What Is Hindutva

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


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 What Is Real Hindutva

The great Hindu heritage is based not on one book, preceptor, or dogma. The Hindu heritage and culture flow from the great Vedic teachings: ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti ,Truth is One, Sages Call it by Many Names, and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam -- The Whole Universe is one Family. That is why the Hindu society has a proud and indubitable history of tolerance for other religions and their spiritual beliefs. So we find that Hindus gave refuge to many people fleeing from kinds of persecution, - Jews, Zoroastrians, Tibetan Buddhists etc.

The universal inclusion, so characteristic of the Hindus made the society so vibrant and unassailable that the successive invaders beginning with the Islamists who were the damned bloodiest in history failed to destroy  Hinduism or even contain it.

But despite such barbarism meted out to them by the hordes of Islamic invaders from Central Asia and Turkey, Hindus never paid them back in the same coin. They refused to adopt the barbarian rules by which the Islamists played. No Hindu ever tried to match the level of cruelty of even a moderate Muslim ruler.. Hindus sustained their tolerance and the adaptability to change, to evolve through all adversities.

However, the Muslim society’s inherent unwillingness to change, to adapt, abetted by the Islamic clergy never realized or considered the debt they owed to Hindus for their tolerance and lack of vengeance. Instead Hindus  were forced to divide the country and partition it, - a country that had millennia of common culture. In spite of that, "Hindu majority India continued the Hindu ideals by remaining secular.  India even gave the Muslim minority gifts such as separate personal laws, special status to the only Muslim majority state, Kashmir, and also other rights that are even unheard of." elsewhere. It is these characteristics of Hindu society and the still un-evolved Muslim psyche that remain today.

The self-appointed guardians of India, the Congress, called themselves secularists to play vote bank politics. They  feigned ignorance of the fact that it was the Hindu psyche that believed in secularism that prompted to declare India as secular  In the guise of vote-bank secularism Hindu traditions and customs were ridiculed and mocked at.as archaic and regressive to be changed to achieve modernity. They ignored the fact that  it was the Hindu thought that had inspired some of the greatest intellectuals of the world and that it was Hindus, who were the most nationalistic people in India.

The pseudo-secularism sought to relegate the majority in to mere spectators and bystanders in the game of politics. The majority then had no other go but to demand true secularism "where every religious group would be treated the same and a government that would not take Hindu sentiments for granted". .Thus Hindutva, homogeneous in history, culture and ethos, awakened to a new consciousness of a new national order leading to a new world order wherein India  had great contributions to make and will play a dominant role.

"Hindutva will not mean any Hindu theocracy or theology. However, it will mean that the guiding principles of Bharat will come from two of the great teachings of the Vedas, the ancient Hindu and Indian scriptures, which so boldly proclaimed -truth is one, sages call it by many names - and - the whole universe is one family..

The Caste Vanity

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The Caste Vanity.

As celebrations of caste vanity and their equal resistance by opponents take central stage the so called intellectuals and thinkers should calmly ponder over whether their concern for humanity should be limited along sectarian lines.

There is nothing wrong with caste system if it is viewed as segregation of society in  line with the profession of particular sections of people who are traditionally engaged in,  and without any attribute of hierarchical gradation of inter- say superiority or inferiority of sections, as it was originally formed. In that case , people of a caste section can take genuine pride in themselves with a sense of belonging together as a homogeneous group traditionally practicing one profession.

But carrying such pride to the nefarious extent of attributing superiority or inferiority between the caste at once makes the castes antagonistic to each other. But that is precisely what happened to the Varna or caste system in later stages to which the Brahmanical hegemony was responsible to a large extent. This led to oppression of the castes, the brunt of which was born by what was regarded as the lowest.
Such a corruption set in the Varna system made those who were branded as the lowest turn their sense of belonging together in to one also of  antagonism towards their oppressors.

We see that this situation developed to  its worst during the British rule because the Britishers saw internecine caste hostility   as an instrument for their divide and rule strategy and did everything to augment it. The classical instance of one such act was the erection of an obelisk at Koregaon village in Maharashtra to commemorate the success of a small British- Indian regiment consisting a majority of Mahar caste in resisting a much larger contingent of Maratha Peshwa army for a night till dawn, when the Marathas themselves withdrew in anticipation of imminent arrival of a bigger British reinforcement, during Bhima Koregaon battle of 1818. Britishers encouraged Marvas to view the memorial as one for celebrating their victory over their oppressors, Peshwas, whose army comprised of Brahmans (among others, including Arabs). The class war victory of the oppressed over the oppressors!

Consistent with the intense caste antagonism of the times, the Marvas were inveigled easily in to celebrating the event annually at Koregaon, a practice performed recently too which led to eruption of  Maratha-Mahar confrontation which took center stage in the political controversies. A section of the so called human rightists who have their political agenda  and the Opposition jumped in to the fray taking the side of the Marvas  to make instant political capital out of the incident blowing up the flames.  If British with their divide and rule mantra have gone with the wind ,there are now these neo-liberals cohorting with the paranoiac Opposition to chant the mantra at the slightest opportunity in their strategy of polarizing the people and derive political mileage!