“The concept of ‘cultural nationalism’ enjoins upon the adherents of different faiths in India to respect, and take pride in, the common unifying culture of our ancient land while celebrating its many diversities; not to have extra-territorial loyalty; not to denigrate other faiths as false or inferior, but rather to learn from the best that each faith has to offer; not to misuse freedom of religion to expand one’s religious population through fraudulent conversions; and not to try to gain political dominance for the purpose of advocating separatism or establishing theocracy. It means nothing more, nothing less.”

“My reason for referring to Samuel Huntington’s book Who Are We? is simply to suggest that all of us in India should ask ourselves the same question: ‘Who Are We?’ Unlike the United States, ours is an ancient nation with a history that begins with the dawn of human civilisation. Again, unlike in the case of America, an overwhelming majority of our population has been living in India for centuries. Change of the religious identity of a section of the population cannot change their national identity. India has no history of exterminating any native population either. Therefore, if a common, unifying sense of ‘Americanness’ can be forged in 400 years, certainly there is a case for insisting that a far more robust and intrinsically more humanistic sense of ‘Indianness’ has unified India’s diverse religious, ethnic, linguistic and caste groups for thousands of years. Since the word ‘Indian’ itself is of recent vintage, this unifying principle is Hindu-ness or Hindutva, the name given to a broad-minded, tolerant, pluralistic and inclusive tradition. If India is de-Hinduised, there will be no India left anymore.”

(Read full excerpt on the subject from Shri Advani’s autobiography)

Hindutva is India’s answer to the question:

‘WHO ARE WE?’

The debate on the two issues, namely, minoritysm and pseudo-secularism, cannot be complete or effective without an elucidation of the concept of Hindutva. It is not the ideology of a particular political party simply because the BJP is the only national party to have never shied away from espousing it.

Throughout my political life, I have emphasised that Hindutva stands for cultural nationalism, and does not denote religious or theocratic nationalism. The term ‘Hindu’ in Hindutva has a cultural, and not a religious connotation. It does not lend itself to a narrow ‘for-Hindus-only’ notion of Indian nationhood, which stems essentially from an underlying cultural oneness. Some of us call this sense of nationhood, Hindutva; Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya called it Bharatiyata. Some others may call it Indianness. I see no difference between the three terms; they are interchangeable. I, therefore, feel sad when Hindutva is misrepresented and maligned, mostly by Marxist Hindus who are ashamed of calling themselves Hindu.

A lot of confusion surrounding the term was, however, cleared when the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment on 11 December 1995, observed:

…no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms Hindu, Hindutva and Hinduism; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage. It is also indicated that the term Hindutva is related more to the way of life of the people in the subcontinent.

It is difficult to appreciate how in the face of these (earlier Supreme Court) decisions the term Hindutva or Hinduism per se, in the abstract, can be assumed to mean and be equated with narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry.

In 2004, I read Samuel Huntington’s new book Who Are We?  which deals with the important topic of the national identity of the United States of America against the backdrop of large-sale immigration to the US. The central question that he examines is: What distinguishes America in the age of globalisation, in a shrinking world where international frontiers mean less and less? He answers it by saying that it is a strong sense of ‘national consciousness’, which he believes is critical to America’s success or failure—indeed, to its very survival as a single nation in the future.

Huntington argues that America’s universalism, because of which it accepts immigrants from all over the world, should not become a pretext for denying or debilitating its distinctive national identity. According to him, this distinctiveness is based on ‘culture’, which he defines as the ‘American Creed’, an Anglocentric, Protestant-influenced ideology, which safeguards America’s core values such as liberty, sense of community, respect for the individual, entrepreneurship, work ethic, and the gospel of success. To expect, therefore, that recent immigrants should ‘Americanise’ themselves, while cherishing their own identities, is neither unreasonable nor unjust, Huntington argues.

It is not for me to endorse all that the renowned American scholar says about the national identity of the United States. My reason for referring to his book is simply to suggest that all of us in India should ask ourselves the same question: ‘Who Are We?’ Unlike the United States, ours is an ancient nation with a history that begins with the dawn of human civilisation. Again, unlike in the case of America, an overwhelming majority of our population has been living in India for centuries. Change of the religious identity of a section of the population cannot change their national identity. India has no history of exterminating any native population either. Therefore, if a common, unifying sense of ‘Americanness’ can be forged in 400 years, certainly there is a case for insisting that a far more robust and intrinsically more humanistic sense of ‘Indianness’ has unified India’s diverse religious, ethnic, linguistic and caste groups for thousands of years. Since the word ‘Indian’ itself is of recent vintage, this unifying principle is Hindu-ness or Hindutva, the name given to a broad-minded, tolerant, pluralistic and inclusive tradition. If India is de-Hinduised, there will be no India left anymore.

I have found a very lucid exposition of what lends unity to India’s diversity in Tagore’s essay on ‘Nationalism’. He writes: ‘I draw your attention to the difficulties India has had to encounter and her struggle to overcome them. Her problem was the problem of the world in miniature. India was too vast in its area and too diverse in its races. It is many countries packed into one geographic receptacle. It is just the opposite of what Europe truly is; namely, one country made into many. Thus, Europe in its culture and growth has had the advantage of the strength of the many as well as the strength of the one. India, on the contrary, being naturally many, has all along suffered from the looseness of its diversity and the feebleness of its unity. A true unity is like a round globe; it rolls on, carrying its burden easily. But diversity is a many-cornered thing which has to be dragged and pushed with all force. Be it said to the credit of India that this diversity was not her own creation; she has had to accept it as a fact from the beginning of her history. In America and Australia, Europe has simplified her problem by almost exterminating the original population…. But India has tolerated difference of races from the first, and that spirit of toleration has acted all through her history.… For India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their own differences. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet as close as the circumstances permitted. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism.’ (emphasis added.)

Even Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, despite his rather prejudiced view of the Jana Sangh, came round to endorsing the essential features of ‘cultural nationalism’ towards the end of his life. In a remarkable speech he delivered in October 1961 at an AICC session held in Madurai, he identified the main factor that had united India over millennia in these words: ‘India has for ages past, been a country of pilgrimages. All over the country you find these ancient places, from Badrinath, Kedarnath and Amarnath, high up in the snowy Himalayas down to Kanyakumari in the south. What has drawn our people from the south to the north and from the north to the south in these great pilgrimages? It is the feeling of one country and one culture and this feeling has bound us together. Our ancient books have said that the land of Bharat is the land stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the southern seas. This conception of Bharat as one great land which the people considered a holy land has come down the ages and has joined us together, even though we have had different political kingdoms and even though we may speak different languages. This silken bond keeps us together in many ways.’

Nehru has not used the word ‘Hindu’, but his Madurai speech clearly spelt out India’s ancient but constantly self-renewing culture as the ‘silken bond’ that unites our diversities into ‘one country’ and ‘one culture’. Indeed, I am amazed to find that, in spite of professing divergent political ideologies, most of the patriotic-minded thinkers in our country, including some communist leaders, have expressed convergent views on ‘cultural nationalism’.

Let me cite another important remark, this one by Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the principal architect of the Indian Constitution, in support of the concept of ‘cultural nationalism’. In 1956, he, along with a large number of his followers, embraced Buddhism. He did so as a mark of protest against certain ills, most notably the evil practice of untouchability that had crept into the Hindu society. He was being lured by many to convert to Islam or Christianity. Not only did he refuse to do so, but he gave a revealing explanation about why he chose Buddhism. ‘Embracing Islam or Christianity would have meant going away from the cultural soil of India, which I do not wish to do’.

The above quote may give a misleading impression about the place of Islam and Christianity in India. Let me reiterate that I cherish the fact that India is a multi-religious country in which both our Constitution and our age-old culture brook no discrimination on the grounds of faith. Muslims and Christians have the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as others. I greatly admire the weighty contribution that they have made to enrich many facets of our national life. I hold all faiths to be worthy of respect. Let me cite an example here. When I reached Ajmer in Rajasthan during the course of my Bharat Suraksha Yatra in 2006, my party colleagues suggested that I should visit Pushkar, a sacred Hindu shrine by the side of a lake which is believed to have been created by Lord Brahma himself. I readily agreed. But I said I would also like to offer prayers at the Dargah Sharif of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, a revered Sufi saint, in Ajmer.* Although a few eyebrows were raised, I nonetheless visited both the holy places.

** Here is a report about my earlier visit to the Ajmer Dargah in 2000. ‘Home Minister L.K. Advani on Sunday prayed at Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti’s dargah here. The local Muslims were ecstatic and thronged the dargah in huge numbers to watch the spectacle. There was a popular request from the crowd: Give a little speech. Advani readily obliged. He said: “India is a multi-religious country and people belonging to all faiths strive to be good people. That is why every community comes to this dargah. Let us be good human beings first. It does not matter if one believes in Ishwar or Allah.” He said although the twentieth century was identified with the Western world, “if all communities here worked hard unitedly, then the twenty-first century will certainly belong to Bharat.” To this the crowds responded with “Aameen”. (So be it).’ (‘A surprise: Advani prays at Ajmer dargah’; the Times of India; 4 December 2000) Later, when a journalist asked me whether my visit to the dargah was part of a larger image changing exercise, I replied, ‘My perceptions have always been clear. I am saying the same things now what I said twenty-five years ago.’

The concept of ‘cultural nationalism’ enjoins upon the adherents of different faiths in India to respect, and take pride in, the common unifying culture of our ancient land while celebrating its many diversities; not to have extra-territorial loyalty; not to denigrate other faiths as false or inferior, but rather to learn from the best that each faith has to offer; not to misuse freedom of religion to expand one’s religious population through fraudulent conversions; and not to try to gain political dominance for the purpose of advocating separatism or establishing theocracy. It means nothing more, nothing less.