Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:33, 9 October 2005

You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|October 2005|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.

Hindu Rashtra is to some what Bharat already is or what Bharat should be: a Hindu nation, culturally or politically. It is a socio-cultural concept and/or a political agenda. It is however a major cornerstone of Hindutva, heralded by the BJP, a Hindu nationalist political party, the VHP, the World Hindu Council and the RSS, the Godfather, grass-roots organization of Hindu Nationalism. It is the ideal, reality or goal of Hindutva, literally "Hinduness."

It is based upon historical, legendary and somewhat mythological collection of beliefs about the origins of human civilization, religion and culture in Bharat. It is based upon the reality, conceived way back in the early 20th century, that the vast majority of the population of the country is Hindu, an identity merging diverse religious communities and cultures including Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists, as well as the more distinguished Muslim and Christian communities. Thus Bharat is a natural "Hindu Rashtra," or Hindu nation. The word "Hindu" literally is derived from the word "Sindhu," Persian for the Indus river. It applies to any inhabitant of the land of and beyond the river Indus, thus Bharat. Hinduism is the ancient system of religious philosophy and social traditions developed in Bharat by a combination of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian belief systems and philosophies. It has been continually added to by migrant races, and has spawned famous reform movements like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, all of whom were classified as separate religions only with the advent of the British census system and the colonial policy of "divide and rule." Collectively today, there are more than 900 million Hindus in Bharat, and over 1 billion worldwide.

Advocates contend that Hinduism's strong legacy of tolerance for diverse philosophies and reform movements, and the root idea of universal human brotherhood is the reason for the country's vibrant fabric of diversity, and thus every person, community and institution is perenially Hindu.

But the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the partition of the country to create a Muslim Pakistan gave "Hindu Rashtra" a more political meaning: it became the heading of an agenda to preserve the Hindu majority in Bharat, politically and culturally, even at the expense of other minorities.

To some hardline Hindu leaders like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, "Hindu Rashtra" meant a nation free of the Muslim and Christian peoples; some extend the vision to include the heavily Muslim and separate Pakistan and Bangladesh. Such extremists were known to praise Adolf Hitler, condone genocide and loath Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the National Freedom Movement and a man they blame for conceeding a Pakistan to extremist Muslims. Savarkar in fact is widely considered to be behind Gandhi's murder in 1948, and his group, the Hindu Mahasabha is blamed with masterminding the murder of thousands of Muslims in the partition riots.

To modern advocates and Hindu nationalists, the "Hindu Rashtra" is here to defend: Hindus make up more than 80% of Bharat's population, and thus naturally dominate and define the country's cultural, economic and political life. But the secular Congress Party and Leftist politicians are accused of mollycoddling the sizeable Muslim minority for votes, and ignoring the coercion of poor Hindus to convert to Islam and Christianity, the influx of illegal Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, separatist movements and the waves of Islamic terrorism in Kashmir that has struck many major cities as well.

The Agenda of the Hindu Rashtra: banning of cow slaughter (possibly extending to ban beef and pork all together), establishing a uniform civil code for all citizens (Muslims and Christians enjoy a separate civil justice code based upon their religious values), abrogating Article 357 of the Constitution (granting Muslim-majority state of Kashmir a special status which disallows any non-Kashmiri citizen from settling in Kashmir), building a Ram Janmbhoomi Temple at the site of the destroyed Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, clearing the other two most holy Hindu temples in Mathura and Kashi of super-imposed mosques, and resurrecting Hindu temples destroyed by Muslim invaders. It also calls for a ban on religious conversions, and an aggressive war on Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic terrorism. This call may extend to a full war with Pakistan based on the Kashmir territorial dispute and the Islamic terrorism being supported by Pakistan in Kashmir and other major parts of the country.

While even the most hardline Hindu Rashtra advocates deny any call to strip Muslims of rights and freedoms, they routinely question the patriotism of the Muslim communities in Bharat, and the fact that many VHP, BJP and RSS activists have formerly been involved in communal violence and their leaders have publicly supported such terrible acts and made anti-Muslim remarks, leaves no love lost between the supporters and detractors of Hindu Rashtra, which to Muslims simply means a Hitlerish Bharat where they are the Jews, the victimized minority, lambs to the slaughter of a powerful, radicalized majority.

Such antagonism is the real legacy of the partition of Bharat: Over 10 million Hindus and Sikhs were forced to leave their ancestral homes in what became Pakistan and Bangladesh almost overnight; more than 1 million were killed in the violence. And while the Muslims who left Bharat also suffered from violent attacks, they at least obtained a new state all to themselves (non-Muslims make up less than 4% of all Pakistanis; Hindus are less than 2% of that figure), while the Hindus simply lost a chunk of their ancestral Motherland in the batting of an eyelid. These 10 million Hindus and Sikhs had lived only months ago in complete peace with their Muslim neighbors.

The Muslims who didn't leave their homes for Pakistan, are the modern Muslims of Bharat. Their homes were in Bharat so unlike many of their neighbors, they did not wish to leave. And although the Constitution and Government of Bharat erected a secular, free Republic with equal rights for all its citizens, the deep vibe of suspicion, rage and insecurity which ran through the hearts and minds of millions of Hindus left traumatized by partition made the Muslims of Bharat their eternal guinea pigs , although the Muslim citizens loyally supported, and many fought for their country against Pakistan in the wars of 1948, 1965 and 1971. A vast majority of the Muslim population thrives economically and socially upon the freedom of the country's life and culture, and is a prominent part of its cultural fabric, a thin veil of suspicion pervades the relations of the Hindus and Muslims, giving fuel to the proponents of Hindu Rashtra.

• Hindutva