Imagining Incommensurables: The Hindu Rashtra and the Indian Nation

Abstract

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar suggests that the history of the Hindus was one of the emergence of Bhafatiya sanskfitiP through the process of weaving together all diversities, differences and pluralities into a sense of national unity. The only way Hindus and Muslims can coexist without the past casting a shadow is by the Muslims acknowledging Hindu strength and supremacy. In Savarkar’s scheme of things, the more he engaged in formulating the contours of his ideal of Hindutva and giving it a political colour, the greater was the proliferation of the non-selves. The Hindus had to learn a great deal from them about building a commonly shared national life and consolidating the place of faith in their commonly shared lives. If Hinduism is a construct or invention, the, it is not a colonial one, nor a European one, nor even an exclusively Indian one. The Hindu race and the Hindu nation had preserved this ‘centre’ by withstanding foreign invasions and religious persecution.