What is true Hindutva ?

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Dear all , The terms, "Hindu" and "Hindutva" represent an identity that is based not on ethnicity or genealogy or inheritance or geographic origins ; but on the qualities associated with the most natural aspects of Human consciousness.What is Hindutva? Why is it called a Living Idea, guided by the sum total of human wisdom that is not considered to be embodied in one person, or one book, or one period of human history ? .

The term "Hindutva" is derived from the two terms "Hindu Tattva", which literally mean "Hindu Principles". Now the question is, what are Hindu Principles and what comprises the "Hindutva" Outlook ?

To answer this question we would have to begin with the history of the Hindus. The history of the Hindus is the history of a civilization which has developed in its natural state, without interruption, since antiquity. Its age is dated to be between five and nine thousand years ? A surmise based on the nakshatras(star patterns) described in the Mahabharata, Ramayana and other ancient Indian treatises. Hence, Hindu History is a prototype of how human civilization would have looked, if civilization all across the globe had been allowed to develop in its natural state. This is the relevance for us to study Hindu Civilization, Hindu History and Hindu Culture.The evolution of Hindu Civilization can be considered to be natural and continuing as there is no last "Messiah " in the Hindu world view. In fact this is what distinguishes Hindu Civilization from the rest . Once upon a time all of Human civilization was like this? Be it the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Mesoamerican, Chinese, Greco-Roman, pre-Christian German, Scandinavian, Russian, pre-Islamic and pre-Christian African civilization and also pre-Islamic Arab civilization among other civilizations.

But today it is only Hindu civilization that continues uninterrupted till this day, the others having been supplanted by either Christianity or Islam . And this is why today only Hindu culture and Hindutva (Hindu Principles) alone among cultures can be called a Living Idea, guided by the sum total of human wisdom that is not considered to be embodied in one person, or one book, or one period of human history. As is all science too. Hence the term "Living" in the context of Science and of Hindu culture.

Hindutva is the articulation of this idea of continuity of freedom of thought from which emerge the multifarious Hindu Principles. Two instances of Hindu Principles that symbolize the outcome of freedom of thought are the pronouncements made not today, but four thousand years back by unnamed Rishis (Hindu ascetics) that, "This world is one family" (Vasudaiva Kutumbakam) and that "The Universal Reality is the same, but different people can call it by different names" (Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanti). In these two proclamations made in ancient Hindu India, we see the seeds of universal love and freedom of thought, thousands of years before the world was to become the global village of today.

Thus in its true essence, Hindutva is a stridently assertive rational-humanist line of reasoning . And it is this essence of Hindutva that we have kept in mind, while penning this article. Hence, it is in Hindu culture that there is no Papal Bull, no Fatwa, no one is declared an Infidel .

Yes Hindus were out-casted, and when this was done without proper reason of the person being immoral or criminal, out-casting was an unjust act that deserves condemnation. But even then they were only thrown out of the professionalhierarchy of caste, but not out of culture as they could still become Sanyasis (Ascetics, mendicants, hermits) and still remain a part of Hindu society. They were not beheaded, or stoned to death.

It is only among the Hindus no member of another culture is referred to as a Pagan or an Infidel . And again it is only among the Hindus that you have the freedom to pick and chose which God or Goddess to believe in, from the millions of options given ? Or be an Atheistic, Agnostic, Rationalist as I am.

On this point Sri Veer Savarkar as written in his treatise Hindutva, "Some of us are Jains and some Jangamas ; but Jains or Jangamas - we are all Hindus and own a common blood . Some of us are Monists, some, Pantheists ; some Theists and some Atheists. But monotheists or atheists-we are all Hindus ".

Can any Pope or a Mullah write this?

At the level of practice, the Hindutva outlook boils down to upholding righteousness (Sat-guna) and fighting ignoble attitudes (Dur-guna). Taking poetic license, we can describe the practitioners of this outlook as "Heenam Naashaayati iti Hinduhu" (Those who uphold righteousness and fight ignobleness are Hindus).

Sri Savarkar writes on this aspect :

"Hindus have sounded the deepest secrets of thoughts and have soared to the highest altitudes of ecstasy, given birth to a synthesis that sympathises with all aspirants towards truth from the monist to the Atheist . Thus, far from being a narrow nationalistic doctrine, Hindutva is in its true essence, 'a timeless and universal compilation of human wisdom'. Hence it is also called "Sanatana" which means, something that is "forever continuing. After all there is throughout this world so far as man is concerned but a single race, the human race kept alive by one common blood, the human blood. All other talk is at best provisional, a makeshift and only relatively true."

Jai Sri Krishna !Jabalimuni