Hindutva

(“Hindu-ness”) An idea first propounded
by the political activist Vinayak
Damodar Savarkar. It first appeared in a
pamphlet titled Hindutva/Who is a
Hindu? and is the fundamental basis of
modern Hindu nationalism.
Savarkar’s thesis was that the
Hindus were a nation, despite their
sharp regional, cultural, linguistic,
and religious differences; furthermore, he defined a Hindu as anyone
who considered India both fatherland
and holy land. This loose definition
was broad enough to encompass all
of the variety found in Indian Hindu
culture. But it was also clearly reaching for the lowest common denominator. For most Indians, identity is
invariably based on concrete regional, linguistic, or sectarian grounds,
rather than an abstract notions of
being “Hindu.”
Yet it is important to note who this
loose definition excludes—Muslims
and Christians, India’s most visible
minorities, who are marginalized by
virtue of their “alien” holy lands. By
this definition, Hindus “belong” in
India simply by virtue of who they are,
whereas Muslims and Christians, no
matter how long their families may
have lived in India, are always considered to be outsiders.
Hindutva ideology is a fundamental
assumption of the Rashtriya Svayamsevak
Sangh (RSS), a contemporary conservative Hindu organization, and the
organizations that are affiliated with
the RSS, particularly the Vishva Hindu
Parishad, and to a lesser extent the
Bharatiya Janata Party. Hindutva ideals
are also a prominent feature of parties
such as the Shiv Sena, which combine
Hindu and regional identity. For further
information see Christophe Jaffrelot,
The Hindu Nationalist Movement in
India, 1996.