Everything That's Wrong With Rewriting History Under Hindutva Nationalism

In all the debates about the ruling establishment바카라�s resurrection of history as an instrument of its majoritarian politics, many of us are guilty of not looking beyond the Hindutvavadis바카라� obvious political misuse of the past to further their interests in the present. In fact, history plays a profoundly important role in the Hindutva conception of Indian nationalism, and it is worth delving into its ideological underpinnings to understand its present significance.

The concept of nationalism arose around the world, as I pointed out in my book The Battle of Belonging, when the absolute power of the traditional ruler became untenable in more complex societies, and power began to be diffused. At that stage, people began to relate to each other by identifiable and unchanging common features that could be considered the attributes of a nation바카라�a political entity broadly understood to be united by a defined geography, ethnicity, language, religion, and culture, common (and idealised) heroes, and a shared identity and sense of community for all its constituent people.

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Indian nationalists fighting the British Raj quickly seized on this, and Hindutva ideologues went farther; in keeping with the race doctrines of the times, Savarkar in the 1920s conceived Hindutva as an indefinable quality inherent in the Hindu 바카라�race바카라�, which could not be identified directly with the specific tenets of Hinduism. To him, the religion was therefore a subset of the political idea, rather than synonymous with it바카라�something many of its proponents today would be surprised to hear. Despite this distinction, Hindutva would help achieve the political consolidation of the Hindu people, since Savarkar also argued that a Muslim or a Christian, even if born in India, could not claim allegiance to the three essentials of Hindutva: 바카라�a common nation (rashtra), a common race (jati) and a common civilisation (sanskriti), as represented in a common history, common heroes, a common literature, a common art, a common law and a common jurisprudence, common fairs and festivals, rites and rituals, ceremonies and sacraments바카라�. Hindus, defined as possessing these common values and practices, constituted the Indian nation바카라�a nation that had existed since antiquity, since Savarkar was explicitly rejecting the British view that Indian nationhood was a creation of the foreign imperium.

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Savarkar바카라�s vision of Hindutva saw it as the underlying principle of a 바카라�Hindu Rashtra바카라� that extended across the Indian subcontinent, and was rooted in an undivided India bounded by the mountains and the seas (바카라�Akhand Bharat바카라�) corresponding to the territorial aspirations of ancient dynasties like the Mauryas (321 BCE바카라�185 BCE), who under Chandragupta and Ashoka, had managed to knit most of the subcontinent under their control. In the words of a later RSS publication, Sri Guruji, the Man and his Mission, 바카라�It became evident that Hindus were the nation in Bharat and that Hindutva was Rashtriyatva [nationalism].바카라�

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For Savarkar, Hinduness was synonymous with Indianness, properly understood. Savarkar바카라�s idea of Hindutva was expansive: 바카라�Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full.... Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole Being of our Hindu race.바카라� In turn, the Hindu 바카라�race바카라� was inextricably bound to the idea of the nation. As Savarkar put it, 바카라�We Hindus are bound together not only by the tie of the love we bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through our veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affections warm, but also by the tie of the common homage we pay to our great civilisation바카라�our Hindu culture.바카라�

However, his idea of Hindutva excluded those whose ancestors came from elsewhere or whose holy lands lay outside India바카라�thereby eliminating Muslim and Christians, India바카라�s two most significant minorities, from his frame of reference. What their place would be in Savarkar바카라�s construction of the nation was not made explicitly clear, but the best they could hope for was a sort of second-class citizenship in which they could live in India only on sufferance.

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This logic was taken even further by M. S. Golwalkar, the sarsanghchalak or head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for three decades (1940바카라�1973), who supplanted Savarkar as the principal ideologue of Hindu nationalism, notably in his 1939 screed We or Our Nationhood Defined and in the anthology of his writings and speeches, Bunch of Thoughts. Golwalkar made it clear in his writings that India was the holy land of the Hindus alone. He writes: 바카라�Hindusthan is the land of the Hindus and is the terra firma for the Hindu nation alone to flourish upon바카라�.바카라� According to him, India was a pristine Hindu country in ancient times, a place of unparalleled glory destroyed in successive assaults by foreign invaders. He felt that a 바카라�national regeneration바카라� was necessary.

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The final construction of Hindutva ideology came from Deen Dayal Upadhyay, President of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and author of Integral Humanism, who argued that India could and should contribute to the world 바카라�in consonance with our culture and traditions바카라�. That culture and those traditions were, of course, Hindu. In India, 바카라�there exists only one culture바카라�.There are no separate cultures here for Muslims and Christians.바카라� Every community, therefore, including Muslims and Christians, 바카라�must identify themselves with the age-long national cultural stream that was Hindu culture in this country바카라�. His logic was that 바카라�unless all people become part of the same cultural stream, national unity or integration is impossible. If we want to preserve Indian nationalism, this is the only way바카라�. To him, 바카라�the national cultural stream would continue to remain one and those who cannot identify themselves with it would not be considered nationals바카라�.

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To Upadhyaya, the national culture to which he was referring had to be Hindu; it explicitly could not be Muslim. 바카라�Mecca, Medina, Hassan and Hussain, Sohrab and Rustom and Bulbul may be very significant in their own ways but they do not form a part of Indian national life and stream of Indian culture. How can those who are emotionally associated with these and look upon [the] Rama and Krishna tradition as alien be described as nationals? We see that the moment anybody embraces Islam, an effort is made to cut him off from the entire tradition of this country and connect him to the alien tradition.바카라�

Muslims, said Upadhyaya, even related differently to India바카라�s past: 바카라�Some events involve triumph, some our humiliation. The memories of our glorious deeds make us proud; ignominies make us hang our heads in shame.바카라� But Hindus saw such historical events differently from Muslims. 바카라�Aggressions by Mohammed Ghori or Mahmood Ghazni naturally fill us with agony. We develop a feeling of attachment to Prithviraj [Chauhan] and other patriots. If instead, any person feels pride for the aggressors and no love for the Motherland, he can lay no claim to patriotism. The memory of Rana Pratap, Chhatrapati Shivaji or Guru Gobind Singh makes us bow down our heads with respect and devotion. On the other hand, the names of Aurangzeb, Alauddin, Clive or Dalhousie, fill us with anger that is natural towards foreign aggressors.바카라� Only Hindu society, Upadhyaya underscored, felt this way about its heroes, supporting Rana Pratap over Akbar; therefore there was really no ground for doubt that Indian nationalism is Hindu nationalism.

Upadhyaya바카라�s conclusion was blunt: the Muslims sought 바카라�to destroy the values of Indian culture, its ideals, national heroes, traditions, places of devotion and worship바카라�, and therefore 바카라�can never become an indivisible part of this country바카라�. In Upadhyaya바카라�s vision, the inherent consciousness of unity, identical ties of history and tradition, relations of affinity between the land and the people and shared aspirations and hopes, made Hindustan a nation of Hindus. 바카라�We shall have to concede that our nationality is none other than Hindu nationality. If any outsider comes into this country he shall have to move in step and adjust himself with Hindu nationality.바카라�

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But Upadhyaya did not adopt his mentor Golwalkar바카라�s ideas about dealing with India바카라�s Muslims as Hitler had dealt with the Jews. 바카라�No sensible man will say that six crores of Muslims should be eradicated or thrown out of India,바카라� he admitted in an article titled 바카라�Akhand Bharat: Objectives and Means바카라�. 바카라�[B]ut then they will have to identify themselves completely with Indian life.바카라� Muslims had to be accommodated within the Indian reality, but on what basis? 바카라�This unity바카라�can be established only among homogeneous cultures, not among the contrary ones. A preparation of various cereals and pulses mixed together can be prepared: but if sand particles find their way into it, the whole food is spoilt,바카라� he explained. The way to eliminate these 바카라�sand particles바카라� was to 바카라�purify바카라� or 바카라�nationalise Muslims바카라�바카라�to 바카라�make Muslims proper Indians바카라�. The Congress-led nationalist movement had wrongly tried to forge Hindu바카라�Muslim unity against the British, but 바카라�unless all people become part of the same cultural stream, national unity or integration is impossible.바카라� A situation will have to be created in which political aspirations of Islam in India will be rooted out. Then and then alone can a longing for cultural unity take root.바카라�

The critics of Hindu Rashtra, Upadhyaya argued, found that the term was inexpedient for them in the country바카라�s competitive politics: they were afraid of losing millions of Christian and Muslim voters. Their misconception was that the use of the term excluded Muslim and Christian communities. If both these communities became one with the national cultural mainstream바카라�without any change in their modes of worship바카라�they would be welcome in the new India. All they had to do was to own up to the ancient traditions of India, to look upon Hindu national heroes as their national heroes, and to develop devotion for Bharat Mata. Then they would be fully accepted as nationals of the Hindu India that he envisioned.

In the Hindutva-centred view, history is made of religion-based binaries, in which all Muslim rulers are evil and all Hindus are valiant resisters, embodiments of incipient Hindu nationalism. The Hindut­vavadis believe, in historian Audrey Trus­chke바카라�s words, 바카라�that India was subjected to repeated defeats over the centuries, including by generations of Muslim conquerors that enfeebled the people and their land. The belief바카라�that Muslim invaders destroyed their culture, religion, and homeland is neither a continuous historical memory nor is it based on accurate records of the past. But바카라� many in India feel injured by the Indo-Muslim past, and their sentiments [are] often undergirded by modern anti-Muslim sentiments.바카라� As K. N. Panikkar has stated, liberal and tolerant rulers such as Ashoka, Akbar, Jai Singh, Shahu Maharaj, and Wajid Ali Shah do not figure in Hindutva바카라�s list of national heroes. (Indeed, where many nationalist historians extolled Akbar as the liberal, tolerant counterpart to the Islamist Aurangzeb, Hindutvavadis have begun to attack him too, principally because he was Muslim, and like most medieval monarchs of both faiths, killed princes who stood in his way, many of whom happened to be Hindu.)

Communal history continues past the era of Islamic rule. Among those Indians who revolted against the British, Bahadur Shah, Zinat Mahal, Maulavi Ahmadullah, and General Bakht Khan, all Muslims, are conspicuous by their absence from Hindutva histories. Syncretic traditions such as the Bhakti movement, and universalist rel­igious reformers like Rammohan Roy and Keshub Chandra Sen, do not receive much attention either. What does is the uncritical veneration of 바카라�Hindu heroes바카라� like Maharana Pratap (portrayed now in Rajasthani textbooks as the victor of the Battle of Haldighati against Akbar, which begs the question why Akbar and not he ruled the country for the following three decades) and Chhatrapati Shivaji, the intrepid and courageous Maratha warrior, whose battles against the Mughals have now replaced accounts of Mughal kings in Maharashtra바카라�s textbooks. (The educational system is the chosen battlefield for the Hindutva warriors, and curriculum revision their preferred weapon.)

This is the context in which the current Hindutva campaigns, from textbook revision to challenging mosques built on the ruins of temples, must be understood. Between the 바카라�civic nationalist바카라� notion of Indian diversity (which Salman Rushdie celebrated as 바카라�mongrelisation바카라�) and the Hindutvavadi바카라�s insistence on 바카라�authentic바카라� Indian culture바카라�narrowly interpreted, and uncontaminated by colonial influence or 바카라�Ganga바카라�Jamuni바카라� hybridity바카라�there lies a chasm. Our nationalist movement and its leaders created a nation built on an ideal of pluralism and freedom: we have given passports to their dreams. This should have been the principal theme of the 75th anniversary of our independence that we celebrate in a few weeks바카라� time. The BJP, with its insistence on the purity of Hindu Rashtra, would sadly red­uce the soaring generosity of their founding vision to the petty bigotry of majo­ritarian chauvinism.

(This appeared in the print edition as "History and Hindutva Nationalism")

(Views expressed are personal)

Shashi Tharoor is a politician and author