Having thus tried to trace the successive chapters of the history of the words Hindu and Hindusthan from the earliest Vedic period to the fall of the last of our Hindu empire in 1818 A. D., we are now in a position to address ourselves to the main task of determining the essentials of Hindutva. The first result of our enquiry is to explode the baseless suspicion which has crept into the minds of some of our well-meaning but hasty countrymen that the origin of the words Hindu and Hindusthan is to be traced to the malice of the Mohammedans! After all that has been said in the previous paragraphs about the history of these words, this suspicion seems so singularly stupid that to mention it is to refute it. Long before Mohammad was born, nay, long before the Arabians were heard of as a people, this ancient nation was known to ourselves as well as to the foreign world by the proud epithet Sindhu or Hindu and Arabians could not have invented this term, any more than they could have invented the Indus itself. They simply learnt it from the ancient Iranians, Jews, and other peoples. But apart from all serious historical refutation, is it not clear that had it been really a contemptuous expression of our foes as it is said to be could it have ever recommended itself to the bravest and best of our race ? Surely our people were not quite such strangers either to the Arabic or Persian tongues! The Mohammedans were apt to refer to us as Kafar also but had our people adopted that name and stuck to it, as a distinguishing mark ? Why did they submit voluntarily to the national insult only in the case of the other epithets Hindusthan and Hindu? Simply because, they knew more of our national traditions and were less cut off from our national life than some of us had been. That is why some of us keep constantly harping on the fact that this word Hindu is not found in Sanskrit. What of this word alone ? - The Sanskrit literature makes no mention of Kishan-Banaras-Maratha-Sikh Gujarat-Patna- Sia-Jamuna and a thousand other words that we use daily. But are they to be traced to some foreign source ? The word Banaras though not found in Sanskrit is still ours because it is the Prakrit form of Varanasi which is found in Sanskrit. In fact it is ridiculous to expect a Prakrit word in classical Sanskrit. Nay more; although Hindu being a Prakrit form of a Sanskrit word, should not be expected to be found in Sanskrit, yet as it is it cannot be but a weighty proof of its importance even in its Prakrit form that, that form should be at times met with in Sanskrit literature : for example, the Bherutantra uses this word, Hindu. Great Sanskrit lexicographers like Apte in Maharashtra and Taranath Tarkavachaspati in Bengal have also mentioned it. While the line ’ Shivashiva na Hindur na Yavanah’ is too well known to be quoted. It may be that in the modern Mohammedanized Persian some contemptuous meaning has come to be associated with the term Hindu but how does that show that the original signification of Hindu was contemptuous and meant ‘black ’ ? The words Hindu or Hind are used in Persian but they do not mean black and yet we know that they along with Hindu are originated from the same Sanskrit word Sindhu or Sindh. If the word Hindu is applied to us because it means ‘black ’ then is it that Hind and Hindi are also applied to us though they do not mean ‘a black man ’ ? The fact is that the word Hindu dates its origin not from the Mohammedanized Persian but from the ancient language of Iran, the Zend, and then the Saptasindhu meant Saptasindhu alone. It could not have been applied to us because we were black literally for the simple reason that the ancient Saptasindhu i. e. Hindus in Avestic period were as fair as the Iranians and lived practically side by side and even at times together with them. Even so late as the dawn of the Christian era the Parthians used to call our frontier province as Shvetabharat or White India. Thus originally Hindu simply could not have literally meant a black man. In fact, after it has been made so amply clear in the foregoing sections that the epithets Hindu and Hindusthan had been the proud and patriotic designations signifying our land and our nation long before the Mohammedans or Mohammedanized Persians were heard of it becomes almost immaterial so far as the greatness of epithet Hindu and its claim to our love are concerned, what meaning, complimentary or contemptuous, is attached to it by some swollen-headed fanatic here and there. There was a time when the term ‘England’ had fallen so low in England itself in the estimation of her Norman conquerors that it became a formula of swearing against each other! ’ May I become an Englishman !’ was the strongest form of self-denunciation and calling a Norman ’ an Englishman’ an unpardonable insult. But did the English care to change the name of their land or their nation and call it Normandy instead of England ? Or would their disowning their name ’ the English ’ have made them great ? No ; on the contrary, precisely because they did not disown their ancient blood or name, to-day we find that while the word Norman has become an historical fossil and Normandy has no place on the map of the world, the contemptuous English and their English language have come to own the largest empire the world has yet seen ! And yet great as the glories of the English world are, what on the whole, has it to show to match the glories of the Hindu world ? In times of conflict nations do lose their balance of mind and if the Persians or others once understood by the word Hindu a thief or a black man alone then let them remember that the word Mohammedan too was not always mentioned to denote any very enviable type of mankind by the Hindus either. To call a man a Musalman or better still a ’ Musanda ’ was worse than calling him a brute. Such bitter fulminations and mutual recriminations though they might have the excuse of inevitability in times of life and death struggles while the fume and flame of the angry brutal passions last, should be forgotten as soon as men recover from their fits and claim to be recognized as gentlemen. Nor should we forget that the ancient Jews used the term Hindu to denote strength or vigour. For these were the qualities associated with our land and nation. In an Arab epic named, ’ So hab Mo Alakk’ it is said that the oppression of kith and kin are bitterer or more fatal than the stroke of a Hindu sword: while ‘returning a Hindu answer’ is a proverbial way with the Persians themselves, by which they are said to mean ’ to strike bravely and deeply with an Indian sword’. The ancient Babylonians had been in the habit of denoting the finest quality of cloth as Sindhu because it generally came from the Saptasindhus —a custom which also shows that they also knew our country by its ancient name Sindhu ; nor have we as yet heard of any other meaning being attributed to this word in the ancient Babylonian language than its national one. No Hindu can help feeling proud of himself at the curious interpretation put upon this epithet by the illustrious traveller. Yuan Chwang, himself belonging to our highly civilized and ancient neighbours, the Chinese, when he identifies our national name ‘Hindu’ with the Sanskrit ‘Indu’ and says in justification that the world had rightly called this nation ‘Indus’ for they and their civilization had like the moon ever been a constant source of delight and refreshment to the languid and weary soul of man. Does not all this clearly show that the way of inspiring respect for our name in the minds of men is not either to change or deny it but to compel recognition of, and homage to it by the valour of our arms, purity of our aims and the sublimity of our souls? Even if we allow some of our brethren to ride their hobby horse in all glee and get themselves recognized and registered in the census reports as ‘Aryans’ instead of as Hindus, yet they could only succeed in dragging down the word ‘Aryan’ to their own level and adding one more synonym to the vocabulary of the words for a ‘helot’ and a ‘cooly’, as long as our nation does not attain to the heights of greatness and of strength as in the days of yore. But apart from any serious argument against the absurd proposal of denying the epithets, Hindu or Hinduism, and granting for a while the stupid theory that their origin is to be traced to the malice of foreigners, we simply ask ’ Is it possible to deny them and coin a new word for our national designation?’ As it stands at present the word Hindu has come to be the very banner of our race and the one great feature that above all others contributes to strengthen and uphold our racial unity from Cape to Kashmir, from Attock to Cuttack. Do you think you can change it as easily as a cap ? Once it happened that a gentleman, well-meaning and patriotic intended to get himself registered in the census records as an Aryan instead of as a Hindu, as he had been a victim to the wide-spread lie that we were first called Hindus by the Persian Mohammedans out of their contempt— that the word meant a thief or a black man.
Yet, I could not enter into any detailed discussion about the origin of the word for want of time and so simply questioned him as to what his own name was. He replied it was Taktasingh “My good friend,” I continued, “unlike the word Hindu whose origin is at the worst disputable, your name is indisputably a hybrid word and should therefore be first replaced in the register by some ancient and purely Aryan word, say Maudgalayan or Simhasansinha.” Having evaded the point for a while he tried to point out how difficult it was to do so and how it would completely upset his economical position and after all how could he get the world to call him by the new-fangled name or what could begained at all by this risky experiment of calling himself ‘Sinhasansinh’ while all others persisted in calling him Taktasinha ‘But’, I rejoined, ‘if to change your individual name, which is indisputably foreign, seems to you so difficult, nay, harmful, then, my friend, how much more difficult would it be to change the name of a whole race which is so far from being a foreign invention that it is ours as much as the Vedas are ours ? And how much more futile?’ Of the futility of any such attempt to change a deep-rooted name, a far more convincing example than this personal one is furnished by our Sikh brotherhood in the Punjab. The band of the best and bravest of the Hindu race whom our Great Guru had chosen, triumphantly exclaiming, “The blue clothes are torn; the domination of the Turks and the Pathans is over. For the expressed purpose of the continuation of protection of religion, protection the saints, destruction of the wicked, for this purpose I am born on this earth. The class of warriors have given up their duty, and have adopted the language of the Mlechchas. All are reduced to the one class of serfs. People have lost their faith.” The great Guru was daily greeted with a ‘Vah Guruji ki Fatch ! Vah Gurujika Khalsa !’ The words Darbar, Diwan-Bahadur, have crept like thieves to the very heart of our Harimandirs. They are the scars of our old wounds. The wounds are healed but the scars persist and seem to be incorporated with our form. As long as any attempts to scratch them out threaten to harm us more than profit, all that we can do is to tolerate them ; for after all they are the scars of the wounds received in a conflict that we have won in a gory field in which we remained as the victors of the day. And yet, if any words, however closely they might have been associated with things sacred, are to be disowned and changed they are these, for they all are indisputably foreign and reminiscent of alien domination. Does it not seem almost insincere that we who can not only tolerate but love these names, should clamour to disown the epithet, Hindu or Hindusthan, which is the very cradle name of our race and of our land chosen by our patriarchs, recorded in the most ancient and revered annals of the world, the Vedas ? —An epithet which had proudly been borne by millions of our countrymen on both sides of the Sindu for the last forty centuries if not more; which expanded to and embraced the whole of our country from Kashmir to the Cape and from Attock to Cuttack; which sums up in a word the whole geographical position of our race and our land, Sindhu or Hindu; which had been recognized as the sign of distinction to mark out ‘The best nation of the Aryans,’ an epithet for which our foes hated us and for which our warriors from Shalivahan to Shivaji went forth in their thousands to keep up their fight from century to century. It was this word, Hindu that was found impressed on the ashes of Padmini and Chitor. It was this word, Hindu that was owned by Tulsidas, Tukaram, Ramkrishna and Ramdas. Hindupadpadshahi was the dream of Ramdas, the mission of Shivaji, the pole star of the ambitions of Bajirao and Banda Bahadur, of Chhatrasal and Nanasaheb, of Pratap and Pratapaditya. It was inscribed on the banner defending which a hundred thousand Hindu heroes fell inflicting fatal wounds on the foes on the battlefield of Panipat—and Bhau at the head of them all, sword in hand ! — within one single day ! It was for the Hindupadpadshahi that inspite of all that martyrdom and in virtue of it. Nana and Mahadji steered the nation clear of all rocks and shoals and brought it almost within sight of the coveted shores. It is this epithet Hindu or Hindusthan that, even to this day, owns a loving allegiance of millions of our people from the throne of Nepal to the begging bowl in the street. To disown these words is like cutting off and casting away the very heart of our people. You would be dead before you do that. It is not only fatal but futile. To oust the words, Hindu or Hindusthan, from the position they hold is to try to oust the Himalayas from theirs. Nothing but an earthquake with all its terrible wrenches and appalling uncertainties can accomplish that. The objection that is levelled against the appellations, Hindu and Hindusthan on account of the mistaken notion which attributed their origin to foreign sources could, if left to itself, be easily laid low by advancing indisputable historical facts. But as it is, this objection is in some cases backed up by a secret fear that if the epithet be honoured and owned, then all those who do so would be looked upon as believers in the dogmas and religious practices that go by the name ‘Hinduism’. This fear, though it is not often admitted openly, that a Hindu is, necessarily and by the very fact that he is a Hindu, a believer in the so-called Hinduism, makes many a man determined not to get convinced that the epithets are not an alien invention. Nor is this fear totally unjustified. But it would be more candid if those who entertain this fear should openly advance it as the ground of their objection to being recognized as Hindus and not try to hide it under a false and untenable issue. The superficial similarity between these two terms Hindutva and Hinduism is responsible for this regrettable estrangement that, at times, alienates well-meaning gentlemen in our Hindu brotherhood. The distinction between these two terms would be presently made clear. Here it is enough to point out that if there be really any word of alien growth it is this word Hinduism and so we should not allow our thoughts to get confused by this new-fangled term. That a man can be as truly a Hindu as any without believing even in the Vedas as an independent religious authority is quite clear from the fact that thousands of our Jain brethren, not to mention others, are for generations calling themselves Hindus and would even to this day feel hurt if they be called otherwise. We refer to this simply as an actual fact apart from any detailed justification and examination of it which would presently follow. Till then, we hope our readers would not allow prejudicial fear regarding the conclusion of our argument as to its intrinsic merit and bear in mind that we have throughout the foregoing pages been dealing not with any ‘ism’ whatever but with Hindutva alone in its national and cultural aspects. Now we are fairly in a postion to try to analyse the contents of one of the most comprehensive and bewilderingly synthetic concept known to human tongue. Hindutva is a derivative word from Hindu, we have seen that the earliest and the most sacred records of our race show that the appellation, Saptasindhu or Hapt-Hindu was applied to a region in which the Vedic nation flourished. The geographical sense being the primary one has, now contracting, now expanding, but always persistently been associated with the words Hindu and Hindusthan till after the lapse of nearly 5000 years if not more, Hindusthan has come to mean the whole cotinental country from the Sindhu to Sindhu from the Indus to the Seas. The most important factor that contributes to the cohesion, strength and the sense of unity of a people is that they should possess an internally well-connected and externally well-demarcated ’ local habitation,’ and a ’ name ’ that could, by its very mention, rouse the cherished image of their motherland as well as the loved memories of their past. We are happily blessed with both these important requisites for a strong and united nation. Our land is so vast and yet so well-knit, so well demarcated from others and yet so strongly entrenched that no country in the world is more closely marked out by the fingers of nature as a geographical unit beyond cavil or criticism, as also is the name Hindusthan or Hindu that it has come to bear. The first image that it rouses in the mind is unmistakably of our motherland and by an express appeal to its geographical and physical features it vivifies it into a living Being. Hindusthan meaning the land of Hindus, the first essential of Hindutva must necessarily be this geographical one. A Hindu is primarily a citizen either in himself or through his forefathers of ‘Hindusthan’ and claims the land as his motherland. In America as well as in France the word Hindu is generally understood thus exactly in the sense of an Indian without any religious or cultural implication. And had the word Hindu been left to convey this primary significance only, which it had in common with all the words derived from Sindhu then it would really have meant an Indian, a citizen of Hindusthan as the word Hindi does.