The history of the Hindutva movement can be traced back to the formation of the Calcutta Dharma Sabha in 1831. Though the origin of Hindutva proper can be traced to Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), its philosophy was developed by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, V.D. Savarkar, and K. B. Hedgewar. The culmination of this philosophy was the formulation of RSS in 1925 at Nagpur. The vision of the RSS is to establish a Hindu Rashtra based on Hindutva, which is one culture, one religion, and one language. This is based on the view that the authentic idea of India must be a Hindu one.
According to Savarkar, the concept of Hindu Rashtra rests on three pillars: geographical unity, racial features, and shared culture. He went on to elaborate on the criterion for who is a Hindu. Are all those who regard this land (India) as their fatherland and the holy land the only ones who are Hindus and thereby the people to whom this land belongs? This led to the automatic interpretation that the Christians and the Muslims, whose holy places are in Jerusalem and Mecca, are not on par with the Hindus who own this country. In the development of modern politicized Hinduism or Hinduized politics, the Hindu Mahasabha played a great role. Savarkar emphatically declared that every political question in India is either religious or cultural, and every religious or cultural question is political.
M. S. Golwalakar took V. D. Savarkar’s Hindutva ideology as the starting point and elaborated the idea of ‘cultural nationalism. For him, Hindu culture means Hindu sanskriti. He rejected the elements of territorial nationalism of Savarkar and presented an evident cultural nationalism. According to Golwalkar, the Hindus were enlightened Aryans. For him, the non-Aryans are mlechas. Muslims, Christians, and communists are not true sons of the soil. They are dangerous to Hindu Rashtra because they convert the sons of the soil and make them turn their back on all that is indigenous. He called them guests, traitors, invaders, aggressors, enemies, etc. He thus challenged that the foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold Hindu religion in reverence, must entertain only the idea of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race. If not, they would have to stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, not deserve privileges, and would not claim any preferential treatment, including citizen’s rights. The ruling BJP government has intensified this ideology. India needs a secular government that respects and protects all religions, cultures, and races.
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