As it is, there are two antagonistic nations living side by side in India, several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supposing that India is already welded into a harmonious nation, or that it could be welded thus for the mere wish to do so. These were well meaning but unthinking friends who take their dreams for realities… Let us bravely face unpleasant facts as they are. India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems, in India.”
No, this is not Jinnah addressing some conference of Muslim League. This is Savarkar delivering presidential address at the 19th session of Hindu Mahasabha at Ahmedabad in 1937.
Geographical India has changed and so has done the idea of India over the years. Nehru, echoing the common sentiments prevailing in fellow freedom fighters, wrote in his Discovery of India that India is like “…some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously.”
This can be referred to as the multicultural and plural idea of India where diversity was celebrated. Diversity – be it in terms of race, religion, culture, or language – must be celebrated. And differences of ideas must be tolerated and respected. Debates are not contrary to tolerance and respect but violence and persecution certainly is. However, all did not cherish this pluralist idea of India.
I am not talking about Jinnah here. With some better and mature politics he could have been accommodated by empathetically addressing his concerns. He was afraid of the Unitarian, majoritarian, authoritarian, sectarian, and fascist idea of India. History may find him guilty of signing up for counter-communalism as a political project but he certainly was not the author of communal idea of India… the honour goes to the likes of Savarkar and Moonje. Savarkar, invoking his criterion of Fatherland and Holyland as bases of nationality, refused to recognise Muslims and Christians as Indians and Moonje had famously articulated, “Just as England belongs to the English, France to the French, and Germany to the Germans, India belongs to the Hindus.” Jinnah (or Chaudhry Rahmat Ali for that matter) was also not the progenitor of the idea of partition… this honour too is reserved for Hindutva ideologue Bhai Parmanand. Even Savarkar forcefully endorsed this idea much before Pakistan Resolution was adopted by Muslim League in 1940 as is clear from the quotation at the commencement of this article.
This Unitarian idea of India is best exemplified in the thoughts of Golwalkar whom we are going to study below. Jaffrelot rightly claims that Golwalkar’s theory of Hindu Rashtra is “more rigid” than Savarkar’s. His idea however is not unique; it is inspired by reinterpretation of Hinduism in colonial India by varied sources like Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), Madan Mohan Malviya (1861-1946), and obviously Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), etc.
INDIA: THE MYTHICAL HINDU NATION
In the footsteps of Savarkar, Golwalkar theorised that Hindutva is more than mere Hinduism. It refers to the singular Indian ideology according to which nation-building in India must take place – a task that remains unaccomplished as the opportunity in 1947 was squandered to a secular, plural and multi-cultural idea of India. Golwalkar aspires for the great glory or param vaibhavam. This can only be achieved through the balance of Hindu life-philosophy.
He has discussed the term ‘Hindu’ at length. For him it is historically inaccurate to say that “the name ‘Hindu’ is of recent origin” or that it was given “by foreigners.” He argues that the name ‘Sapta-Sindhu’ is found in ancient texts like the Rig-Veda “as an epithet applied to our land and our people” and thus “‘Hindu’ is a proud name of our own origin”. Of special significance for him is however the fact that the word ‘Hindu’ has been associated with Hindus for the last thousand years. He says, “Right from the days of Prithviraj, all our great nation-builders, statesmen, poets and historians have taken the name ‘Hindu’ to denote our people and our dharma. The dream of all our valiant freedom fighters like Guru Govind, Vidyaranya and Shivaji had been to establish Hindu Swaraj.”
The patronising tone in which Guru Govind Singh is mentioned among Hindu freedom fighters must be highlighted here. Golwalkar maintained that the term Rashtriya naturally means Hindu. Implying a resounding no in the answer, Golwalkar disdainfully asks, “Is there anything ‘Indian’ other than what is ‘Hindu’?” He emphasises that this concept of India – as a Hindu nation – is not a monopoly of RSS but every true Indian inhibits the feeling. Even the secular ones exhibit it when off guard. Hindusthan is therefore the undisputed “land of Hindus” and the “national life in Bharat” is “Hindu National Life”. He emphasises that an Indian can only be inspired by a “living vision of Hindu Rashtra”.
In his writings, Golwalkar extols the golden past of India as an ideal to contrast with Hindus’ contemporary plight and also as a vision to be realised in future. For him nationally, culturally, and geographically India occupies a central place in the world and Hindus “alone” can discharge the “divine trust” of destiny and fulfil “grand world mission” of human brotherhood. He says that Indian Empire stretched as far as America on the one side (he reminds that this was “long long before Columbus ‘discovered’ America”) and to China, Japan, Cambodia, Malaya, Siam, Indonesia, and Mongolia in the East and Siberia in the North.
To substantiate this claim, Golwalkar furnishes myths as if historical evidence – a trait common to Golwalkar’s writings and speeches and, on the basis of those, paints the glorious picture of the golden past of Ancient India and tells that even the foreigners who visited the land testified that people in India “are happy and contented. There are no destitute, no beggars. The people leave their houses unlocked for years when they go out on pilgrimage, without a trace of fear of theft. There are very few cases of moral aberration; they are all highly virtuous, generous and reliable in their dealings. They are a virile and powerful race, wealthy and wise…” etc. He pointed out that surgery, even complex brain surgery, and plastic surgery existed then. He also takes pride in the fact that zero and decimal system was first used in India.
Nation, for Golwalkar is not a modern concept. He argues that the “word Rashtra, which expresses the whole of the idea contained in the English word ‘Nation,’ is as old as the Vedas”. To him India – the whole undivided India as motherland – is an ancient concept.
WHO IS AN INDIAN?
Golwalkar refers to territorial nationalism as “‘humbug’ type of nationalism” which, to him, “is like attempting to create a novel animal by joining the head of a monkey and the legs of a bullock to the main body of an elephant” that “can only result in a hideous corpse” not a living body. Going further with the analogy, he states, “If at all some activity is seen in that body, it is only of the germs and bacteria breeding in that decomposing corpse. And so it is that we see today the germs of corruption, disintegration and dissipation eating into the vitals of our nation for having given up the natural living nationalism in the pursuit of an unnatural, unscientific and lifeless hybrid-concept of territorial nationalism.” Golwalkar argues that if we stand for Swaraj then we must be definite about what the ‘swa’ (literally we) means. Defining this ‘swa’ is the task that Golwalkar took upon in his We or Our Nationhood Defined.
Golwalkar explains in detail the meaning of nation and concept of nationalism. The gist of the idea is that the word Nation is a compound of five distinct factors fused into one indissoluble whole. This he refers to as the five unities: i.e. Geographical (Country), Racial (Race), Religious (Religion), Cultural (Culture) and Linguistic (Language). Undoubtedly, for him, ‘we’ signifies Hindus who have been in “undisputed and undisturbed possession” of India for 8-10 thousand years before the land was invaded by any foreign race. Golwalkar says, “the very first page of history records our existence as a progressive and highly civilized nation – the only nation in the then world, in this land, which, therefore, came to be known as Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus.” Thus according to him,
…in this country, Hindusthan, the Hindu Race with its Hindu Religion, Hindu Culture and Hindu Language, (the natural family of Sanskrit and her off-springs) complete the Nation concept: that, in fine, in Hindusthan exists and must needs exist the ancient Hindu nation and nought else but the Hindu Nation. All those not belonging to the national i.e. Hindu Race, Religion, Culture and Language, naturally fall out of the pale of real ‘National’ life.
Hansen writes that Golwalkar had “tried to prove in quasi-scientific language that Hindus constituted the racial, religious, and linguistic backbone of Bharat.” For example, Golwalkar painstakingly refutes the Aryan Invasion theory. He refers to pseudo-science and draws to farfetched arguments in order to prove Hindus autochthonous. He agrees with Tilak about the Arctic origin of the Aryans but says that “in ancient times, the North Pole and with it the Arctic Zone was not where it is today.” Citing a lecture of Professor of Botany, he asserts that “the North Pole is not stationary and quite long ago it was in that part of the world, which, we find, is called Bihar and Orissa at the present; that then it moved northeast and then by a sometimes westerly, sometimes northward movement, it came to its present position.” Thus, Hindus did not leave the Arctic Zone but the Arctic Zone “left us and moved away northwards” or “emigrated and left the Hindus in Hindusthan.” To him, “Hindus came into this land from nowhere, but are indigenous children of the soil always, from times immemorial and are natural masters of the country.” Golwalkar elucidates that nationhood in the light of this scientific concept in the following manner:
“Here is our vast country, Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus, their home country, hereditary territory, a definite geographical unity, delimited naturally by the sublime Himalayas on the North and the limitless ocean on the other three sides, an ideal piece of land, deserving in every respect to be called a Country, fulfilling all that the word should imply in the Nation idea…. Guided by this Religion in all walks of life, individual, social, political, the Race evolved a Culture, which despite the degenerating contact with the debased “civilizations” of the Mussalmans and the Europeans, for the last ten centuries, is still the noblest in the world.”
THE IDEAL VISION
Golwalkar also cherishes some vague global vision, but this global vision can only be realised through setting the national house in order. “Without the firm base of nationalism,” Golwalkar elaborates, “to speak of humanity and internationalism would be losing at both ends. In short, despite all humanity jargon, he believes in inherent superiority of India as a culture, geography as well as race. India, for him, is a “living manifestation of divine.” In essence the ultimate vision of Golwalkar is “a perfectly organised state of our society wherein each individual has been moulded into a model of ideal Hindu manhood and made into a living limb of the corporate personality of society.” Golwalkar declares that “Our one supreme goal is to bring to life the all-round glory and greatness of our Hindu Rashtra.”
Golwalkar also intervened on various day-to-day affairs of Indian polity. These interventions give a glimpse of the India he aspired for. For example, he is highly critical of democracy and its adoption by India as a system of governance. He puts forth a few cogent arguments like he says that if people are not enlightened, as is the case in India, then “uneducated and ignorant can easily be swayed by the baser appeals of selfishness, parochial interests and vulgar inducements.” The representatives chosen through such a system are not people of good worth. In Golwalkar’s parlance, “The only qualification to get elected will be one’s skill and capacity to manipulate votes and win the elections. The coming up of the new class of politicians,” Golwalkar says, “is because of this defective system.”
One quick solution that Golwalkar proposes is besides territorial, functional representation i.e. representatives elected from various professions and vocations. He says that democracy is a Western construct which is not suitable for India. He deeply distrusted the masses. A manifestation of this distrust is his assertion that a common source of all our problems is “low level of the average man.”Golwalkar laments the clamour for ‘rights’ in our national life and envisioning an idealistic Hindu society where there is no “climate of assertion of ego-centric rights.” Through an assimilation of our cultural vision, Golwalkar argues, true spirit of cooperation and consciousness of duty can be revived in our national life. In brief, he rejected secularism, democracy, individual rights and civil liberties.
The Hindu Rashtra, he writes, should be justly governed by a group of people who are selfless and self-sacrificing. Not only does this apparently naïve view hide a fascistic vision but it also invokes the age-old varnashram (four caste) system wherein the rulers were Brahmins, mythically thought to be poor but all knowing, and they ruled over the warriors and the traders, and of course the whole labouring classes.
Golwalkar despised the federal structure of India. He argued for a unitary state and argues that country’s constitution needs to be overhauled. The federal structure – Golwalkar especially notes the smaller states in North Eastern India – is harmful for the unity and integrity of the nation. For Golwalkar there is a need, “…to sweep away the existence of all ‘autonomous’ or semi-autonomous ‘states’ within the one State viz., Bharat and proclaim ‘One Country, One State, One Legislature, One Executive’ with no trace of fragmentational, regional, sectarian, linguistic or other types of pride being given a scope for playing havoc with our integrated harmony.”
Golwalkar was not happy with the tricolour national flag of India. To him choice of the tricolour was a case of “drifting and imitating” and “a politician’s patchwork” based on political expediency. According to Golwalkar, Bhagwa Dhwaj should have been the State Flag inspired by national vision, national history and heritage reflecting our glorious past. Same was the case with the Constitution of India which, according to Golwalkar “is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various Constitutions of Western countries. “Some lame principles form the United Nations Charter or from the Charter of the now defunct League of Nations and some features from the American and British Constitutions have been just brought together in a mere hotchpotch.” It has absolutely nothing, which can be called our own.”
THE CHALLENGES BEFORE HINDU NATION
In India Hindus constitute about 79.8% of the population, then what are the obstacles to realise the vision of RSS? Golwalkar believes that it is due to the fact that Hindus – even the well-meaning and educated – feel shy and not proud of themselves. Moreover, “Hindu society has been broken into so many bits and fragments. The countless divisions of castes, sects, creeds and languages, present a dismal picture of total disintegration.” RSS seems to be the panacea in Golwalkar’s mind. Golwalkar argues that the duty of RSS is to make the disunited and disintegrated Hindu society united, organised and mighty. His cure for reversing the dilapidated situation of Hindus is to give them a high and holy ideal that “naturally resonates in their hearts”. Such ideal, Golwalkar presents, “is the realisation of the glory and greatness of our sacred Hindu Rashtra.”
RSS has invested a great deal in this process. Golwalkar says that the Sangh has “evolved a course of samskars wherein the mind, intellect and body of an individual are trained so as to make him a living limb of the great corporate body of society.” To inculcate this spirit of “self-immolation” of the individuality for the collective is the primary agenda of the daily training at Shakha. In the Shakha, Golwalkar emphasises, people “learn to obey a single command”. It is precisely for this reason that Chetan Bhatt regards RSS as the result of a “vanguardist imagination”.
Golwalkar is wary of internal divisions of the Hindu society creating frictions within and highlights the need to “revive that pure spirit of oneness born out of the realisation that we are all children of this great and sacred motherland Bharat Mata.” Disregarding every consideration of caste, sect, language, province or party, Golwalkar emphasises, the Hindu society should be “the single point of devotion”. Bhatt regards Golwalkar’s vision as a “vision of similitude”, for him, the “idealised vision” of Hindu nation as “an organic, disciplined, integrated, ordered social formation” based on the “consolidation of a strong, collective Hindu majoritarianism.”
To realise the vision of India Golwalkar upholds, it is necessary to deal with certain hurdles. These hurdles include caste discrimination, and more than that mobilisation of lower castes; identity politics (based on caste, religion, language, region i.e. casteism, communalism, linguism, and regionalism); sectarianism; minority appeasement; aping of the west; and communism.
The greatest challenge before the Hindu nation as any other nation is internal threats. The “…hostile elements within the country pose a far greater menace to national security than aggressors from outside.” The internal threats that are posing danger to India and are threatening its unity and integrity are the Muslims, the Christians, and the Communists.
Golwalkar is also wary of increasing population of non-Hindus. He says, “There is one point on which we have to be specially forewarned. And that is the census. Our previous experience shows that the followers of Islam inflate their numbers and this has had tragic repercussions on our country’s affairs. The Hindus should not remain ignorant of the “potency of numbers”. He asks practically every non-Muslim including Naga, Khasi, Jayantia, Mikir, Mizo, and Adivasis, etc. to register as Hindus. Golwalkar was strongly against adivasis being distinguished from Hindus. To include tribals within the Hindu fold, Golwalkar was ready to give them yajnopavita and gotra of the priest.
Golwalkar has dealt with the question of minorities at length. Here it can be gauged how he thinks the religious diversity in India should be dealt with.
As described earlier, according to Golwalkar, National existence is entirely dependent upon the coordinated existence of the five elements constituting the idea of the Nation i.e. Country, Race, Religion, Culture and Language. All those, who fall outside the five-fold limits of the national idea, can have no place in the national life. To him, India was always an ancient land of Hindus and the true status of all those other communities who have happened to live here was either that of guests (e.g. Jews and Parsees) or invaders (e.g. Muslims and Christians). Golwalkar emphasises that early Hindus “never faced the question how all such heterogeneous groups could be called children of the soil merely because, by an accident, they happened to reside in a common territory under the rule of a common enemy.” He vehemently criticises the territorial nationalism or what he refers to as ‘serai theory’ of nationalism.
Golwalkar suggests the way forward for the minorities is ‘naturalisation’ implying complete assimilation. It is their burden to “abandon their differences, adopt the religion, culture and language of the Nation and completely merge themselves in the National Race.” As long as they refuse to do so and maintain their distinct identities, “they cannot but be only foreigners, who may be either friendly or inimical to the Nation.”
Golwalkar gives the example of old and vibrant nations and how they solve their minorities’ problem. He says, “They do not undertake to recognise any separate elements in their polity. Emigrants have to get themselves naturally assimilated in the principal mass of population, the National Race, by adopting its culture and language and sharing in its aspirations, by losing all consciousness of their separate existence, forgetting their foreign origin. If they do not do so, they live merely as outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and deserving of no special protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race.”
To him, this is the “only sound view” on minority-problem. Golwalkar considered that the problem of non-Hindus in India cannot be solved by considering them “religious minorities.” It can only be solved through “historically correct, rational, and positive approach of Hindu Rashtra.” If not, then these so-called minorities “are bound to become more and more hardened in their separate shells of religion and turn into a dreadful source of disruption of our body-politic.” He advises Muslim and Christian “co-citizens” to shed the notions of their being ‘religious minorities’, their foreign mental complexion, and assimilate into the national mainstream. Golwalkar explains that Hindu Rashtra will be benign, catholic and rational in its treatment of minorities.
If this condition is not met then, Golwalkar is not hesitant to advocate the use of violent means to keep minorities in their desired place. He praises the example of Nazi Germany in the following chilling words, “To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.”
In short, besides being vague, Golwalkar’s idea of India is parochial, unitary, sectarian, bigoted, and communal in orientation with little to no tolerance for diversity. The intolerance is greatest for differences based on religion and ideology but even persists for diversities based on caste and language. This idea is inherently negative and antagonistic in its approach and offers no positive or constructive thought. It alienates people, pits communities against each other, results in polarisation, disrupts peace, and diverts attention from core issues; in short, it fails to guide Indians to collectively tread the path of progress and development. The homogenous and monolithic India of Golwalkar’s imagination – that antagonises a large section of population for different and sometimes contradictory reasons – is difficult to survive for long as it has little respect for individual right and freedom; and advocates authoritarianism in every aspect of life. The agenda of totalitarianism that is the ideal of Hindutva, if succeeded at all, would surely make India implode from within. On the menu card of ideas of India, if you would like to have an idea that’s a manifest recipe for disaster, then you can surely opt for Hindutva’s.
Despite claims of being apolitical, argues Jaffrelot, Golwalkar’s Hindutva brigade has profound interest in acquiring power. Hansen finds that the vision of Golwalkar was “obviously a political vision” that was clearly understood “as an organised and conscious effort to change the social, cultural, and political life” of Indian society. Thus, as recent history substantiates, this dangerous idea is no longer just a theory. Besides expounding alternative ideas of India, there is also a need to juxtapose Hindutva’s idea with all its horrendous details before the masses so that they may at least know, before voting this idea to power, what they are signing up for.