Hindu Nationalism

"The causes taken up by the Hindu movement are more at home in the New Left than in right wing parties of the West. Some of these resemble the concerns of the Green Party. The Hindu movement offers a long-standing tradition of environmental protection, economic simplicity, and protection of religious and cultural diversity. There is little in the so-called Hindu right that is shared by the religious or political right-wing in western countries, which reflect military, corporate and missionary concerns. The Hindu movement has much in common with the New Age movement in the West and its seeking of occult and spiritual knowledge, not with the right wing in the West, which rejects these things. Clearly, the western right would never embrace the Hindu movement as its ally."

"The idea of the ‘Hindu right’ is largely a ploy to discredit the Hindu movement as backward and prevent people from really examining it."

"“It is the subtle scheme of political propaganda to describe the Hindu as pro-Fascist. It is a cruel calumny which has been spread in America and other countries. The Hindu Mahasabha stood for Savarkar’s policy of militarization and industrialization. We recognized that Fascism was a supreme menace to what is good and noble in our civilization. Due to Veer Savarkar’s call thousands of young men joined the Army and Navy and Air Force and shed their blood for resisting Nazi tyranny and for real friendship with China and Russia. But as the Hindus had the temerity to ask for National Independence and took the lead in rejecting the Cripps offer, they were maligned and the subtle forces of organized British propaganda were let loose to blackmail the Hindus.”"

"Finally, we should add that the concept of civilization-state has the merit of being more true to India’s real status than the concept of “nationalism”. In the days of the Freedom Movement, it made sense to be a nationalist for it meant not being loyal to foreign rulers. Heirs of that period, such as the Congress Party and the RSS “family”, still go on swearing by this concept. But now it is time for a more nuanced and precise understanding of what India is. Nationalism with its connotation of homogenization cannot do justice to India’s profound pluralism and respect for differences. Depending on how you define “nation”, India has known several divisions into what would be rated as “nation” elsewhere. Of course we can fuss over definitions and maintain that even complex and pluriform India is still a nation-state somehow. But it is more economical and more credible to dispense with this terminology altogether and call India a civilization-state."

"It is sheer dishonesty or naivete to suggest, as is being widely suggested these days, that Hinduism can admit of theocracy. That is a Muslim privilege which no one else can appropriate."

"That same thing which they call fascism when they wrongly attribute it to Hindu Rashtra, is effectively accepted in the case of a Muslim Rashtra, such as Pakistan. I at least have never heard any of them refer to Pakistan as fascist."

"But some media outlets have chosen to craft a false narrative of intrigue by profiling and targeting all of my donors who have names of Hindu origin and accusing them of being “Hindu nationalists.” Today it’s the profiling and targeting of Hindu Americans and ascribing to them motives without any basis. Tomorrow will it be Muslim or Jewish Americans? Japanese, Hispanic or African Americans? I too have been accused of being a “Hindu nationalist.” ... To question my commitment to my country, while not questioning non-Hindu leaders, creates a double standard that can be rooted in only one thing: religious bigotry. I am Hindu and they are not. ... Religious bigotry and attempts to foment fear of Hindus and other minority religions persist. During my 2012 and 2014 elections, my Republican opponent stated publicly that a Hindu should not be allowed to serve in the U.S. Congress and that Hinduism is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. In the 2016 race for Congress, my Republican opponent said repeatedly that a vote for me was a vote for the devil because of my religion. ... Those who are trying to foment anti-Hindu sentiment expose the dark underbelly of religious bigotry in politics and must be called out. To advocate voting for or against someone based on religion, race or gender is simply un-American."

"I spoke once before with this force in me and I said then this movement is not a political movement and that nationalism is not politics but a religion, a creed, a faith. I say it again today, but I put it in another way. I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a religion, a faith; I say that it is the Sanatan Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatan Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatan Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatan Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatan Dharma it would perish. The Sanatan Dharma, that is nationalism. This is the message that I have to speak to you."

"That Hindus — alongside countless Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, agnostics and atheists — support me should not be newsworthy. But some media outlets have chosen to craft a false narrative of intrigue by profiling and targeting all of my donors who have names of Hindu origin and accusing them of being “Hindu nationalists.” Today it’s the profiling and targeting of Hindu Americans and ascribing to them motives without any basis. Tomorrow will it be Muslim or Jewish Americans? Japanese, Hispanic or African Americans? I too have been accused of being a “Hindu nationalist.” My meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s democratically elected leader, have been highlighted as “proof” of this and portrayed as somehow being out of the ordinary or somehow suspect, even though President Obama, Secretary Clinton, President Trump and many of my colleagues in Congress have met with and worked with him. India is one of America’s closest allies in Asia and is a country of growing importance in a critical region of the world."

"As noted in HAF’s prior annual human rights reports, attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh constitute the most serious threat to the Hindu community anywhere in the world. This reality is confirmed in the current report as well. Bangladesh was created after the India-Pakistan War of 1971, that was preceded by the massacre of an estimated two million East Pakistani citizens and the ethnic cleansing of nearly 10 million (mostly Hindus) who fled to India. The Hindu population in Bangladesh has been reduced from about 31% in 1947 to about 9% now."

"HAF concurs with several other human rights organization in expressing serious concern over the Pakistani government's continued complicity in human rights violations against minorities. According to internationally recognized criteria, Pakistan is not a free country today."

"Religious minorities continue to suffer at an alarming rate, with several high-profile attacks on religious communities. Women of minority faiths, particularly Hindus and Christians, endure abductions, rape, and forced conversions, before forced marriages to Muslim men. Draconian blasphemy and apostasy laws are used to harass Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians. Such harassment, including long periods of pre-trial imprisonment, is done in collaboration with local judicial and law enforcement authorities. These and other discriminatory laws have left minorities as second class citizens and vulnerable to attacks by non-state actors."

"The period of 2019-2020 was once again marked by repeated attacks on Hindus and other religious minorities, institutionalized discrimination and legal restrictions, and the expanding influence of Islamist groups, such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefaazat-e-Islam. Although radical Islamist groups have played a major role in the violence and growing intolerance in the country, the Awami League government has also contributed to worsening human rights conditions by failing to protect religious minorities, subverting democratic processes, suppressing civil liberties, and maintaining and enforcing discriminatory laws and policies. Consequently, immediate steps are required by both Bangladesh and the US to improve conditions on the ground and alter the country’s current religious freedom and human rights trajectory."

"In 2013, Hefazat called for the prosecution and execution of “atheist bloggers” as part of its 13-point Islamist agenda. The charter included, in part, “banning women from the work force by ending ‘free mixing’ of the sexes, a harsh new blasphemy law similar to Pakistan’s, and the declaration of the beleaguered Ahmadi sect as non-Muslim...’”"

"Moreover, Kashmiri Pandits, thousands of whom continue to live in decrepit refugee camps, are optimistic about the future, but remain concerned about security and integration if they return to the Kashmir Valley."

"As in previous reports, we once again express serious concern over the Pakistani government's continued failure to protect minorities and its complicity in perpetuating human rights violations. However, we realize that the present government is weak and therefore, unable to institute any real meaningful change without the consent of the military establishment. Nonetheless, HAF calls on the Government of Pakistan to take immediate steps for the protection of religious minorities from violence, rape, kidnapping, and forced conversions."

"A disturbing trend in Pakistan, particularly in Sindh province, is the abduction and forced conversion to Islam of Hindu girls."

"According to a human rights report released jointly on November 7, 2014 by Bangladesh Minority Watch (BDMW), Bangladesh Center for Human Rights and Development (BCHRD), and Global Human Rights Defense (GHRD), 1,699 Hindu temples were demolished over the previous two years (2013 and 2014)"

"For instance, in the period immediately following the 2001 elections, approximately 1,000 Hindu women and girls were raped. ... The systematic kidnapping, rape, and murder of minority women, particularly young Hindu girls, continued in 2011."

"Violence against women is a common weapon used to intimidate and harass minority communities across the world. It has similarly been used in Bangladesh as a means to attack Hindus. For instance, in the period immediately following the 2001 elections, approximately 1,000 Hindu women and girls were raped. ... The systematic kidnapping, rape, and murder of minority women, particularly young Hindu girls, continued in 2010. Rapes and kidnappings of Hindus are often accompanied by forced conversion to Islam... (225)"

"Hindus of Bangladesh continue to be victims of ethnic cleansing waged by Islamic fundamentalists that include daily acts of murder, rape, kidnapping, temple destruction, and physical intimidation."

"According to a human rights report by Bangladeshi rights groups, 706 Hindu girls were forcibly converted to Islam over a two-year period (2013 and 2014). The report also found that there were 292 incidents of rape and gang-rape of minority women and girls over the same time frame."

"In Jammu and Kashmir, the ethnic cleansing of Hindus from the Kashmir Valley is almost complete, and therefore, the attacks against specific Hindu targets are thereby reduced. The Hindus forced from the valley are settled in refugee camps throughout Northern India and the decrepit conditions of these communities remain a tragic abuse of fundamental rights to shelter and dignity. The fate of these nearly 350,000 people is in limbo as the Indian government strives to end the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the complex geopolitical realities therein."

"The gang rape of women and girls, murder, beatings, harassment, kidnappings, attacks on temples, looting of gold and jewelry, and illegal occupation of land constitute the litany of human rights abuses suffered by Hindus, tribal people, and to a lesser extent Christians and Buddhists."

"Over the past decade, the rights of minorities in Malaysia have eroded as the government shifts from its seemingly secular state to one that is rooted in conservative Islam. Religious freedom is not protected and for ethnic Malays, does not exist at all. Three urgent concerns are the lack of freedom of religion, the ongoing destructions of temples, and the threat of arrest of HINDRAF and other human rights activists under the draconian ISA. The Malaysia Supreme Court should abide by Article 11 in the constitution and not force religion upon residents of Malaysia."

"From our survey of events in 2004, we conclude that the direst threat to Hindus is in Bangladesh. They are the only remaining Hindu population of substantial size outside India that is suffering human rights abuses and being rapidly expelled by an Islamist regime. The massive number of documented atrocities in this report and those of the United States Department of State represent a small proportion of continuing attacks on Hindus in that country."

"At the time of Partition in 1947, the Hindu population, in what is now Bangladesh, was about 31%.4 By 1961, Hindus comprised 19% of the population. By 1974, the Hindu population had further reduced to 14%. And in 2002, it was estimated that the Hindu population was only about 9% of the total.5 By comparison, the Muslim population in India has grown from 10% of the total in 1947, to 13.2% in 2001."

"In the case of Pakistan, access to information is more limited. Given the small number of Hindus in Pakistan and their vulnerable minority status, documentation is rendered difficult. This report provides a historical basis for violations against Hindus, clearly manifested by a population of Hindus that continues to contract and has nearly been completely erased. Human rights abuses in Pakistan are of a chronic nature that shows no indication of amelioration."

"Another Islamist organization, Hefazat-e-Islam, is thought to be a front for JeI, and controls many of the country’s madrassas. Hefazat was one of the prominent groups that said it would carry out jihad and use violence if necessary to ensure that Islam remained the state religion in the Constitution."

"The narrative of is persisted with regard to the Delhi violence, despite the overwhelming evidence of the police acting emphatically in favour of one side. A wide swathe of retired police officers has opined that it is impossible for riots to go on beyond a few hours, especially in the capital of India, with a relatively better-equipped and 80,000-strong police force, without police complicity and sanction."

""The riots which shook the National Capital of the country in February 2020 evidently did not take place in a spur of the moment, and the conduct of the protestors who are present in the video footage which has been placed on record by the prosecution visibly portrays that it was a calculated attempt to dislocate the functioning of the Government as well as to disrupt the normal life of the people in the city," said Justice Subramonium Prasad in the order, while denying bail to accused Ibrahim who was arrested last year by Delhi Police for allegedly being part of an anti-CAA protests during which Head Constable Ratan Lal sustained fatal injuries.... "The systematic disconnection and destruction of the CCTV cameras also confirms the existence of a pre-planned and pre-meditated conspiracy to disturb law and order in the city. This is also evident from the fact that innumerable rioters ruthlessly descended with sticks, dandas, bats etc. upon a hopelessly outnumbered cohort of police officials," Justice Prasad said."

"This is when false equivalence fails to recognise not only the unbridled state-backed violent but also its farcical nature. To counter false equivalence and to assert what happened in Delhi was an anti-Muslim pogrom, we do not have to take the morally dubious position of denying that there has been the loss of innocent lives among Hindus as well (after all, what can be more heartbreaking than losing a 15-year old boy – the youngest victim of the violence, Nitin Kumar – who was killed while stepping out to buy food), or that the victims are not capable of brutality. But to remain at the level of a statistical apportioning of grief, or false equivalence is to fundamentally misread the nature of the beast which has succeeded in replacing every critical problem in India with the narrative of a Hindu-Muslim war, and which has produced suffering even among the oppressors."

"It is noteworthy that at the time of eruption of communal riots in the area(s) of northeast Delhi, the applicant(Tahir Hussain) has been in a powerful position and it is prima facie apparent that he used his muscle power and political clout to act as a kingpin in planning, instigating and fanning the flames of the communal conflagration," the court observed."

"There are some events in the history of a people that get etched in the memory like no other. The Delhi Riots and the cycle of fake news, blatant lies, misrepresentations, fear-mongering and carnage that was unleashed against Hindus is one such. CAA was the fulfilling of a foundational promise of the Republic of India. Providing refuge to the persecuted minorities in the Islamic countries of our immediate neighbourhood was a sacred oath that was sworn by the first leaders of our Republic in the immediate years of the partition of our country. It took us decades to fulfill that promise but better late than never. Under normal circumstances, it should have been a cause for celebration, a moment of euphoria for the nation as a whole but the times we live in, while the tears of joy in the faces of the refugees was still evident, the nation could not unite to share in their moment of bliss as Radical Islam reared its ugly head. Even so, it was truly a historic moment and the relevance of it could never be exaggerated. Since December, the entire ecosystem that comprises of Islamists, the Left, India’s traditional cabal of intelligentsia and media not only vilified Hindus, but also shielded the ones who were unleashing violence against the unsuspecting victims. The cycle of carnage started when the government of India decided to ease the process of getting citizenship of India for the persecuted religious minorities of naighbouring Islamic nations."

"The facts here are very clear, but rest assured that they will be contested. Like most Hindu-Muslim riots, this riot started as a Muslim pogrom on Hindus, with some spectacular killings of Hindu policemen, but then Hindus started striking back, and ultimately the Muslim death toll surpassed the Hindu one. Similar to Gujarat 2002, which started with a Muslim pogrom of 59 Hindu women and children in the women's wagon of a train returning from Ayodhya, locked in and burned to death. Then the Hindus retaliated, and it ended with some 300 Hindus and 800 Muslims killed. In international reporting, the all-explaining opening move is scrupulously left out, as if you have WW2 start on 6 June 1944 with the Allied "aggression” on Europe and highlight the higher death toll on the German compared to the Anglo-American side. Major media have been caught in the act of fabricating fake news, e.g. the Wall Street Journal brought an interview with policeman Ankit Sharma's brother, who described how a (Muslim) mob had stabbed his brother to death. In the published version, the WSJ inserted that this mob was shouting a Hindu battle-cry to shift the blame to the Hindus to save their narrative that the Hindus were committing a pogrom. Fortunately, the brother and other witnesses publicly denied this and pointed out the WSJ's manipulation. Scroll.in and other papers published a photograph of a Muslim mob on the attack, easily recognizable by their clothes, and captioned that this was a “Hindu mob". When this was exposed, Scroll removed the photograph, i e. the evidence, but maintained its mendacious narrative. Same manipulation in Wikipedia, which suppressed corrections; or how blatantly fake news was quickly turned into the received wisdom."

"There could not be a more grisly method, even when it involves no violence, to cover up ghastly crimes committed by a people than to indulge in the fallacy of false equivalence. In this fallacy, two incomparable things are compared and declared to be equal because there are always two sides to the story. What is going on in the aftermath of the worst in Delhi since 1984, in which 34 Muslims and 15 Hindus have died, is precisely this fallacy. Thus, here, both Hindus and Muslims are at fault for the violence; hence the refusal to call it a or state-backed despite all the evidence. completely obscures the root causes of a problem. It instead focuses on the immediate and the superficial, and is employed by well-intentioned observers as well as supporters when on the defensive. Thus, six years of relentless hate-mongering against Muslims is seen to be of no consequence in creating an absolutely inflammable social sphere."

"Anti-CAA, anti-NRC, anti- NPR protests eventually became a protest against all other religions of the country, anti-police, anti-government and anti-India."

"To place the responsibility of violence on the illiterate, poor and unemployed mobs is to completely miss the pathologies amongst us, the privileged and the powerful, which are the greatest enablers of violence."

"Hindutva claims to represent indigenous Indian thought opposed to western interpretations of Indian religion, traditions and culture. The claim is that colonial scholarship used its understanding of Indian culture for political purposes to justify colonialism. Yet Hindutva is doing precisely the same by reformulating Hinduism along the lines suggested by colonial interpretations in order to facilitate its use in political mobilization. It uses colonial constructions of the Indian past such as the theories of James Mill and Max Mueller to further its programme of political control. The exploitation of history becomes a significant dimension of its attempt to appropriate the understanding of the past."

"Hinduism is the name for the Indian territorial form of worldwide Sanatanism (call it Paganism in English). The ideology of Hindutva should therefore be a Universal ideology:…[it] should spearhead a worldwide revival, rejuvenation and resurgence of spiritualism, and of all the religions and cultures which existed all over the world before the advent of imperialist ideologies…."

"Pre-modern Hinduism had its warts—big and small—as do all religions, but its subtleties were richer than what is now being thrust on its believers. Hindutva is in many ways the antithesis of Hinduism, and aims to create a society that is narrow, bigoted and inward looking, in which the co-existence with those that differ, such as the minority communities of various kinds, is becoming increasingly impossible, as demonstrated by the frequency of communal riots."

"In the fascist Hindutva imagination, the Indian Muslims are continuously reviled as Pakistani "fifth columnists," as "enemies of the nation" and so on, and their patriotism is said to be suspect. The Muslim as the menacing "other" occupies a central place in Hindutva discourse, and this has been used to legitimize large-scale anti-Muslim violence."

"A Hindu marrying a Hindu may lose his caste, but not his Hindutva."

"“the word Hindutva is being used as a term of abuse […] it is used mostly in pejorative terms […] the debate appears no longer confined to the cloistered world of priests, or even the self-serving one of politics, it has expanded into a challenge to Hindu civilisation […] the wider attack on Indian civilisation that this pejorative use of the word Hindu represents. It bothers me that I went to school and college in this country without any idea of the enormous contribution of Hindu civilisation to the history of the world. It bothers me that even today our children, whether they go to state schools or expensive private ones, come out without any knowledge of their own culture or civilisation […] You cannot be proud of a heritage you know nothing about, and in the name of secularism, we have spent 50 years in total denial of the Hindu roots of this civilisation. We have done nothing to change a colonial system of mass education founded on the principle that Indian civilisation had nothing to offer […] our contempt for our culture and civilisation […] evidence of a country that continues to be colonised to the core? Our contempt for who we are gets picked up these days by the Western press […] racism [is] equated with Hindu Nationalism. For countries that gave us slavery and apartheid that really is rich, but who can blame them when we think so badly of ourselves. As for me I would like to state clearly that I believe that the Indic religions have made much less trouble for the world than the Semitic ones and that Hindu civilisation is something I am very proud of. If that is evidence of my being ‘communal’, then, so my inner voice tells me, so be it.”"

"On the Indian front, [the Hindutva movement] should spearhead the revival, rejuvenation and resurgence of Hinduism, which includes not only religious, spiritual and cultural practices springing from Vedic or Sanskritic sources, but from all other Indian sources independently of these: the practices of the Andaman islanders and the (pre-Christian) Nagas are as Hindu in the territorial sense, and Sanâtana in the spiritual sense, as classical Sanskritic Hinduism. (…) A true Hindutvavadi should feel a pang of pain, and a desire to take positive action, not only when he hears that the percentage of Hindus in the Indian population is falling due to a coordination of various factors, or that Hindus are being discriminated against in almost every respect, but also when he hears that the Andamanese races and languages are becoming extinct; that vast tracts of forests, millions of years old, are being wiped out forever; that ancient and mediaeval Hindu architectural monuments are being vandalised, looted or fatally neglected; that priceless ancient documents are being destroyed or left to rot and decay; that innumerable forms of arts and handicrafts, architectural styles, plant and animal species, musical forms and musical instruments, etc. are becoming extinct; that our sacred rivers and environment are being irreversibly polluted and destroyed…"

"In expounding the ideology of the Hindu movement, it is absolutely necessary to have a correct grasp of the meaning attached to these three terms. From the word " Hindu" has been coined the word "Hinduism " in English. It means the schools or system of Religion the Hindus follow. The second word " Hindutva " is far more comprehensive and refers not only to the religious aspects of the Hindu people as the word " Hinduism " does but comprehend even their cultural, linguistic, social and political aspects as well. It is more or less akin to " Hindu Polity " and its nearly exact translation would be " Hinduness ". The third word " Hindudom " means the Hindu people spoken of collectively. It is a collective name for the Hindu World, just as Islam denotes the Moslem World."

"Hindutva ranked their enemies in order – Muslims, Christians and Communists. It applauded Hitler’s “national” pride and invoked the Nazi model of dealing with minorities. Like Hitler, Hindutva believed in race superiority and dreamt of world dominance. Yesterday it collaborated with the British. Today it flaunts the tricolor it had openly denigrated, pretends to uphold a Constitution it wanted replaced with the Laws of Manu, a misogynist, Brahminical text, and is busy selling every available public asset to the nearest foreign or Indian crony. Without stating it in words, their murder of Gandhi in 1948 added a new enemy to the list – Hindus who stood against the project of Hindutva."

"Just as in the 1930s, [...] contemporary world capitalism too has reached a dead-end and cannot continue as before. [...] The ruling formation in India, however, is totally oblivious of the world conjuncture. The dead-end of neo-liberalism, which is visible to even bourgeois thinkers in the metropolis, is invisible to our Hindutva brigade."

"Central to Hindutva as a mass phenomenon (or for that matter to Fascism) is the development of a powerful and extendable enemy image through appropriating stray elements from past prejudices, combining them with new ones skillfully dressed up as old verities, and broadcasting the resultant compound through the most up-to-date media techniques. The Muslim here becomes the near-exact equivalent of the Jew. … Racist attitudes, finally, are neatly encapsulated in the very recent coinage of the formula 'Babar ki aulad'. Alleged descent from Babar is sufficient to damn, no overt misdeed is really required… just as once in fanatical Christian circles all Jews stood condemned because of what their ancestors had supposedly done at the time of the crucifixion of Christ."

"The Mahatma was a harmonizer of communities and people. Inclusion and not separation was his way. Hindutva disagreed with Gandhi on his interpretation of Hinduism. The agendas of Hindutva though strong on the issues of self-identity and self-definition, have tended to be separatist. The Vaishnava that he was, Gandhi believed in treating "the suffering of others as his own." From such a point of view, it seems clear that the intolerance of Hindutva will not permit the people of India to build a compassionate and just social order."