Essentials of Hindutva

Essentials of Hindutva[1][2] is an ideological epigraph written by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922.[3][4] It was published in 1923. It was retitled Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? (with the second phrase as a subtitle) when reprinted in 1928. Savarkar's epigraph forms part of the canon of works published during British rule that later influenced post-independence contemporary Hindu nationalism.[5]

Essentials of Hindutva
Coverpage of the Book's Second Edition.
AuthorVinayak Damodar Savarkar
CountryIndia
PublisherHindi Sahitya Sadan
Publication date
1923
ISBN9-788-188-38825-7
OCLC0670049905

Themes

Savarkar used the term "Hindutva" (Sanskrit -tva, neuter abstract suffix) to describe "Hinduness" or the "quality of being a Hindu".[6] Savarkar regarded Hinduism as an ethnic, cultural and political identity. Hindus, according to Savarkar, are those who consider India to be the land in which their ancestors lived, as well as the land in which their religion originated: "one for whom India is both Fatherland and Holyland".[7]

Sarvakar includes all Indian religions in the term "Hinduism" and outlines his vision of a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu Nation) as "Akhand Bharat" (Undivided India), stretching across the entire Indian subcontinent.

"We Hindus are bound together not only by the tie of the love we bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through our veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affections warm, but also by the tie of the common homage we pay to our great civilization - our Hindu culture" Fifth Edition 1969 p91 (Internet Archive PDF p108)

Savarkar wrote the book in prison, having been sentenced for the assassination of a British official in India Office in London.[8]

References
  1. Chaturvedi, Hindutva and Violence (2022), pp. 16–17.
  2. Basu, The Rhetoric of Hindu India (2017), p. 23.
  3. Sweetman, W.; Malik, A. (2016). Hinduism in India: Modern and Contemporary Movements. Hinduism in India. SAGE Publishing. p. 109. ISBN 978-93-5150-231-9.
  4. Ross, M.H. (2012). Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies: Contestation and Symbolic Landscapes. Book collections on Project MUSE. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-8122-0350-9.
  5. Peter Lyon (2008), Conflict between India and Pakistan: an encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, p. 75, ISBN 978-1-57607-712-2
  6. Women, States, and Nationalism. Routledge. pp. 104–. ISBN 978-0-203-37368-2. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  7. Elst, Koenraad (5 July 2001). Decolonizing the Hindu Mind: Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism. Rupa & Company. p. 140. ISBN 9788171675197 – via Google Books. It was during his stay in Ratnagiri prison, in 1922, that he wrote his influential book Hindutva ("Hindu-ness"). The text was smuggled out and published under a pseudonym. The highlight of the book was his definition of the term Hindu: "one for whom India is both Fatherland and Holyland".
  8. Shōgimen, Takashi; Nederman, Cary J. (2009), Western political thought in dialogue with Asia, Lexington Books, p. 190, ISBN 978-0-7391-2378-2

Bibliography
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