Integral humanism (India)

"That which is in the microcosm, that is also in the macrocosm."

"Integral Humanism is the name we have given to the sum total of various features of Bharatiya Sanskriti (...)"

"The Bharatiya Janata Party's social agenda flows from its ideology of Integral Humanism (...)"

"In their official training programme, all activists of the RSS, BJP and related organizations, i.e. millions of people, today, are taught Deendayal Upadhyaya's philosophy of "Integral Humanism", ... now the official party ideology of the BJP."

"The official doctrine of the BJS/BJP is called Integral Humanism.... it is the alpha and omega of ideological training sessions of RSS and BJP workers."

"(...) Integral Humanism is most akin to the Christian-Democratic movement in Europe."

"Integral Humanism shall be the basic philosophy of the Party."

"I believe in Integral Humanism which is the basic philosophy of Bharatiya Janata Party."

"If you would want to honestly criticize the BJP through a book, it would be Upadhyaya’s ‘Integral Humanism’, but even the sheer mention of that book is absent from the immense majority of ‘expert’ publications about the BJP..."

"Against these two arms of atheism, the core counter-insight from the religiously committed side was that “a humanism which denies man’s religious dimension, is not an integral humanism”. Materialism amputates the natural religious dimension from man, and this has to be restored... So, in name, “integral humanism” had a touch of genius. It sounds so innocent and positive, something that nobody can object to. That is why, in spite of being the official ideology of RSS and BJP, in which every member is trained, it is never mentioned in textbooks by “experts” on Hindutva... Out of an unscholarly political activism, these “experts” prefer to push more negatively-sounding terms, of which “Hindu nationalist” is still the kindest. It is unthinkable to read a textbook on the Labour Party without coming across the word “socialism”, yet so noxious is the intellectual climate in both India and India-watching, that it is entirely the done thing to write expert introductions on the RSS-BJP without mentioning its actual ideology. ... Alright, his term “Integral Humanism” was bright, and the best possible secular-sounding approximation to a perfect translation of the Hindu term Dharma... However, rather than being proud of his Hinduism as the source of integral-humanist values, Upadhyaya, like most Sanghi ideologues ever since, was in the business of downplaying and hiding this Hinduism behind secular terms. His “integral humanism” ended up as the equivalent of the secularists’ “idea of India”. He pioneered what was to become “BJP secularism”."

"Modi has an intellectual anchor in his quest. Deendayal Upadhyaya’s philosophy of Integral Humanism could play an important role in creating a framework for a well-functioning market economy which eschews cronyism and other types of wrongdoing while creating wealth. Integral Humanism has a moral dimension which is important in a country reeling from amoral, if not immoral, capitalists."