivifies it into a living Being. Hindusthan meaning the land of Hindus, the first essential of Hindutva must necessarily be this geographical one. A Hindu is primarily a citizen either in himself or through his forefathers of 'Hindusthan' and claims the land as his motherland. In America as well as in France the word Hindu is generally understood thus exactly in the sense of an Indian without any religious or cultural
implication. And had the word Hindu been left to convey this primary significance only, which it had in common with all the words derived from Sindhu then it would really have meant an Indian, a citizen of Hindusthan as the word Hindi does.
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The Hindus are not merely the citizens of the Indian state because they are united not only by the bonds of the love they bear to a common motherland but also by the bonds of a common blood.
They are not only a Nation but also a race-jati. The word jati derived from the root Jan to produce, means a brotherhood, a race determined by a common origin,-possessing a common blood.
All Hindus claim to have in their veins the blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the Vedic fathers, the Sindhus. We are well aware of the not unoften interested objection
that carpingly questions 'but are you really a race ? Can you be said to possess a common
blood ?' We can only answer by questioning in return, 'Are the English a race ? Is there
anything as English blood, the French blood, the German blood or the Chinese blood in
this world? Do they, who have been freely infusing foreign blood into their race by
contracting marriages with other races and peoples possess a common blood and claim to
be a race by themselves ?' If they do, Hindus also can emphatically do so. For the very
castes, which you owing to your colossal failure to understand and view them in the right
perspective, assert to have barred the common flow of blood into our race, have done so
more truly and more effectively as regards the foreign blood than our own. Nay is not the
very presence of these present castes a standing testimony to a common flow of blood
from a Brahman to a Chandal? Even a cursory glance at any of our Smritis would
conclusively prove that the Anuloma and Pratiloma marriage institutions were the order
of the day and have given birth to the majority of the castes that obtain amongst us. If a
Kshatriya has a son by a Shudra woman, he gives birth to the Ugra caste; again, if the
Kshatriya raises an issue on an Ugra he founds a Shvapacha caste while a Brahman
mother and a Shudra father beget the caste, Chandal. From the Vedic story of Satyakama
Jabali to Mahadaji Shinde every page of our history shows that the ancient Ganges of our
blood has come down from the altitudes of the sublime Vedic heights to the plains of our
modern history fertilizing much, incorporating many a noble stream and purifying many
a lost soul, increasing in volume and richness, defying the danger of being lost in bogs
and sands and flows to-day refreshed and reinvigorated more than ever. All that the caste
system has done is to regulate its noble bood on lines believed-and on the whole rightly
believed-by our saintly and patriotic law-givers and kings to contribute most to fertilize
and enrich all that was barren and poor, without famishing and debasing all that was
flourishing and nobly endowed.
This is true not only in the case of those that are the outcome of the intermarriages
between the chief four castes, or between the chief four castes and the cross-born but also
in the case of those tribes or races who somewhere in the dimness of the hoary past were
leading a separate and self-centred life. Witness the customs prevalent in Malabar or
Nepal where a Hindu of the highest caste is allowed to marry a woman of those who are
supposed to be the originally alien tribes but who, even if the suggestion be true, have by
their brave and loving defence of the Hindu culture have been incorporated with and
bound to us by the dearest of ties —the ties of a common blood.
Take for example the case of a single family of the Pandawas. The sage Parashar was a Brahman. He fell in love with the fair maid of a fisherman who gave birth to the world-renowned Vyas, who in his
turn raised two sons on the Kshatriya princesses Amba and Ambalika;one of these two
sons, Pandu allowed his wives to raise issue by resorting to the Niyoga system and they
having solicited the love of men of unknown castes, gave birth to the heroes of our great
epic. Without mentioning equally distinguished characters of the same period Kama,
Babhruwahana, Ghatotkacha, Vidur and others, we beg to point out to the relatively
modern cases of Chandragupta said to have married a Brahman girl who gave birth to the
father of Ashok; Ashok who had as a prince married a Vaishya maid; Harsha who being a
Vaishya gave his daughter in marriage to a Kshatriya prince ; Vyadhakarma who is said
to be the son of a Vyadha with whom his mother, a Brahman girl, had fallen in love and
who grew to be the ' Yajnacharya of Vikramaditya, Surdas; Krishna Bhatta who being a
Brahman fell so desperately in love with a Chandala girl as to lead an open married life
with her and subsequently became the founder of the religious sect Matangi Pantha; who
nevertheless call themselves and are perfectly entitled to be recognized as Hindus. This is
not all. An individual at times by his or her own actions may lose his or her first caste and
be relegated to another. A Shudra can become a Brahman and Brahman become a Shudra.
The injunction
[The family is not really called a family; it is the practices and customs that are called a
family. One that does his duties is praised on earth and in heaven.] was not always an empty threat. Many a Kshatriya has by taking to agriculture and other occupations of life lost the respect due to a Kshatriya and were classed with some of the other castes; while many a brave man, in cases whole tribes, raised themselves to the position, the rights and titles of the Kshatriyas and were recognized as such. Being outcast from a caste, which is an event of daily occurrence, is only getting incorporated
with some other.
Not only is this true so far as those Hindus only who believe in the caste system based
on the Vedic tenets, are concerned, but even in the case of Avaidik sects of the Hindu
people. As it was true in the Buddhistic period that a Buddhist father, a Vaidik mother, a
Jain son, could be found in a single joint family, so even to-day Jains and Vaishnavas
intermarry in Gujarat, Sikhs and Sanatanis in Punjab and Sind. Moreover, today's
Manbhav or Lingayat or Sikh or Satnami is yesterday's Hindu and to-day's Hindu may be
tomorrow's Lingayat or Bramho or Sikh.
And no word can give full expression to this racial unity of our people as the epithet,
Hindu, does. Some of us were Aryans and some Anaryans; but Ayars and Nayars—we
were all Hindus and own a common blood. Some of us are Brahmans and some
Namashudras or Panchamas; but Brahmans or Chandalas—we are all Hindus and own a
common blood. Some of us are Daxinatyas and some Gauds; but Gauds or Saraswatas—
we are all Hindus and own a common blood. Some of us were Rakhasas and some
Yakshas; but Rakshasas or Yakshas—we are all Hindus and own a common blood. Some
of us were Vanaras and some Kinnaras ; but Vanaras or Naras—we are all Hindus and
own a common blood. Some of us are Jains and some Jangamas; but Jains or Jangamas—
we are all Hindus and own a common blood. Some of us are monists, some, pantheists;
some theists and some atheists. But monotheists or atheists-we are all Hindus and own a
common blood. We are not only a nation but a Jati, a born brotherhood. Nothing else
counts, it is after all a question of heart. We feel that the same ancient blood that coursed
through the veins of Ram and Krishna, Buddha and Mahavir, Nanak and Chaitanya,
Basava and Madhava, of Rohidas and Tiruvelluvar courses throughout Hindudom from
vein to vein, pulsates from heart to heart. We feel we are a JATI, a race bound together
by the dearest ties of blood and therefore it must be so.
A Hindu marrying a Hindu may lose his caste but not his Hindutva. A Hindu believing in any theoretical or philosophical or social system, orthodox or heterodox, provided it is unquestionably
indigenous and founded by a Hindu may lose his sect but not his Hindutva-his
Hinduness—because the most important essential which determines it is the inheritance
of the Hindu blood. Therefore all those who love the land that stretches from Sindhu to
Sindhu from the Indus to the Seas, as their fatherland consequently claim to inherit the
blood of the race that has evolved, by incorporation and adaptation, from the ancient
Saptasindhus can be said to possess two of the most essential requisites of Hindutva.
But what is civilization ? Civilization is the expression of the mind of man. Civilization is
the account of what man has made of matter. If matter is the creation of the Lord, then
civilization is the miniature secondary creation of man. At its best it is the perfect triumph
of the soul of man over matter and man alike. Wherever and to the extent to which man
has succeeded in moulding matter to the delight of his soul, civilization begins. And it
triumphs when he has tapped all the sources of Supreme Delight satisfying the spiritual
aspirations of his being towards strength and beauty and love, realising Life in all its
fulness and richness.
A Hindu then is he who feels attachment to the land that extends from Sindhu to
Sindhu as the land of his forefathers—as his Fatherland; who inherits the blood of the
great race whose first and discernible source could be traced from the Himalayan
altitudes of the Vedic Saptasindhus and which assimilating all that was incorporated and
ennobling all that was assimilated has grown into and come to be known as the Hindu
people; and who, as a consequence of the foregoing attributes, has inherited and claims as
his own the Hindu Sanskriti, the Hindu civilization, as represented in a common history,
common heroes, a common literature, common art, a common law and a common
jurisprudence, common fairs and festivals, rites and rituals, ceremonies and sacraments.
Not that every Hindu has all these details of the Hindu Sanskriti down to each syllable
common with other Hindus; but that, he has more of it common with his Hindu brothers
than with, say, an Arab or an Englishman. Not that a non-Hindu does not hold any of
these details in common with a Hindu but that, he differs more from a Hindu than he
agrees with him. That is why Christian and Mohammedan communities, who, were but
very recently Hindus and in a majority of cases had been at least in their first generation
most unwilling denizens of their new fold, claim though they might have a common
Fatherland, and an almost pure Hindu blood and parentage with us, cannot be recognized
as Hindus; as since their adoption of the new cult they had ceased to own Hindu
civilization (Sanskriti) as a whole. They belong, or feel that they belong, to a cultural unit
altogether different from the Hindu one. Their heroes and their hero-worship, their fairs
and their festivals, their ideals and their outlook on life, have now ceased to be common
with ours. Thus the presence of this third essential of Hindutva which requires of every
Hindu uncommon and loving attachment to his racial Sanskriti enables us most perfectly
to determine the nature of Hindutva without any danger of using over lapping or
exclusive attributes.
But take the case of a patriotic Bohra or a Khoja countryman of ours. He loves our
land of Hindusthan as his Fatherland which indisputably is the land of his forefathers. He
possesses—in certain cases they do— pure Hindu blood; especially if he is the first
convert to Mohammedanism he must be allowed to claim to inherit the blood of Hindu
parents. He is an intelligent and reasonable man, loves our history and our heroes; in fact
the Bohras and the Khojas as a community, worship as heroes our great ten Avatars only
adding Mohammad as the eleventh. He is actually, along with his community subject to
the Hindu law—the law of his forefathers. He is, so far as the three essentials of nation
( Rashtra), race (Jati) and civilization ( Sanskriti) are concerned, a Hindu. He may differ
as regards a few festivals or may add a few more heroes to the pantheon of his supermen
or demigods. But we have repeatedly said that difference in details here or emphasis there,
does not throw us outside the pale of Hindu Sanskriti. The sub-communities amongst the
Hindus observe many a custom, not only contradictory but even, conflicting with the
customs of other Hindu communities. Yet both of them are Hindus. So also in the above
cases of patriotic Bohra or a Christian or a Khoja, who could satisfy the required
qualifications of Hindutva to such a degree as that, why should he not be recognized as a
Hindu ?
' Who is a Hindu' ? is rightly answered determining the essentials of Hindutva ; and as it is only with these essentials of Hindutva, which enable us to know who is a Hindu, that this our present enquiry is
concerned, the discussion of Hinduism falls necessarily outside of our scope.
All this bitterness is mostly due to the wrong use of the word, Hinduism, to denote the religion of the majority only. Either the word should be restored to its proper significance to denote the religions of all Hindus or if you fail to do that it should be dropped altogether.
Therefore the Vaidik or the Sanatan Dharma itself is merely a sect of Hinduism or Hindu Dharma, however overwhelming be the majority that contributes to its tenets. It was a definition of this Sanatan Dharma which the late Lokamanya Tilak framed in the famous verse.
Belief in the Vedas, many means, no strict rule for worship-these are the features of the Hindu religion.
Hindu Dharma of all shades and schools, lives and grows and has its being in the
atmosphere of Hindu culture, and the Dharma of a Hindu being so completely identified
with the land of the Hindus, this land to him is not only a Pitribhu but a Punyabhu, not
only a fatherland but a holyland.
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 Hindusthan to them is Fatherland as to any other Hindu yet it is not to them a Holyland too. Their holyland is far off in Arabia or Palestine.
The only geographical limits of Hindutva are the limits of our earth!
We have tried already to draw a clear line of demarcation between the two conceptions and protested
against the wrong use of the word Hinduism to denote the Sanatan Dharma alone.
Strengthen them if you can: pull down the barriers that have survived their utility, of castes and customs, of sects and sections: What of interdining?—but intermarriages between provinces and provinces, castes and castes, be encouraged where they do not exist. But where they already exist as between the Sikhs and Sanatanies, Jains and Vaishnayas, Lingayats and Non-Lingayats-suicideal be the hand that tries to cut the nuptial tie. Let the minorities remember they would be cutting the very branch on which they stand. Strenghten every tie that binds you to the main organism, whether of blood or language or common Motherland. Let this ancient and noble stream of Hindu blood flow from vein to vien, from Attock to Cuttack till at last the Hindu people get fused and welded into an indivisible whole, till our race gets consolidated and strong sharp as steel.
We are trying our best, as we ought to do, to develop the consciousness of and a sense of attachment to the greater whole, whereby Hindus, Mohammedans, Parsis Christians, and Jews would feel as
Indians first and every other thing afterwards.
Oh brothers, 'the limits of the Universe — there the frontiers of my country lie ?
Rigvedic Rivers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigvedic_rivers
Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat - Who Is Hindu? - Anybody who says I am Hindu - Hindi Speech
http://guide-india.blogspot.com/2017/07/sarsanghchalak-mohan-bhagwat.htmlHindutva (Hinduness) is a word coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 pamphlet entitled "Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?". It advocates Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavadis. According to a 1995 Supreme Court of India judgement the word Hindutva could be used to mean "the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos".
(Download the book from http://savarkar.org/en/encyc/2017/5/28/downloaden.html )
The Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva. The sangh parivar comprises organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Akhla Bharatiya Vidhyardhi Parishad, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and many more..
Hindutva
by M.G. Chitkara
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=zqkBNr4U7cwC
Hindutva, Ideology, and Politics
A. A. Parvathy
Deep and Deep Publications, 01-Jan-2003 - 322 pages
Google Book Link - http://books.google.co.in/books?id=RpaEt8npT0sC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
Against Hindutva
Hindutva is an ideology for those whose Hinduism has worn off. Hindutva is built on the tenets of re-formed Hinduism of the nineteenth century. (Reformed according to make it well-bounded, monolithic, well-organized, masculine, and capable of sustaining the ideology of an imperial state.)
Pragmatism demands that the culture must adjust to the modern world by giving up its essence to become a part of global mass culture. (Essence it to be given up?)
Maybe, post-Gandhian Hinduism will have to take advantage of the democratic process to help Hindutva to die a slightly unnatural death. (Is there post-Gandhian Hinduism?)
Hinduism Versus Hindutva
The Inevitability Of A Confrontation
Times of India, February 18, 1991.
By ASHIS NANDY
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Socissues/hindutva.html
Recent Articles
2017
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/hinduism-versus-hindutva/story-SYB9a5bwKPqBJxbM4fPg2O.html
Hindutva is ugly, Hinduism is beautiful. Don't let the bigot fool you
http://www.dailyo.in/politics/hindutva-enemy-religious-bigotry-india-right-left-liberals-masjid-romeos-cows/story/1/17540.html
Is Hinduism the same as Hindutva?
Keep calm (about Hinduism) and ask Devdutt.
http://www.dailyo.in/lifestyle/hindutva-vs-hinduism-religion-sangh-india/story/1/16427.html
2016
Hindutva as ‘way of life’ challenged. Three persons approached Supreme Court to reverse its judgement that said Hindutva is a way of life.
Hindutva is not religion. It is not interpreting any ancient text in any one particular way.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Hindutva-as-%E2%80%98way-of-life%E2%80%99-challenged/article16077113.ece
Updated 6.9.2023, 27 September 2017, 29 July 2017
