The last week was an eventful week- it brought into sharp focus, two ideas which Hindutva has been championing. It brought them out in different ways though. Mayawati won UP elections on a plank of sarva-jan samaj instead of just the bahujan samaj. The media which so likes to display its stupidity, they celeberated it, when they loathe the same phenomenon if championed by the BJP but beyond all that, something happened- an important even in Hindu social history. As Arun noted, here was the first time when jati unity has been attempted at the promtpings of the dalits instead of the other way around. Doesnt happen unless the Hindu jatis have begun to understand that ultimately social cohesion alone paves the way forward and not tension and hatred.
Then, it was the anniversary of Pokhran blasts on the same day - May 11th. that was a seminal event in bringing India out of the isolation of outdated socialist ethos into the select group of major world powers. that too was a BJP achievement. media lampooned them for it then too- and today when their darling Congress is embracing the fruits of that through the 'n-deal', they are all with them.
So whether BJP directly achieved all this or not, it is definitely triumph of the Hindutva ideas - the fact that others are willing to take their ideas up shows that their ideas are not backward or irrelvant but infact inevitable.
That said, the Savarkarites (and Golwalkarites) have a lot of thinking to do. Why do they always snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory? Why are they so pessimistic oftentimes? Why do they become channels of violence of a crude kind to manifest? They also need to study their goals again. Hindu nationalism is not about world-domination or even an exclusivist Hindu nation. It is about removing the ills and fending the challenges facing the Hindu society, so that those values which are special to it can be put forward before mankind. That this apparently solid world around us is as much a projection of the waking mind as it is of the dream mind - which are the same- and that this mind itself is the universal mind, that hidden in the recesses of its perception, is that immortal Self, the sole witness, that this witness is one in this manifold appearance, this is the message of Hinduism. Not caste, not exclusion, not superstition, not elaborate ritual.
So if the events of the last week appear like defeat to Savarkarites, the clear message to them is 'go back to school'.
3 comments:
Can you give an example of Savarkarites/Golwalkarites being pessimistic?
I find a lot of emotional outburst in the articles by many hindu-sympathetic writers - for instance often opposing leftist arguments by attacking leftists instead of their arguments; this makes them lose their credibility in the eyes of educated youngsters.
Also, in the works of Swami Vivekananda or Swami Ranganathananda one sees a lot of constructive criticism of the Hindu society. I find this missing in many pro-hindu writers today.
I do agree with the emotional outburst thing. But I dont think I played into that! The pessimism of many Golwalkarites is palpable from the anger which comes from them. When events dont go their way, they get angry and frustrated because fundamentally they are pessimistic and apologetic about what they stand for. They dont even have courage to call their political and cultural organizations 'Hindu' and instead hide behind labels like 'rashtriya' and 'bharatiya'. Take for example the two things I have cited in my piece- nukes and the UP verdict, both signaling a wider acceptance of the Golwalkarite ideas- but they themslves still dont come across happy.
To be sure - I didn't accuse you of playing into emotional outburst. And I agree that there is pessimism, implicit in hindutva-people's demeanor ( I was thinking of explicit utterances indicating pessimism ).
All this said, sangh is the only organization which has managed to unite so many hindus; there is no other organization - not even RKM ( which caters only to highly spiritual people ) - which can serve as a common platform for all hindus. Unfortunately, sangh itself is losing that status nowadays - hindus are shying away from it. I somehow feel we should strengthen sangh from inside rather than criticize it - unless we can create a parallel movement without such defects.
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