Hindutva Force In Hinduism

840 Words4 Pages
The phenomenon of fundamentalism and the consequent crisis of identity and conflict it generates posed challenges both in terms of understanding and evolving alternatives to counter these communal forces. But the complex form it can assume can be seen in the emergence of Hindutva force or the saffron wave in India and the Islamization attempts in some countries. The unprecedented spread of this reality has threatened the very existence of minorities and the weaker sections and has endangered the very core of nationhood as well as the civil society. The questions that haunt concerned citizens of this society is that why have the forces of Hindu nationalism surged, all of a sudden? What direction is the country and state taking under the overt…show more content…
The dominant discourse of the Hindutva force is to re-establish the past glory, unity and integrity of Hinduism. But the Hinduism understood and practiced by the defenders of Hindutva is not that of the religiosity of the common masses who have lived their Hinduism in relation to believers of other religious traditions. This was the tradition that held the community together and helped the social co-existence. Their religious practices were not utilized as electoral plank, as is being done by the communal forces, but as a unifying force not only at the religious realm but also at the different social domains. Hindutva force is an attempt to enforce the upper caste hegemony and monopoly so as to continue to control the various basic resources of life and to maintain their dominance in general and Brahmanical caste structure in particular. Hindutva seeks to radically reshape society by violent means by overthrowing secularism. Its Hindu-supremacy ideology challenges India’s quintessential character as a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious society to which pluralism is central. It wants to militarize Indian…show more content…
But one thing is very pertinent that these developments in national scene and the increasing publicity of RSS in the aftermath of joining politics could not led it to go back to the Golwalkar era of quiet expansion; rather Balasaheb Deoras opted for a soft version, of accommodation and pragmatism, which had been experimenting post-1973 phase. Thus result was the birth of Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, synthesizing ideology and realpolitik. Under this light BJP, offshoot of erstwhile BJS changed its stand due to compulsion of power politics and this new attitude of newly formed party did not go down well with some section of Sangh Parivar, who did not appreciate this new ideological line and dilution from the doctrinal purity. The crux of the problem is that Hindu communalism has spread its tentacles in civil society and succeeded in gaining access to state power. In the process some of the vital principles and practices of a secular state and society have been either undermined or
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