Shourie, Savarkar, M. Nageswara Rao and Hindutva

 

Shourie, Savarkar, M. Nageswara Rao and Hindutva

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

M. Nageswara Rao, I.P.S., is one of the greatest and most sincere exponents of Hindu rights and issues today, and he has put up a tweet on 13/2/2025 about Arun Shouries’s recent book on Savarkar – a tweet almost equivalent to an article – which was sent to me by a well-wisher (not by himself) because I myself had recently uploaded an article on the subject of this book titled “Arun Shourie – A Contemptible Mercenary” [I have sometimes wondered, after uploading it, whether perhaps my title also turned out sounding a little scurrilous, but then again I feel his unprovoked and vicious attack on a person like Savarkar who suffered so much for the nation is unforgivable, and the last straw was watching his smug and gloating interview on the subject of Savarkar with a known anti-Hindu like Karan Thapar. So I do not really regret the title]

The tweet:

https://x.com/MNageswarRaoIPS/status/1890008365171876111

As always, Nageswara Rao’s views are brilliant, and I urge everyone to read the whole tweet However, I feel his critical remarks on Savarkar’s concept of Hindutva call for some critical comments from me, since a proper definition of the concept of Hindutva is one of my great personal obsessions (e.g. my article on “Hindutva or Hindu Nationalism”), and so I am writing this article, dealing only with this part of his tweet .

His critical remarks:

“Savarkar was a prolific writer, an ideologue, a powerful orator, and a firebrand revolutionary leader during freedom struggle. He wrote ‘The Indian War of Independence-1857’ for its 50th anniversary, which the British banned even before it was published.

Savarkar was never my ideal for the simple reason that, contrary to popular and populist perception, he was not a Hindu or Hindutva ideologue. On the contrary, he was an atheist, allegedly non-vegetarian and was not against cow-slaughter. However, I am least bothered about his personal beliefs and dietary preferences as I consider them to be trivial. My objection is more fundamental to his ideas and prescriptions about who is a Hindu.

According to Savarkar: आसिन्धुसिन्धुपर्यंता यस्य भारतभूमिका। पितृभूः पुण्यभूश्चैव स वै हिन्दुरिति स्मृतः।। It means that a person is Hindu only if he regards India extending from Indus River to the Indian ocean as his Fatherland and Holyland. The RSS paraphrases it as, “All Indians are Hindus” by ignoring the Savarkar’s Holyland prescription. What they essentially mean is that Hindu identity is same as or similar to the secular citizenship of the territorial nation state of India which they have deified as Bharat Mata. In other words, he denominates Hindu religious identity to a territory, which is absolutely unacceptable. For, any religion or dharma is universal. If it is denominated to a territory, it loses its universality and will no longer be called a religion.

A critical analysis of his “the Essentials of Hindutva” clearly bear the fact that all that Savarkar did was to paraphrase the Westphalian Territorial Nationalism of the Europe to Indian context by drawing some elements from Abrahamic theology and Hindu imagery and idioms. Except for the name ‘Hindutva’ in the title, which he borrowed from Chandranath Basu’s book of 1892, there is nothing Hindu either in his book or in his ideology. All that he talks about was Indian Territorial Nationalism. Savarkar (and later RSS) erroneously synonymising their conception of Bharatiya Bhaugolik Rashtriyata as Hindutva, is my second fundamental objection.

In other words, Savarkar simply borrowed the already popular term ‘Hindutva’ in the Bengal of the late 19th century CE, to name his socio-political ideology which has nothing to do with Hindutva or Hindu religion per se. Consequently, Hindu religion has been and continues to be vilified on industrial scale both nationally and internationally.”

Does Hindu religion “continue to be vilified on industrial scale both nationally and internationally” as a consequence of Savarkar’s definition of Hindutva? This is not only completely wrong, but seems to transfer much of the onus of the vilification of Hinduism from the activities of the various constituents of the Breaking India Forces to Savarkar’s ideology which has nothing to do in any way with this vilification. I think this is too obvious for me to explain or elaborate on.

But Rao writes; “contrary to popular and populist perception, he was not a Hindu or Hindutva ideologue. On the contrary, he was an atheist, allegedly non-vegetarian and was not against cow-slaughter. However, I am least bothered about his personal beliefs and dietary preferences as I consider them to be trivial. My objection is more fundamental to his ideas and prescriptions about who is a Hindu.” And concludes that Savarkar’s ideology also has “nothing to do with Hindutva or Hindu religion per se”.

And it is this conclusion of his that my present article is all about.

 

To start with, Savarkar’s ideology certainly has everything material and relevant to do with “Hindutva or Hindu religion per se”. Not with the practices, beliefs and religious aspects, but with something even more necessary and vital: with the defense and protection of this “Hindutva or Hindu religion” from its enemies. Certainly, as Rao seems to concede (unless I am assuming this concession), being an atheist, a non-vegetarian (though I don’t know whether Savarkar was one) or a non-opponent of cow-slaughter is not vital to being defined as a Hindu.

But apart from that were Savarkar’s “ideas and prescriptions about who is a Hindu” so wrong, since this is the central point of Rao’s criticism?

The first point to be noted is that he names two ingredients, in the exact words quoted by Rao: “It means that a person is Hindu only if he regards India extending from Indus River to the Indian ocean as his Fatherland and Holyland”. Actually, the “Holyland” part is the primary one (“India extending from Indus River to the Indian ocean” being a rough or symbolic description, not to be taken literally to the inch, so that a Hindu holy place like Hinglaj can be to the west of the Indus), and it is the most essential ingredient which distinguishes a Hindu in India from a non-Hindu.

It is so fundamental and vital to the definition of “Hindu” that Ambedkar used this same definition to give the official definition of a “Hindu” in the Constitution of India. According to the Constitution of India, laws framed for Hindus apply to the following three categories of people:

(a) to any person who is a Hindu by religion in any of its forms and developments, including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or Arya Samaj,

(b) to any person who is a Buddhist, Jain or Sikh by religion, and

(c) to any other person domiciled in the territories to which this Act extends who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion.

Thus, according to the constitution, every citizen of India, except a Muslim, a Christian, a Parsi or a Jew, is legally a Hindu. This definition, essentially based on the “India as Holyland” principle as enunciated by Savarkar, is why not only a “Hindu by religion in any of its forms and developments, including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or Arya Samaj”, or a Buddhist, a Jain and a Sikh, or the follower of a tribal religion originating in India which has nothing to do with the Vedas or with any Sanskrit text, or an atheist or agnostic (whose atheism or agnosticism is not based on and identified with a foreign ideology) is very definitely, and very correctly, classified as a Hindu in Indian law. The importance of this principle, based indeed, as Rao alleges, on the principle of “Indian Territorial Nationalism” can never be overestimated or overemphasized. And the logic of this definition is unassailable.

 

The point which does require more detailed and more nuanced explanation is the other principle: “India as Fatherland”. Many people will and can raise genuine questions about whether the following categories of people can then be called Hindus:

1. NRI Hindus staying in western countries (or indeed any country completely outside the territorial sphere of India) who, by law and common decency, owe patriotic loyalties to their country of residence and citizenship.

2. Hindus completely outside the territorial sphere of India, like the Hindus of Bali in Indonesia, who certainly owe no patriotic loyalties towards India.  

3. Non-Indians who have accepted some form of Hinduism and/or who openly identify as Hindus. who certainly owe no patriotic loyalties towards India. [my most respected and favorite politician in the world, Tulsi Gabbard, comes in this category].

The logical answer is that though their “Fatherland” is certainly not India, the geographical territory which gave birth to their religion is certainly India: the cultural and religious traditions followed by NRI Hindus, the Ramayana revered by the Balinese Hindus, and the Bhagawadgita revered by Tulsi Gabbard all had their origins in Iindia, in the “territorial area” called India. No proponent of Hindutva will ask that Indian Jews should regard India and not Israel as their Holyland. Every country has the right to expect that people should respect the Fatherland patriotism of the country in which they live, and be sympathetic to the cultural sentiments of the local people, without requiring that they should necessarily regard the country in which they live as the Holyland.

 

If the RSS misunderstood, misapplied or misinterpreted Savarkar’s definition of Hindutva, how does this turn out to be a black mark against Savarkar? Rao himself accepts that “The RSS paraphrases it as, “All Indians are Hindus” by ignoring the Savarkar’s Holyland prescription. What they essentially mean is that Hindu identity is same as or similar to the secular citizenship of the territorial nation state of India which they have deified as Bharat Mata” and then proceeds to indict Savarkar for the folly of the RSS: “he denominates Hindu religious identity to a territory, which is absolutely unacceptable […] all that Savarkar did was to paraphrase the Westphalian Territorial Nationalism of the Europe to Indian context by drawing some elements from Abrahamic theology and Hindu imagery and idioms. Except for the name ‘Hindutva’ in the title, which he borrowed from Chandranath Basu’s book of 1892, there is nothing Hindu either in his book or in his ideology. All that he talks about was Indian Territorial Nationalism.”.

Yes, Savarkar’s definition of “Hindu”, like Ambedkar’s definition, pertained to the Indian territory. And neither of them was in a position or condition to think about and specify how and to what extent and in what way their definition applied to Hindu NRIs or Balinese Hindus or to non-Indian Hindus.

As I pointed out as long ago as 1997 in my article (page 227 in the volume “Time for Stock Taking”, published by Voice of India):

“Hinduism is the name for the Indian territorial form of worldwide Sanatanism (call it Paganism in English). The ideology of Hindutva should therefore be a Universal ideology:…[it] should spearhead a worldwide revival, rejuvenation and resurgence of spiritualism, and of all the religions and cultures which existed all over the world before the advent of imperialist ideologies…”.   

Savarkar’s definition is not unacceptable, it is inevitable. It is this indictment of Savarkar’s definition which is unacceptable.