Daily Times

“Hindutva” is a term, which is much bandied about these days in India’s polity, which means Indian Nationalism and which grew out of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an old voluntary para-military and semi Hindu political organization inspired by German fascism. This term is often confused with “Hinduism” (having purely religious connotations) because they too wear saffron outfits. RSS goons are often made to march streets in the garb of temple priests. On their first launching in the present political environment by the PM, they made speeches telling that India is only for Indians and that no alien from abroad will henceforth be welcome to India, and such aliens already in India will be evicted from India in a phased programme. Thus, ushered a new ideology of Indian Nationalism in the government of BJP headed by PM Modi.

The Indian slogan of its secular character has been subdued to make room for Hindu Nationalism, which in Hindi is the same thing as “Hindutva.” In essence, the Indian Nationalist character is replacing the age-old secular character of India which was built on the enlightened values of the founding fathers of India like Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore, Ambedkar, Patel, Azad, and others.

The old Secular policy is muted which used to be acclaimed all over the world as being a just policy for all people including minorities. Secularism has taken roots in all enlightened states. Even states founded on a religious basis proudly adopt it as their policy at the international level. In this even India is no exception, and declares itself secular when the need arises, but with an obvious twist in favour of the Hindus, which earned enough notoriety when they changed their citizen laws to keep away the Muslims from becoming citizens of India. This was an extension of their bias against Kashmiri Muslims which they had earlier shown by tampering with Article 370 and 35(5) of the Constitution to deprive Kashmiris forever from enjoying their separate status.

When Pakistan emerged on the world map as an independent state, it was considered a unique country because of its heterogeneous cultural, linguistic barrier.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “Hindutva has now become an ideology seeking to establish the hegemony of Hindus within India, which can be termed as Hindu nationalism.” Thus Hindu Nationalism has little to do with the Hindu religion, as every child born to Hindu parents is by birth a Hindu and cannot even adopt any other religion. Hindu nationalism has more to do with social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent, which are also influenced by social reform movements.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was the founding organization of ‘Hindutva’ which was founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar as part of the movement against British rule and in favour of fascists of Germany. Hitler they regarded as their hero. Their state policies were based on violence and Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathu Ram Godsey was also a ring leader of RSS. Narender Modi’s horrible massacre of Muslims was also carried out by RSS goons at the behest of PM Modi when he was Chief Minister of Gujrat.

Recently India’s eminent former minister and Member of Lok Sabha Mr Shashi Tharoor has written a book, ‘Battle of Belonging’ in which he has hotly contested ideas of nationalism, patriotism, and citizenship as expounded by the leaders of Hindutva.

Shashi Tharoor examines the ideas of nationalism, patriotism, citizenship etc. In the course of his study, he explores historical and contemporary ideas of nationalism, patriotism, liberalism, democracy, and humanism, many of which emerged in the West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and quickly spread throughout the world. The author then summarizes India’s liberal constitutionalism, exploring the enlightened values that towering leaders and founders of India invested the nation with. These are contrasted with the narrow-minded, divisive, sectarian-oriented concepts formulated by Hindutva ideologues, and propagated by their followers who are now ruling the country. Today, according to Shashi Tharoor, the battle is between these two opposing ideas of India, in which one idea is the result of thousand years of the political wisdom of the western nations and advocated by the forefathers of India and the other is the idea built within the fore-walls of India, which Modi wants to restrict for the people of India.

Now I turn to Pakistani Nationalism. It has been admitted by all noted historians that Pakistan’s Nationality from its inception was divided between its East and West wings. There was no cohesion in the Bengali Nationalism on one side and other nationalities and ethnicities of West Pakistan. When Pakistan emerged on the world map as an independent state, it was considered a unique country because of its heterogeneous cultural, linguistic barrier and geographical characteristics. Its two territorial parts were separated by more than 1,000 miles and the only common bond was religion. But, the important ingredients of nationalism like a common language, common habitat, common culture, and a common bond of union all were not shared by the Bengalis from their western colleagues. Hence both nationalities could not live together. To add fuel to fire, Urdu was declared as the only national language which Bengalis could not tolerate. It had been the duty of our subsequent leadership to keep together all big and small ethnicities together. Bengalis being larger in number needed equal protection from the national government but they were not given their due share. Besides there was no equitable formula for distribution of economic wealth between the two units. This caused disgruntlement in Bengalis and they were led to disintegrate from the rest of Pakistan in 1971, making a sovereign state Bangladesh of their own.

This inability to hold Pakistan as a single national state could have been avoided if there had been no personal greed of power between the protagonists of both the wings. In a single National state, a few ingredients like common religion, common language, common habitat, common culture, and a common bond of union were very essential to keep it under one flag or Constitution. In our case except religion nothing was common between the wings, separated by 1,000 miles of hostile territory. This was indeed a unique situation which could not work. History shows that under difficult circumstances a bi-or even multi-national states were created. There are many examples of multinational sovereign states which include the Ottoman Empire, British India, Czechoslovakia, the Empire of Japan, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Austria-Hungary etc. Some analysts have described the European Union also very much like a multinational state. It has been reported that there are very few countries which are ethnically homogeneous in all respects.

India has more than 2,000 ethnic groups and over 80,000 subcultures, and every major religion is represented, as are four major language families. Each state and union territory of India has one or more official languages, and the Constitution of India recognizes in particular 22 “scheduled languages”. It also recognizes 212 scheduled tribal groups, which together constitute about 7.5% of the country’s population.

Thus though Pakistan met unique circumstances in 1947, yet the situation could have been amicably resolved through good statesmanship. Since the Quaid was no longer alive to take such a decision and the lesser leadership due to greed and incompetency had not the guts to decide such matters, thus the inevitable had to happen and Eastern wing dissociated from the West Pakistan.

Despite the rough and tough journey new state had to run the Nationalist government of Pakistan under democratic system of elections and has remained intact even after 75 years of its bitter friction on our borders. Faced by six times stronger enemy, our people and our armed forces have kept the country united. India has not been able to take an inch of our land, and we have not withdrawn from our basic demands as against India, and the rights of Muslims living in India. Every of our province is independent and sovereign within their own subjects, and work smoothly with Centre, which is ready to help them with federal funding whenever need arises.

Our only painful development is the growth of religious fanaticism. which is mostly due to poverty, ignorance and bad economy. But it is not easy to overcome this menace unless necessary structural reforms are enforced and education is made universal. But as the economic conditions of the country would improve, this religious intolerance will also be overcome as we show better economic progress.

It does not matter how many ethnic groups inhabit a single society. All that matters is how ruling elites co-opt different ethnic groups into the political structure of the state by empowering them with good decision-making.

The writer is a former member of the Provincial Civil Service, and an author of Moments in Silence.