RSS Notion of Hindu Nationalism

Who are we? This is the question that RSS Sarsangchalak Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar posed in 1939, and then proceeded to answer it himself. We are Hindus. Our nation is the Hindu Nation. What people now (1939) call “Indian State” is actually a “Hindu State”. We Hindus have been living here in Hindusthan, the land of Hindus, for the past 10,000 years. We are not foreigners in this country.

Golwalkar contests European thinking that there was but one original race, the Aryan race, living somewhere near the Arctic ocean or the Caspian sea, who migrated and peopled Europe, Persia, and Hindusthan; and that the European stock went on progressing whilst the Hindu branch mixed with the aborigines, lost its purity and became degenerate.

On the contrary he puts forth a counter view point which is that the Aryan (noble) race of Hindusthan did not migrate from the Arctic region but that the Arctic region was not where it is today; Arctic was, thousands of years ago, in that part of the world which is at present called Bihar and Orrisa; and that the Arctic moved to its present position, the North Pole.

So people of the Hindusthan did not leave the Arctic, but that the Arctic zone left them. The Arctic home mentioned in the Vedas, is the present-day Bihar and Orrisa not the present-day North Pole. Hindus are indigenous children of the soil and are the natural masters of Hindusthan. Here they compiled the Vedas; here they reasoned out the philosophy of the Absolute. The national spirit of the Hindus received a setback when Buddhism put stress on the individual at the cost of the corporate nation; when the minds of Hindu masses lost their hold on their ancestral faith. The second time when the Hindu nation experienced a blow was when Muslims first landed in Hindusthan.

“Ever since that evil day, when Muslims first landed in Hindusthan, right up to the present moment the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting as to shake off the despoilers. It is the fortune of war, the tide turns now to this side, now to that, but the war goes on and has not been decided yet. Nor is there any fear of its being decided to our detriment. The Race Spirit has been awakening. The world has to see the might of the regenerated Hindu Nation strike down the enemy’s hosts with its mighty arm (pp.51-52 We or Our Nationhood Defined M. S. Golwalkar)".

According to Golwalkar the history of Hindusthan is that the Hindu Nation flourished in Hindusthan for 10,000 years till 1199 (when Muslims invaded it); and then the Hindu Nation got engaged in long unflinching war that continued for 1000 years. Hindus claim to be a free nation, engaged in fighting the forces of destruction. They are determined to carry on the struggle to the bitter end. That Muslims ruled India for over 800 years and then the British for 200 years, does not constitute history of Hindusthan. On the contrary, the history of Hindusthan comprises of the resistance offered by the emperors of Vijaynagar, Rana Pratap of Chitor, Shivaji Bhonsle of Pune, and Sikhs headed by Gurus, etc.

Golwalkar rejects the term “Indian Nationalism” as outlandish because it preached, under the banner of Indian National Congress set up by the British civil servants such as A.O. Hume, William Wedderburn and Henry Cotton, that all the people resident in India were together a nation; this nation comprised of invaders and foes like Muslims and Christians; Hindus having been at war with them for the past millennium.

Golwalkar accuses Indian National Congress of having denationalized Hindus by providing a safety valve to seething Hindu Nationalism; and by trying to displace it with the outlandish concept of Indian Nationalism.

Golwalkar highlights 5 factors fused into one whole which is required for a mass of people to be entitled to call a “nation”: country; race; religion; culture; and language. For a mass of people to live the life of a “nation”, it is essential that it should possess a territory of its own, delimited as far as possible by natural boundaries. The mass of people inhabiting a certain territory should be a race, i.e., a population with common origin. Even if there be people of foreign origin, they must have become assimilated into the body of the mother race and inextricably fused into it. Religion is the very soul of the race which provides for it the foundation of the philosophy of life. Culture is a direct result of religion. Language gives the mass of people the unity it requires. Language of a race reflects its culture, its religion, its history, and its traditions. It manifests itself as the national web of life. Every word of it, every turn of expression, depicts the national life of the race. Loss of language means loss of national sentiment. One of the best evidences of an enslaved people is their adoption of the language of their conquerors. Now, so far as the nation of Hindus be concerned, “we” have a mother language called Sanskrit and all the various languages spoken in different regions of Hindusthan are its offshoots; and Hindi is the most commonly used language of Hindus. Hindi and Sanskrit should therefore be the medium that gives expression to the culture of Hindusthan. Culture is the cumulative effect of age-long customs, traditions, historical and other conditions and most particularly of religious beliefs and their attendant philosophy on the social mind, creating a particular race spirit. Culture forms a part of the all absorbing religion, nay religion becomes culture.

With Hindus, every action in life, individual, social, or political, is a command of religion. Hindus make war or peace, engage in arts and crafts, amass wealth and give it away, all in accordance with religious injunctions.

In Hindusthan, religion forms the only incentive to all action, worldly and spiritual; it is difficult to distinguish these two factors. They become one. Religion is the basis of culture; culture is the result of religion. Religion, culture, and language are far more significant than the remaining two factors (country and race) essential for nationhood.

Race and territory alone cannot determine a nation. Take for instance the case of Gandhar (Kandahar). It was a Hindu nation. When it embraced Buddhism, the hold of religion weakened on the masses. And with the advent of Muslims they lost Hindu culture and language. Though the race and country (Afghans and Afghanistan) are there, but it is no longer the same old Hindu nation. Same happened to Baluchistan. Other examples are the Hebrew Palestine become Arab; and the Parsi nation lost their language and culture when they migrated from Persia.

Every nation has a minority and a majority. The race, religion, and language of the majority is the race, religion, and language of the nation. So majority is the nation; while as the minority is a non-entity.

In order to keep up the purity of the race and culture of the nation, the Hindusthan should learn a lesson from Germany. Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic race – the Jews. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for race and culture, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole.

In Hindusthan Muslims and Christians are unnatural foreigners living as minorities. They are degenerate and a contaminating influence. They deserve to be dealt the same way, according to Golwalkar, as Germany dealt with the Jews. Nation (of the majority) should be supreme in the State and its component parts, country, race, religion, culture and language, should be respected and where possible followed by all the foreign races living in the state as minorities.

The minorities (especially Christian and Muslim) in Hindusthan, if they want to live in peace here, should respect, revere, and glorify everything that is Hindu, i.e., the Hindu country as motherland to be saluted and worshipped as a goddess; Hindu race, as the most noble stock on earth; Hindu religion as the most superior religion in the world because it prescribes division of the society into four vernas (castes) and four ashrams (stages of life); Hindu culture which includes reverence to gods, and goddesses (including motherland goddess), worship of the idols, reverence to the cow and its worship (including, perhaps, drinking its urine); and finally reverence to Hindu languages Sanskrit and Hindi.

If the minorities (Muslims and Christians particularly but perhaps also Adivasis, Dalits, Sikhs, Parsis, etc.) don’t fall in line, they fall out of the pale of national life and the only alternative for them is to quit the country or “be wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment – not even citizen’s rights” because they happen to be Mleccha (foreigners, barbarians, impure) who fall outside the four vernas of Hindu society to be treated as Germany treated Jews.