Swapan Dasgupta, through his book Awakening Bharatmata, explores how Hindu Nationalism evolved from a marginalised ideological concept during independence, to the dominating political force that it is today.
Only about one-third of the book is Dasgupta’s views, a major chunk of which is dedicated to the current government, and the rest of the book consists of 24 essays by historical thinkers. The essays were of course hand-picked with a purpose, as Dasgupta openly states, of creating a “sympathetic position” for the Indian right wing (political Right). It does sanitise some of the extreme views held by K.B. Hedgewar, S.P. Mookerjee, and Deendayal Upadhyaya, apart from one exception of M.S. Golwalkar’s extreme views demanding the complete subordination of minorities, a stance the RSS eventually had to formally disown to avoid charges of fascism. Expect to read the milder version of the Indian Right Wing in this book.
Conservatism is considered as a natural state of being where the group is more important than the individuals.
It prioritises community wisdom over individual choices, values historical memory and the idea of sacredness, and believes that the authority of the state should be subordinate to the will of society. Unlike liberal ideas heavily influenced by Western thought, the beliefs of the Indian Right, as claimed by the texts, are largely indigenous, drawing upon local sources of authority, Sanskrit literature, culture, and tradition.
Hindutva, or “Hinduness,” is conceptualised primarily as an expression of cultural nationalism rather than in strictly religious terms. Savarkar defined a Hindu as someone who considers India not just their fatherland but their holy land, arguing that Hindus constituted an “organic National Being” rather than a mere territorial nation. While traditional Hinduism was unorganised and inherently accepting of diverse thoughts, Hindutva emerged as an active, kinetic counter-force when faced with the historical onslaught of proselytising faiths that rejected other beliefs. Hindutva has a very different cultural and political character than philosophical Hinduism. Hence it required a separate name.
Hindutva is there to correct the historic wrongs by getting rid of the weaknesses that led to the subjugation of “Hindus” by Islamic and European powers. What are these weaknesses?
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay argued that Indians lacked a passion for political independence because the early Aryans lived in a fertile land where survival was easy, allowing them to prioritise poetry, metaphysics, and abstract spiritual ideas over worldly possessions and political power. He also attributed India’s downfall to a lack of national unity. Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay considered Europeans as “devotees of power” who aggressively pursued goals in this world, Indians were “negligent towards power” and primarily pursued goals in the afterlife, which is why they failed to secure earthly victories. Swami Vivekananda pointed heavily to physical and organisational weaknesses. He stated that physical weakness and laziness were the cause of “at least one-third of our miseries”. According to R.G. Bhandarkar “individual selfishness, greed and calculation” were the primary factors that prevented Indians from achieving the national unity needed to resist foreign domination.
The idea is that Hindu’s need to be united, aggressive and masculine, and “devotees of power”. The inspiration is drawn from the wars of the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Shivaji.
The origins of Hindu nationalism trace back to the 19th-century response to overcome these perceived weaknesses. The aim was to create an aggressive and united Hindu front that claims the entire land from Afghanistan to Bangladesh as a united Hindu Rashtra.
Sita Ram Goel writes that
the history of India is the history of Hindu society, of the Hindu nation, and that we do not recognize any Muslim or British of this history…Prithviraj Chauhan, an age of Rana Sanga, an age of Krishnadevaraya, an age of Rana Pratap, an age of Shivaji, and so on. We shall not concede that there ever was a Muslim Empire in India. We shall instead interpret that period as a long-drawn-out war of national resistance, of national liberation, in which Islamic imperialism was worsted. Similarly, we shall not recognize any British viceroys or governors-general except as imperialist intruders.
Following independence, the vision of India was largely dictated by the “Nehruvian consensus,” built on the pillars of secularism, socialism, and non-alignment. The Right complains that it goes against the vision of India as a Hindu Nation, meant only for believers of Sanatana Dharma. Jawaharlal Nehru had a profound distaste for the “RSS mentality” and majoritarianism, prioritising the fight against right-wing communalism over even the communist threat. During this period, Hindu nationalism was marginalised, especially following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
However, several factors led to the rise of right-wing politics over the last few decades. There was a clear backlash against “Vote Bank Politics” and Appeasement. A watershed moment was the Rajiv Gandhi government’s 1986 decision to pass the Muslim Women’s Bill, which overturned the Supreme Court’s Shah Bano judgment granting alimony to a divorced Muslim woman, simply to placate orthodox Muslim opposition. The second was the Ayodhya Movement that swept away the political cobwebs and successfully catapulted the BJP from a small North Indian party into a mass alternative to the Congress. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the ethnic cleansing of Hindu Pandits from the Kashmir Valley, also shifted a large chunk of the educated middle class towards the political Right.
Hindu nationalism fundamentally rejects the “Nehruvian consensus”, and what the authors claim is a Westernised brand of secularism. The Right argues that secularism and “constitutional patriotism” were imported from modern Europe to redesign Indian history, ignoring the fact that major Indian religious traditions do not have a history of “privatising” religion. The complaint is that Indian secularism, according to them, morphed into a denunciation of Hindu society, culture, and history, effectively becoming a tool to appease aggressive minorities while isolating the traditional Hindu middle class.
The book does cover a wide spectrum of Indian conservative thought. It gives a glimpse of a right-wing perspective. However, it would have been a much better read if Swapan Dasgupta had put his own thoughts to go with the essays and put a contemporary perspective to some of the writings that are decades, often centuries, old, and might not be relevant to modern readers.
One has to appreciate some of the complaints of the conservatives that are justified. There has been appeasement politics at play in the later phases of Indira’s era. Vajpayee, in no uncertain terms, warned Indira in Parliament after the Bhiwandi Riots,
Not all Muslims want communal riots. There are also patriots and peace-loving people among Muslims. Those who toil and take care of their families do not want to play with fire and violence. But there is certainly a section of Muslims—and this needs to be said without mincing words—that wants to bring communalism into the country… The situation is that Muslims are becoming more and more communal and Hindus more and more aggressive . . . We must understand both these dangers and take steps to remove them.
I agree with the complaint that the Left historians dominated Indian history and have shown us selective glimpses that are dominated by the Mughal era. But the alternative history shared by the Right is also distorted. It was the Right that dominated Indian Archaeology, and today modern science and genetics are challenging them.
Blaming Nehru for all problems and calling seculars as having an English-educated, West-influenced, colonial mindset that is un-Hindu, is taking it a bit too far.
Is following traffic rules Western and un-Hindu because automobiles are a Western invention?
Some values are not just Indian or Western. They are just humane. They are universal. They are also ancient, from the time when the people who now represent the East and the West were one family.
The challenge that the Right faces, which is much bigger than that of the educated liberals, is the fragmentation of Hindu society by innumerable castes and the legacy of untouchability. How do you heal the grievances of 2000 years of discrimination? That too, only because you need their political support.
What the Right needs is leadership of scientifically educated people who can take up modern challenges, articulate their defence in the intellectual sphere, and create a philosophy that is in sync with egalitarian Hindu ethos and modern liberal values. The right must find ways to create pride in ancient India, not by trying to prove mythologies as history, but by showcasing real achievements of Indians in areas of surgery, astronomy, maths, philosophy, literature etc.
They need to get rid of the toxic and reactionary methods of street vigilantes, like cow protection squads, lynching, moral policing, targeting couples on Valentine’s Day, deciding on food choices, or beating up parents because their 8-year-old daughter wore shorts. Ironically, many of these reactions of the Right goons are a legacy of Victorian Orthodoxy.
Hindutva, as claimed, was a reaction to masculine Abrahamic forces. The problem is that, blinded by pride, you become the very thing you want to neutralise.
If they don’t get rid of the violent elements, they would either loose confidence of the masses, or move towards fascism.
