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Hindu Rāshtra (Hindi : हिन्दू राष्ट्र, approx. Hindu Nation) is a socio-cultural concept and a political agenda aimed at making India a Hindu nation, culturally and politically. The concept is central to political Hindu nationalism, and is heralded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a nationalist political party, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Advocates of Hindu Rashtra 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.

The adherents of the Hindu Rashtra philosophy claim that the English term nation is only a crude translation of the Sanskrit term rāshtra. Their term rashtra does not mean a European-type nation with one ethnicity, one common history, one language and one religion.

History

Early concept

The concept of Hindu Rashtra is based upon imaginery, legendary and somewhat mythological collection of beliefs about the origins of human civilization, religion and culture in India. It was 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. It was argued that since the word "Hindu" literally is derived from the word "Sindhu," (the Indus river), it applies to any inhabitant of the land of and beyond the river Indus, i.e. India.

The proponents of Hindu Rashtra argued that 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."

Partition of India

See Also: Partition of India

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the partition of India to create an Islamic nation Pakistan gave "Hindu Rashtra" a more political meaning: it became the heading of an agenda to preserve the Hindu majority in India, politically and culturally.

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 Indian freedom struggle and a man they blame for conceding 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.

During the partition, 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. The advocates of Hindu Rashtra argue that while the Muslims who left India 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.

Modern times

To modern advocates and Hindu nationalists, the "Hindu Rashtra" is here to defend: Assortement of Hindus make up more than 60% 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 (Cows are sacred for Hindus).

• 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 of India (granting Muslim-majority state of Kashmir a special status which disallows any non-Kashmiri citizen from settling in Kashmir).

• Building a Ram Janmbhoomi Temple ("the birthplace of Rama temple") at the site of the destroyed Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.

• Resurrecting of ancient Hindu temples around India (especially at the holy cities of Mathura and Kashi) which where destroyed by the Muslim invaders and super-imposed by mosques.

• Ban on religious conversions.

• 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.

See also

• Hindu nationalism, Indian nationalism
• Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishva Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party
• Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Praveen Togadia, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Narendra Modi

• Hindutva