HINDUTVA AND BJP

HINDUTVA AND BJP

Hindutva was an ideology penned by Veer Savarkar in his 1923 pamphlet, Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? It made major references for Hindu Nationalism.

Points of Savarkar’s Hindutva:

n Hindutva is a history. It is the history of the country and Hinduism is part of this history and hence a part of Hinutva.

n The Indian Sub-Content is homeland of the hindus. It is the motherland- matrubhume.

n The nation starts with Aryan and with them that hindutva starts.

n Hindutva is about three main things : race (jati), nation (rashtra), culture (sanskar).

n A major factor of Hindutva is about protecting the rashtra. Protecting it from outside influences and invasions. Savarkar uses a lot of historical evidences where the country deflected attacks.

n He says that any religion that has originated from this land is part of the Rashtra, the Hindutva. (he is referring to Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism).

n He also says the everyone who from this Rashtra is part of this Hindutva nation.

The revival of the ideology of Hindutva can be compared to the revival of Marxism.

BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)

BJP was formed in 1980. It was a break away from the Janta Dal Party. It founding members were Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K Advani. BJP continued as a small national party with a small support ( in the 1984 election it won only 4 seats in Lok Sabha). However in 1990 it adopted the ideology of Hindutva switching over from Gandhian ideology. Simply stated the Party corrupted the ideology of Hindutva and turned into a ideology simplying state as India as a Hindu nation (Saravkar was careful to draw a line between Hindutva and Hindism—that is both of them were different). Most of the members had close ties with RSS, a religious and cultural organization of India.

BJP immediately took up the issue of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The issue was that Babur had abolished a temple and set up a mosque, and that was the place where Ramayan was born.

L.K Advani went on a on a chariot around India. This symbolized a ratyiatra where Lord Ram went around in his Chariot and Advani he himself represented Lord Ram. On his tour he raised this issue and he asked people to send blocks of stone to build the temple once again. This method moblised a lot of people, so much so that Indians from abroad were also sending blocks of stone. Eventually all this came down to the destruction of Babri Masjid and the Mumbai riots. After this BJP became very popular and in came to government in 1999.

In Gujarat BJP used a similar method and enticed Hindus to go and massacre Muslims. The issue used here was that allegedly a group of Muslim had burnt a train coach with RSS members. Modi meshes devolvement and Hindutva very well.

Currently BJP for the last eight years has been only in as the opposition.

It as occassionaly raised the issue of the Ram Setu Bridge. This is a mythical bridge which Ramyan used to go to Sri Lanka and which the government proposes to build a tunnel.