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Talk:Hindutva

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I think this sentence requires an apologia:

It does not, however, seem possible to realistically assert that this movement evokes significant sympathy in the majority of the Hindu population of the world, as its proponents claim, or to identify it with the Hindu religion itself.

I would rather avoid including such a dubious sentence... I think this could be avoided by improving the final clause of the first sentence, to amend it away from "promoting Hinduism" to something more like "promoting a national identity based on Hinduism", since this is the essential character of Hindutva and the reason why we wouldn't say it can be identified with the Hindu religion itself.

The first clause seems flat-out indefensible to me. I would be interested in seeing some sort of survey, etc... considering that the BJP is controlling the Center right now, I think we can fairly say that Hindutva garners considerable support. Graft 03:58 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Response by the author of the sentence:

The second clause is necessary, to be clear that the article does not intend to insinuate an identification of the two terms. It is also necessitated by the fact that the terms are dangerously close enough to be misidentified.

The BJP does *not* control the center right now, in the naive sense in which that remark may be interpreted. The Union Government of India is ruled by a *coalition* consisting of multiple parties, with atleast 5 of them being major regional (federationist) parties, with the BJP being the major partner. This does not mean that the BJP and its Hindutva policies, by itself, holds an absolute majority among the electorate. Many consituents of the NDA, as the coalition is called, are policy wise directly opposed to the Hindutva plank (including some major dravidian parties, and some so called socialist parties). The approved policy of the Union government is what has come to be called the "common minimum programme", which the other coalition partners can agree with, and which avoids the Hindutva theses (much to the disconcert of the ideological wing of the BJP, the RSS).

It is easy to verify that this is the case by doing a study of the political compromises that the BJP has been forced to make, in many instances induced by some of the constituent NDA parties, and also the distribution of seats in the state legislatures, which, in a federally organised structure like the Indian Polity, reveals significant information.

Hindutva does garner considerable support, strong enough to make the BJP a major political force, but to consider it the majority view in an absolute sense (especially of the worldwide hindu population), does not seem defensible at all.

As for the proposed amendment of the first sentence, it should be more like "promoting Hinduism as the sole basis for the National Identity of India"

There are objections to this as well, since Hinduism as such never advocates the exclusion of "foreign" religions and the like. Neither was this borne out in mainstream Hindu religious practice in India, before the advent of the saffronites.

It is *absolutely* important to emphasise that there is ambiguity in associating the tenets of Hindutva, with what is commonly accepted as the Hindu philosophy, and that, as is the fact, most Hindus (as opposed to those who may be regarded as flaming Marxists for example) regard this as controversial (though they are not necessarily vocal about it).

End of response.

Most Christians would probably regard Mormon beliefs as controversial, but this is no reason for us to highlight the minority position of Mormonism with respect to Christianity at large. The only reason to do otherwise is to demonise the subject, which is not appropriate for a Wikipedia article. Followers of Hindutva consider themselves Hindus and draw inspiration from Hindu ideas, make use of Hindu philosophy in their teaching and organisation, and make that their first loyalty. Though there are unarguably elements of Hindutva that are not rooted in Hindu philosophy, this is no reason to create such a sharp schism. You are attempting to politicize this article (and others) by making such edits. Please take a moment to consider your intent before editing further. Graft 00:35, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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The article as it stands has several errors.

Bharat is the official name of India in the Constitution. What does that have to do with Hindutva?

Because the Constitution does not define that land to include Pakistan or "Gandhar", and a Hindutva stalwart would not use "India" at all. I'm willing to drop "Bharat", but "Akhand Bharat" is definitely a Hindutva-leaning term.

Which documents claim that the objective of Hindutva is to create a Hindu state in India?

Oh... I have "rationale for a Hindu State" in my living room. Also it comes up periodically in Organizer.

The way it reads now is a parody by its enemies but I think that tone is not appropriate for a wikipedia article.

Others who edited this have definitely been its enemies; I myself have been active in Hindutva circles for 14 years (though I do not subscribe to the ideology) and do not consider myself its enemy simply because so many of my friends and family are supporters and activists.

Where is the connection between Hindutva and astrology? Most people consider...? Who are these "most people"?

There's a definite link to be made here, though it could be done better than it is in the text - there was the whole tiff about the "saffronisation" of education and Murli Manohar Joshi's efforts to include astrology departments at Indian universities.

Why is Hindutva anti-foreigner? There are Western Hindus who support it and who, in turn, are embraced by Indian Hidutvavadis.

Nationality is not important to Hindutva, as Savarkar defined it and as most of its followers believe - only your acknowledgement and feeling that Bharat is the land of your origin and your culture. Hindutva would not consider NRIs to be "foreign", but it -WOULD- consider, say, white tourists to be foreign. I think this is a minor piece of bigotry that crops up in the less-ideological fringes, though, and isn't a core belief of the movement.

Where is the "official" Hindutva justification for the Staines murder?

There is of course no "official" Hindutva justification, because there is no "official" Hindutva voice. But it was editorialized about in the manner described in Organizer, the RSS mouthpiece. Considering that RSS later condemned the Gujarat violence (while VHP did not) I think this is a telling move on their part.

To prevent an edit war, I think we should hash out these points here before continuing to revert each other's changes... Graft 16:17, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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