Background
The rise of Hindutva may prove to be the most important
phenomenon of the 21st century. It is therefore of great
importance to understand its meaning and implication.
India is unique as a civilization that embodies spiritual
values reflecting its overriding concern for Dharma— or justice and righteous
code of conduct. Of late, some politicians and intellectuals are holding up
something they call ‘secularism’ as the foundation of the Indian nation. But
secularism is a negative concept. All it originally meant is the negation of
any role for organized religion, particularly intolerant and exclusivist
religious beliefs, in the government. The same people deny also any role for
India’s spiritual tradition (Sanatana Dharma) in national life. This is a
deeply flawed vision, for secularism can never define a nation. United States,
France and Germany are secular in the true sense of the word: their Governments
are independent of religion. But that alone has not made them a single nation.
What defines a nation is shared history and tradition. In the case of India,
this role is played by the Hindu Civilization founded on Sanatana Dharma.
Hindutva is its present-day ideological offshoot.
The term Hindutva was coined by Veer Savarkar— a man who
suffered more for the country than almost any other leader. Many scholars,
including Savarkar have tried to define Hindutva, but none so far is entirely
satisfactory. This is because they begin with some assumptions about Hinduism
and the land or the territory where it has historically flourished. This
territory can of course change. A thousand years ago, Hinduism was flourishing
in Afghanistan but not today. In contrast, it has now extended its reach into
parts of America, which was not the case a hundred or even fifty years ago.
At the same time Hinduism is increasing in importance
both nationally and internationally, with the ideology known as Hindutva
gaining ground in India and abroad. There will soon be a time when
Hindutva will define India as a nation, just as democracy defines the United
States. It is therefore of great importance for everyone to have a
clear idea of what Hindutva really stands for. For this, we must first
understand what Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma stands for. This can be difficult
because Hinduism embodies a state of mind and a way of looking at the world and
not just beliefs and rules prescribed in a book as in the case of Western
religions. The problem is compounded by the fact that for several centuries,
Hinduism has been described by forces basically hostile to its spiritual
aspirations and the civilization it has given rise to. The same is true of
Hindutva. As I next describe, Hindutva is not tied to any sect or religious group—
though it draws its inspiration from India’s ancient heritage.
What is Hinduism
or Sanatana Dharma?
First we need to understand Hinduism, more
properly called ‘Sanatana Dharma’. It is not a creed like Christianity or
Islam, but a code of conduct and a value system that has spiritual freedom as
its core.Any pathway or spiritual vision that accepts the spiritual freedom
of others may be considered part of Sanatana Dharma. Let us try to
understand the essentials of this value system and the associated vision that
form the core of Sanatana Dharma or Hinduism.This is the foundation of
Hindutva.
First and foremost, Sanatana Dharma is anadi (without
beginning) and also a-paurusheya (without a human founder). It is
defined by the quest for cosmic truth, just as the quest for physical truth
defines science. Its earliest record is the Rigveda, which is the
record of ancient sages who by whatever means tried to learn the truth about
the universe, in relations to Man’s place in relation to the cosmos. They saw
nature — including all living and non-living things — as part of the same
cosmic equation, and as pervaded by a higher consciousness. This search
has no historical beginning; nor does it have a historical founder. This
is not to say that the Rigveda always existed as a literary
work. It means that we cannot point to a particular time or person in history
and say: ‘Before this man spoke, what is in the Rigveda did not
exist.’ On the other hand, we can say this about
Christianity and Islam, because they are historical religions.
Sanatana Dharma is also a-paurusheya, which
means it did not originate in any man (purusha). That is to say it has
no historical founder like Christianity has Jesus and Islam has Prophet
Muhammad. We can say that Jesus is the purusha of Christianity
while Muhammad is the purusha of Islam. These religions have
no existence without their founders.
Christianity and Islam are therefore paurusheya.Hinduism
has no such purusha on whose authority it rests. Hinduism
is a-paurusheya also in a deeper sense, which brings it close
to science, bringing its spiritual quest close to the scientific method. In paurusheya religions,
the word of the purusha (the founder) must be accepted without
question, and that no one else can achieve what he did. This gives rise to an
enforcing authority known as the clergy to ensure that no one strays from the
‘true path’ as shown by the founder, but in reality as enforced by the human
representative who claims to be the true spokesman of the purusha. This
naturally leads to men exercising power in the name of God. In this scheme, the
medium invariably becomes more important than God and truth.
Hinduism on the other hand acknowledges no such
authority. If any work is considered great, it is because of the message and
not the messenger. Similarly, a teacher is considered great because of the
greatness of the teaching. For example, Vishwamitra is considered a great sage
because of the greatness of the Gayatri Mantra, which he
enunciated. If someone else than Vishwamitra had given us the Gayatri
Mantra, it would still be considered great because of its message. It
is the same with Krishna and the Gita. It is the message of
the Gita that has led to people revering Krishna as a great
teacher. Also, a Hindu is free to question or reject any part or all of a
religious work. The teaching must stand or fall on its own merit. This is what
makes it a-paurusheya. Cosmic truths existed before the
arrival of Vishwamitra and Krishna. These sages, who first expressed them, were
historical persons but the truth of their message is eternal and always
existed.
This feature— of focusing on the message and its truth
rather than the authority of the messenger brings Sanatana Dharma close to
science and the scientific method. In science also, a principle or a theory
must stand or fall on its own merit and not on the authority of anyone. If
Newton and Einstein are considered great scientists, it is because of the power
and validity of their scientific theories. In that sense, science is also a-paurusheya. Gravitation
and Relativity are eternal laws of nature that existed long before Newton and
Einstein. These are cosmic laws that happened to be discovered by scientific
sages Newton and Einstein. Their greatness as sages lies in the fact that they
discovered and revealed great scientific truths. But no one invokes Newton or
Einstein as authority to ‘prove’ the truth of laws of nature. They stand on
their own merit. The same is true of the Gita and the Gayatri
Mantra.
In addition to these, Hinduism recognizes the freedom of
the individual. It recognizes no prophet’s claim as the possessor of the ‘only’
truth or the ‘only’ way. This is probably the greatest difference between
Sanatana Dharma and revealed religions. I can illustrate this with the help of
a recent proclamation by the Vatican. In a just released document titled ‘Declaration
of Lord Jesus‘ the Vatican proclaims non-Christians to be in a ‘gravely
deficient situation’ and that even non-Catholic churches have ‘defects‘
because they do not acknowledge the primacy of the Pope. This of course means
that the Vatican refuses to acknowledge the spiritual right (and freedom) of
non-Catholics. This consigns non-Christians to hell, and the only way they can
save themselves is by becoming Christians, preferably Catholics, by submitting to
the Pope.
It is worth noting that this statement has nothing to do with
God, or even noble conduct. A Hindu who lives a life of virtue is still
consigned to hell because he refuses to acknowledge Jesus as the only savior
and the Pope as his representative on earth. A believer is one who accepts the
intermediary as the savior. God is irrelevant. He is even dispensable, but not
the intermediary. Hinduism recognizes no intermediary as the exclusive
messenger of God. In fact the Rigveda itself
says: ‘ekam sat, vipra bahuda vadanti,’ meaning ‘universal
truth is one, but the wise express it in many ways.‘
From this it is also clear why revealed religions always
claim to be monotheistic: One God allows only One Intermediary. So every
monotheistic religion also tends to be monopolistic. It also requires a thought
police to enforce this belief system, just as every earthly dictator does. So
they invariably become theocratic political systems. In contrast, in Hinduism,
God is internal to the seeker. As a result each seeker has his or his own
version of God. Different traditions like Dvaita, Advaita and others represent
different pathways. They exercise no authority and there is no clergy to
enforce belief.
This spirit of freedom is the foundation of Hindutva.
Where the twentieth century was dominated by the materialist ideology of Communism,
this century will see Hindutva founded on spirituality on the rise. Its rise
will accompany the ecological catastrophe that is likely to overtake our
planet. Ecology is not my concern in this essay, important though it is, and a
topic to which Hinduism attaches great importance. In politics, Hindutva is the
application of this principle of spiritual freedom to national life.
Hinduism and spiritual
freedom
India is the land where Sanatana Dharma took root and
flourished. So whatever her present condition, the rise of Hindutva in India
will have a major impact on the history and politics of this century. It is
therefore of fundamental importance to understand it role in the growth of the
Indian nation. It is a uniquely spiritual ideology founded on spiritual
freedom. In the light of this, ‘conversion’ to Hinduism entails accepting a way
of looking at the world and not simply changing faith and adopting a new mode
of worship. Above all it means acknowledging spiritual freedom and
rejecting exclusivism.
It is like accepting the scientific method, which also is
a way of looking at the world. But ultimately, every Hindu must place truth and
knowledge above faith. There is no dogma. This is why people who are initiated
into Hinduism are made to recite the Gayatri Mantra, which is an assertion of
this spirit of intellectual freedom. The only enemies of Sanatana
Dharma (Hinduism) are those that oppose spiritual freedom. Protecting
and nurturing Sanatana Dharma and the society founded on it is the
responsibility of Hindutva. Rights like spiritual freedom come with
responsibility.
India’s unity is of
untold antiquity
After a long and dark period in its history, Hinduism is
again on the rise. This is true in the national as well as the spiritual sense,
for India cannot exist without its spiritual foundation. There are many Western
scholars as well as Western educated Indians who hold that India was never a
nation but only a collection of clans and groups in a geographical
‘subcontinent’. They further claim that Indians were united as a people for
first time by the British. This has two fallacies. First, the British did not
rule over a united India. Their authority extended over roughly two-thirds of
India while the remaining portion was ruled by hereditary rulers — like the
Maharajas and Nawabs — who acknowledged the British monarch as their chief but
ruled according to their own laws and tradition. This means it is not
India per se, but British India that was not a nation, but a patchwork or
states. Second, although often politically divided, the goal was
always to unite all of India under a single rule.
In spite of this history, it was claimed by the British,
and faithfully repeated by the Leftist intellectuals, that the British unified
India. This is completely false. The unity of India, rooted in her
ancient culture, is of untold antiquity. It may have been divided at various
times into smaller kingdoms, but the goal was always to be united under a
‘Chakravartin’ or a ‘Samrat’. There was always a cultural unity even when it
was politically divided. This cultural unity was seriously damaged during the
Medieval period, when India was engaged in a struggle for survival — like what
is happening in Kashmir today. Going back thousands of years, India had been
united under a single ruler many times. The earliest recorded emperor of India
was Bharata, the son of Shakuntala and Dushyanta, but there were several
others. I give below some examples from the Aitareya Brahmana.
‘With this great anointing of Indra,
Dirghatamas Mamateya anointed Bharata Daushanti. Therefore,
Bharata Daushanti went round the earth completely, conquering on every side and
offered the horse in sacrifice.’
‘With
this great anointing of Indra, Tura Kavasheya anointed JanamejayaParikshita.
Therefore JanamejayaParikshita went round the earth completely, conquering on
every side and offered the horse in sacrifice.’
There
are similar statements about Sudasa Paijavana anointed by Vasistha, Anga
anointed by Udamaya Atreya, Durmukha Pancala anointed by Brihadukta and
Atyarati Janampati anointed by Vasistha Satyahavya. Atyarati, though not born a
king, became an emperor and went on to conquer even the Uttara Kuru or the
modern Sinkiang and Turkestan that lie north of Kashmir. There are others also
mentioned in the Shatapatha
Brahmana and also the Mahabharata. This
shows that the unity of India is an ancient concept.
As
previously noted, the British did not rule over a unified India. Far from it,
for their goal was divide and rule. They
had treaties with the rulers of hereditary kingdoms like Mysore, Kashmir,
Hyderabad and others that were more or less independent. The person who united
all these was Sardar Patel, not the British. But this unification was possible
only because India is culturally one. Pakistan, with no such identity or
cultural unity, is falling apart.
The
spiritual tradition of Sanatana Dharma, which we call Hinduism, includes the
code of Raja Dharma and Kshatra Dharma needed
to defend the nation. This is also part of Hindutva. This is needed to defend
society against hostile forces seeking to destroy society, especially its
spiritual foundation. This is what happened during the medieval period when
Islamic warriors tried to uproot Hinduism from its soil. But thanks to the
heroism of both rulers and the common people, Hindutva defeated these forces
and saved Sanatana Dharma. It is now being called upon to defend again in the
face of cries of Jihad by fanatics across the border and intellectuals and
politicians hostile to the concept of nationalism. It is therefore of paramount
importance to understand what the role of Hindutva is in defending the country.
This is what we need to look at next.
Kshatra Dharma is
everyone’s duty
While
Hinduism (or Sanatana Dharma) provides and nourishes spiritual freedom, there
are always hostile forces at work that want to destroy this freedom and turn
humans into intellectual and spiritual slaves. So it is always necessary to
have the tools — both physical and intellectual — to protect this freedom. This
part of Sanatana Dharma is called kshatra dharma. Those
engaged in the defense of Sanatana Dharma are called kshatriyas. Politics,
like warfare calls for the kshatriya spirit— to protect the
weak and uphold values like freedom.
A kshatriya does
not always fight with weapons. The intellect is as important as the sword and
the gun. As Sri Aurobindo put it:
‘We
should be absolutely unsparing in our attack on whatever obstructs the growth
of the nation, and never be afraid to call a spade a spade. Excessive good
nature will never do… in serious politics. Respect of persons must give way to
truth and conscience… What India needs especially at this moment is aggressive
virtues, the spirit of soaring idealism, bold creation, fearless resistance,
courageous attack; of the passive tamasic inertia we already have too
much.‘
His
words still hold today. It was this ‘tamasic inertia’ as Sri
Aurobindo called it that gave rise to endless appeasement of evil in the name
of ahimsa— or nonviolence. (In Sanskrit, ‘tamas’ means
darkness or ignorance.) Evil must always be resisted, not appeased. Intellectually,
this calls for taking and defending unpopular positions. A kshatriya must
do it.
Without
this kshatriya spirit, a noble ideal like Sanatana Dharma becomes an orphan.
This is what happened in India a thousand years ago. Excessive wealth and attachment
to pleasure sapped its strength. Soldiers were willing to lay down their lives
in defending the land, but intellectuals failed to analyze the new destructive
ideology that came in the guise of religion. As Allaudin Khalji’s general Malik
Kafur ravaged South India, our acharyas sat in the seclusion
of their monasteries and wrote commentaries upon abstruse commentaries. There
were noble exceptions. Sayana, the greatest Vedic scholar of the age, and his
brother the great Vidyaranya helped Harihara and Bukka found the empire of
Vijayangara. They too were Kshatriyas but fighting without weapons. They used
their mind as weapons— like Krishna in the Mahabharata War.
Physical
and intellectual weapons are both necessary. As Sri Aurobindo wrote:
‘The
sword of the warrior is as necessary to the fulfillment of justice and
righteousness as the holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete without
Shivaji. To maintain justice and to prevent the strong from despoiling, and the
weak from being oppressed is the function for which the Kshatriya was created.
Therefore, says Krishna in the Mahabharata, God created battle and
armour, the sword, the bow and the dagger.’
Resisting
evil does not simply mean fighting invaders and other foreign enemies. There
are internal evils also — lack of education, discrimination on the basis of
caste, untouchability, rampant corruption — that should also be seen as enemies
to freedom that must be destroyed. This is the case in India today. At the same
time, in a time of national crisis, everyone has to become a kshatriya of
one kind or another. Scientists have to work on new weapons to defeat the
enemy. Similarly, businesses and workers must create whatever is necessary to
defend the nation. Everyone must contribute to the defense of society, and not
just depend on the ruling class and the professional soldier.
This
is what people had to do during the medieval period when Hindu society was
struggling for survival against the onslaught of Islam. In fact, many of what
we call backward and scheduled castes and tribes were created out of the
fighting classes when they were dispossessed by the invading armies. As the
renowned medieval historian K.S. Lal has written:
‘The
Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, Dalits and Other Backward Castes are
there in large numbers in present-day India. Many backward classes were there
from pre-historic or very ancient times, but many more were added in the
medieval period spanning over a thousand years… As we put the record straight,
we find that the small and scattered class of trained and traditional warriors,
mostly Rajputs, stood exhausted by the time of the Mughal invasion, having
fought the earlier invaders at every step for well nigh eight centuries — from
the middle of the seventh to the end of the fifteenth.
The
leadership of Hindu resistance to Muslim rule thereafter was provided by what
are termed the Backwards Castes and the Dalits in present-day India. These
classes had fought earlier under the leadership of Rajput Rajas and Zamindars.
Now onwards they took up the leadership on themselves, and battled with the
Moghul regime till the latter stood shattered by the middle of the eighteenth
century. It is a different story that in the process the Backward Castes and
the Dalits suffered grievously and found themselves in bad shape by the time
the Islamic nightmare was over.’
This
shows that the people we call Dalits— the Scheduled castes and tribes have made
a major contribution to defending India and Sanatana Dharma. It is no accident
that many such tribal clans still carry names lake ‘Nayaka’, ‘Raja’ and ‘Dorai’
that bear testimony to their previous station as warriors and defenders of the
land. (History books should bring out and highlight this forgotten chapter in
history.) This was so even in ancient times. In times of crisis and oppression,
it was the duty of everyone, regardless of position to fight to uproot evil and
defend society. This is the reason that the sage Parashurama became a warrior
to end the tyranny of the Haihaya king Kartaviryarjuna.
Hindutva leads to
spiritual nationalism
Hindutva
therefore is an outgrowth of Sanatana Dharma as well as an essential part of
it. Its main goal is to serve, defend and nurture Sanatana Dharma. It is not an
aggressive or imperialistic ideology. It seeks to destroy no one except those
that want to destroy spiritual freedom, i.e., enemies of Sanatana Dharma. It is
no accident that the Hindus have never sent armies of missionaries to convert
others. It is important to note that ‘dharma’ does not mean religion or creed
or sect, but a way of life, a code and a body of knowledge. Sanatana Dharma is
this body of knowledge acquired through the ages by sages, rulers and the
common people.
And
for India to rise again and find its place in the world, it must rediscover the
message of its ancient sages. When Sanatana Dharma was going through a crisis
like the present one, and leaders had lost their nerve, in the Bhagavadgita Sri
Krishna gave the message to Arjuna:
‘I
taught this timeless Yoga to Vivasvan, who taught it to Manu. Manu bequeathed
it to Ikshvaku. This ancient wisdom transmitted through generations of royal
sages became lost in the tides of time. I have taught you, my best disciple,
this best and most mystical knowledge.’
Observe
the importance Krishna attaches to the ‘royal sages’ or members of the ruling
class. This wisdom became lost again in the darkness of the medieval age when
India and her civilization were struggling for survival. Then other sages arose
— from Vidyaranya and Ramdas to Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo — to lead
India out of the darkness. All were sages, but they were also kshatriyas in the
intellectual field. They fought hostile forces — both soldiers and
propagandists like missionaries — with uncompromising force of the spirit and
intellect. To inspire this struggle, Sri Aurobindo defined Indian nationalism
in spiritual terms. He expressed it in public in his famous Uttarapara speech:
‘It
is this dharma that I am raising up before the world, it is this that I have
perfected and developed through the Rishis, saints and Avatars, and is now
going forth to do my work among the nations… When therefore it is said that
India shall rise, it is Sanatana Dharma that shall rise. When it is said that
India shall be great, it is Sanatana Dharma that shall be great. When it is
said that India shall expand and extend itself, it is Sanatana Dharma that
shall expand and extend itself all over the world. It is for the Dharma and by
the Dharma that India exists… I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a
religion, a faith; I say that it is the Sanatana Dharma which for us is
the nationalism.’
So
the message is clear. India and Sanatana Dharma exist for each other. Sanatana
Dharma is Indian nationalism and Indian nationalism is Sanatana Dharma.
Hindutva is the practical and political manifestation of Sanatana Dharma. It exists
to defend Sanatana Dharma, while threatening no one. This was the India that
Sri Aurobindo and many other sages dreamed about. It should also the dream and
goal of every nationalist and leader, and everyone who holds spiritual freedom
dear— regardless of race, creed or national origin.
